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PASSIONIST AcVkmIC INSTITUTE
5700 N. HAROBM AVE.
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A NATIONAL
^MONTHLY
CATH©XJC
MACAZ1NEN
VOL. I.
WEST HOBOKEN, N. J. /?<j(*<y«r, 112
^^ m ^*ITH tKis issue of THE SIGN, the Passionist Fatkers present to American
W I ^^ CatKolics a new monthly magazine. It is their ambition to publish a
\ m w periodical which, both in physical make-up and intellectual content, w"ill
^"••^ be worthy of the interested approval of its actual and prospective readers.
THE SIGN, in common with other Catholic publications, purposes to
disseminate truth; to combat the thousand and one errors confronting Catholics at
every turn; to interpret from a Catholic viewpoint significant current events; to offset,
in some measure, the pernicious influences of the lurid secular press.
To this end, it publishes instructive expositions of the doctrines of Holy Church,
pertinent articles on present-day" issues, live discussions of industrial, social, and economic
questions, refreshing and wholesome literary" entertainment.
We feel that this new venture must have the cordial approval of the American
Hierarchy", w"ho, in setting aside last March as Catholic Press Month, convincingly"
stressed the need of a strong Catholic press and cogently" appealed to the Catholic
conscience to support such a press. Unfortunately, this appeal w"as more than necessary",
for as a matter of strict fact, less than 25% of Catholics in the United States read any"
Catholic periodical. Hence, any publication attempting to reach the remaining 75%
of present non-readers is a praiseworthy" enterprise.
The distinguishing feature of THE SIGN is the prominence it gives the Cross.
Never w"as the setting forth of Christ Crucified so essential as in our own day w"hen
the opportunities and means of pleasure so abound; when to the non-catholic the Cross
no longer is a symbol but an empty decoration; w"hen ev"en our Catholic people are all
too prone to substitute an easy-going piety for the stern gospel of self-denial. Where-
fore, THE SIGN aims at holding up before the public none other than "THE SIGN
OF THE SON OF MAN" — the norm of Catholic thought and conduct.
Bearing in mind that there are over 3,000 monthly publications in the United
States, each loudly declaring its message, surely no apology is required for one that
shall voice, however faintly, the appeal of our Savior Crucified.
In carrying out its leading purpose THE SIGN becomes the Official Organ
of the Archconfraternity" of the Sacred Passion.
Current Fact and Comment
&
NEWSPAPER LANCETS AND THE PUBLIC CONSCIENCE
kECENTLY a nationally-read columnist took
the public into his confidence. He laid be-
fore them the ethical principle which, he
would have us believe, justifies newspaper
editors in playing the search-light upon the lives
of some of our 'best' families. It is hardly neces-
sary to say that the main feature of these lives are
lust, divorce, drunkenness and wild extravagance.
The principle which justifies the detailed story of
these horrid sins is that the knowledge of them will
be more effective than any sermon. In other words,
the editors expect that the people by being constant-
ly surfeited with the intimate revelations of dis-
graceful and degraded lives will be shocked into
the observance of the Ten Commandments. They
would furnish us with a brand-new proverb : "Would
you be clean? Wallow in filth." Surely, 0 Judg-
ment, thou art fled to brutish hearts.
That ulcers exist in the soul as well as in the
body, no one will deny. But their existence is no
reason for lithographing them and displaying them
to public view. Would that the same privacy were
observed in the treatment of the moral ulcer as
common precaution exacts in the probing of the
physical ulcer. It would be something new in
medical practice unnecessarily to expose a man to
certain infection as a means of keeping him healthy.
Likewise is it the limit of folly to engulf a man in
temptation in the deluded hope of preserving his
virtue. As well might St. Paul have told his con-
verts to mingle freely with the libertines about them.
We are not to take our principles of morality from
the venal secular press. And no editor, or any
number of editors, can improve on the inspired
wisdom of the Apostle: "All uncleanness or covet-
ousness, let it not so much as be named among you,
as becometh saints."
TIME FOR A MOMENTOUS DECISION
QOW is the time for parents to give anxious
thought as to where their children are to
take up or resume their schooling. No
conscientious Catholic parent can fail to
consider the strong arguments in favor of the
Catholic school and college. As a twig is bent, the
tree inclines. With what character and spiritual
equipment will children complete their school days
if through all those impressionable hours spent in
the class-room they hear not a syllable about God,
His rights, their duties to Him, their soul, their
eternity! What can be expected from them if they
never learn the only sure motives of self-discipline
and straight conduct? The Daily Chronicle of
Chicago says that a child in the public schools of
that city will learn more of the plaintive, grey grass-
hopper than of the great God Who created it:
pistils, anthers, whorls, ovates are studied while
the commandments of God are ignored. Parents
would not hesitate in this matter did they hear the
nerve-racked teachers after a day's session in a
metropolitan school commenting on the growing
insubordination of the children. In the largest of
all our Catholic reform schools 99% of the boys
have received their education in a non-Catholic
school. There would be no need of reform if children
were correctly formed. The most ardent supporter
of the public school cannot honestly maintain that
in it sufficient attention is given, or can be given,
to the moral training of its pupils. The Catholic
school peremtorily insists upon the fundamental
principle of all true education — the moulding of
character.
"THE GOLDEN HOUR" ARRIVES
MOVEMENT is afoot to establish the
"Golden Hour" in the Public Schools.
The promoters seem to be urged by genu-
ine solicitude for the betterment of Ameri-
can youth. They claim that the lack of training in
character-building is a staggering national condition
and the country's greatest peril. Incidently the
census is quoted: fifty eight million citizens attend
no Church. Letters of commendation of the plan
from eminent Americans show that they sense the
danger. And there is the general admission that
the public schools are failing in their trust, or rather
that it is a delusion to rely upon a program of mere
mental culture to remove the peril.
The Golden Hour is proposed as a remedy for
the country's greatest peril! A suggested daily
program includes ethical examples, inspirational
talks, readings, golden texts, interspersed with
music as an attractive background. There must be
no sectarian feature.
It is largely a desperate plan and, we fear,
can have only ephemeral results. We should hearti-
ly wish it were otherwise when we hear public
school teachers describing the general insubordi-
nation of their charges and when we consider what
is the material out of which the citizenship of the
country is being formed. It must be disheartening
to the eminent Americans as they plead for
THE +SIGN
"character- building," "social ethics," "moral
strength," etc., to be convinced that the means
suggested are wholly inadequate, are only a sop
to their own solicitude. Such movements, however,
are not altogether fruitless. They turn the attention
of so many more sincere people to the one system
of education which, untrammeled, and day by day,
implants in the soul of the child a personal know-
ledge of God, wholesome fear and filial love of
Him, and a corresponding instinct of submission
to all authority. Nothing less than this can fit
American youth even for good citizenship with all
that this entails of self-restraint and of service to
others.
PASSIONIST GENERAL IN THE UNITED STATES
ON June 12, the Most Reverend Silvius
DiVezza, Superior General of the Passion-
ist Order, arrived in the United States. He
is making a canonical visitation of all the
provinces of the Order. In doing so he will com-
plete the circuit of the globe. He left Rome March
Father Jeremias visited here in 1897 and 1911
respectively.
Father Silvius was born at Monte S. Biagi,
Italy, Sept. 15, 1849. He entered the Order as a
mere youth, and was ordained to the priesthood in
1873. Practically his whole priestly life was lived
MOST REV. SILVIUS DI VEZZA. C. P.
VERY REV. LEO KIERKELS, I
31, for France where important matters claimed
his attention. From there he went to Spain, whence
he sailed for Cuba and Mexico. He embarked for
this country at Vera Cruz, and will remain here till
the latter part of September. In the meantime he
will visit the thirteen establishments that make up
the two American provinces.
The Order was established in this country in
1852 by the saintly John J. O'Connor, Bishop of
Pittsburgh, Pa. Its growth has been in keeping
with the remarkable development of the American
Church. Father Silvius is the third Superior-
General to have visited the United States. His
lamented predecessors, Father Bernard Mary and
in France, where for four terms he held the pro-
vincialship of the Franco-Belgium province. He is
now serving his second term as General. On his
departure from this country he will visit Australia.
Accompanying Father General, as secretary,
is the Very Rev. Leo Kierkels, Procurator General.
He is a native of Holland. He made his university
course in France and Italy. Previous to his ordina-
tion, he spent a year and a half in Palestine, in
biblical study and research. Later he taught phil-
osopy and theology for seven years in the monastery
of SS. John and Paul, Rome. Father Leo is a
linguist of distinction. A young man — he is not
yet 39 — his remarkable versatility promises great
service to his Order and the Church.
Some Personal Recollections of Cardinal Gibbons
e
Felix Ward, C. P.
'ULOGY from me of our beloved Cardi-
nal, after the great prelates of the
Church and the most distinguished men
of the State had spoken, would seem
not in good taste. But "Some Personal
Recollections" afford me the prized opportunity of
recording my esteem and affection for his Eminence,
and will prove I trust, not uninteresting to the readers
of THE SIGN. I jot down these recollections just
as they occur to me.
The Cardinal gave me a letter of introduction
to Archbishop Ireland upon hearing that I had been
requested to give a retreat in St. Paul : It was a
motu proprio on the part of his Eminence. It
secured for me the kindest
welcome from his Grace
who invited me to spend
an evening with him. The
Cardinal had often spoken
of the Archbishop in the
most kindly terms, and
now, when I had given
him the Cardinal's mes-
sages, I told him of the
esteem in which his
Eminence held him. The
great Archbishop looked
pleased and said: "I am
well aware of the affec-
tionate and generous re-
gard in which Cardinal
Gibbons has been willing
to hold me during those many years. His friendship
has been one of the great joys of my life. Your cita-
tion of his words does not surprise me." The Arch-
bishop put me at my ease by his gracious manner
and I recounted many things I had learned from
the Cardinal in our walks. Sometime afterwards
his Grace told a very dear friend that I had the
Cardinal's friendship and confidence, and what
pleased his Grace was that it had lasted so many
years and was always so beautiful: "It was a
privilege to hold it" he said, "it was so fine, so
delicate, so true. To faun, to flatter, to cease to be
true, meant the loss of it. Yet it was not difficult to
hold it. The Cardinal was the gentlest of friends;
he put you at your ease and at your best. He had
the faculty of seeing what was best in others and of
approaching them from that side. "I never talk
with anyone who is sincere," he said, "without being
the better for it."
Your approval was grateful to him; he was so
simply human, and it won your heart to feel that he
accepted your humble friendship. He preached in
St. Patrick's Cathedral, New York, on the occasion
of the first centenary of the great Archdiocese. He
had outlined his discourse on our evening's walk.
JT is a pleasure for the Passionist Fathers
■* to pay a deserved tribute to the memory
of Cardinal Gibbons, in the first issue of
THE SIGN. We are fortunate in having
these personal recollections from Father
Felix Ward, C. P. whose singular privilege
it was to have enjoyed the friendship and
confidence of his Eminence during many
years. — The Editors.
I was intensely interested and knew that his success
would greatly depend upon his feeling well. A
slight indisposition from which he suffered now and
then would mar his effort. Well, he was never in
better form than on that morning. The elite of the
Church were there from many other lands as well
as from our own. His Eminence never did better.
We were all very happy and proud of Baltimore.
In the evening I had occasion to see him at his own
request with Fr. George, C. P., who was just leaving
for the General Chapter in Rome. I told his
Eminence of the joy we felt at his success that day.
He was pleased with the little tribute. He would
not dissemble it; he was too fine for that; yet who
would say that it detracted
in the least from the high
motive he had in all he
did? He simply remark-
ed that when Cardinal,
then Archbishop, Farley,
came to request him to
preach that sermon, he
begged to be excused. He
was busy and had some
timidity in meeting the
demand. After the de-
parture of the Archbishop,
his heart smote him and
he wired his acceptance.
His success he ascribed
"to a little act of kindness
for a friend."
No wonder that one's esteem and affection
for his Eminence grew apace. His friendship was
like an inspiration from heaven; a virture went out
from him; it acted like grace; it led to his own
ideals; it was a pearl of great price; it was worth
any sacrifice. No wonder the priests of his own
household were so like him and so devoted to
him. Nay, the long line of priests who felt the
gentle and holy influence of his presence while
in the seminary, "his own St. Mary's," bore a
marvelous likeness to him when they knelt before
him to receive the character of the holy priest-
hood.
VERY simple was the start of our friendship.
Fr. Fidelis Kent Stone accompanied me
when I went to ask for the faculties of
the diocese. Fr. Fidelis said: "Your
Eminence, I know that you and Fr. Felix will be
friends." Some time afterwards I assisted the
Cardinal at the ceremony of confirmation outside
the city and accompanied him to the train. Our
friendship dated from that evening. After this
came the request to accompany him on the evening
walk.
THE T* SIGN
Soon I learned that the Cardinal had a rule of
life neither too elastic nor too rigid, and this rule he
never surrendered though at times interrupted by
the demands of courtesy and simple charity. Every
duty had a fixed time in the order of the day. This
rule gave an economic distribution of time and acted
as the guardian of peace and tranquility. He spent
■ an hour be-
> ;;
F*^5!
kji
^^
fore Mass
reading the
New Tes-
tament, or
simply
meditating
on our
Lord's life.
He was a
man of
prayer. He
once said
to me:
"With ever
increasing
demands on
me, I could
never say I
hadn't time
to pray."
He never
missed his
visit to the
Blessed
Sacrament
in the even-
i n g . "A
visit to our
Lord in the
Blessed
Sacra-
ment," he
said, "dis-
sipates the
w o r d 1 y
mist that
may have
enveloped
you and
brings you
nearer t o
the God of
light and
diffuses a-
round you a spirit of heavenly tranquility." He
timed himself nicely and made this visit after the
walk. Often I knelt behind him in the "Great
Presence" as the shadows fell on the old historic
Cathedral, and the "spirit of heavenly peace and
tranquility" was diffused around him, and I felt
its influence as I wended my way home with his
blessing. The Rosary was precious to him It
was his daily tribute to our Blessed Lady; and
when duty or courtesy took him out in the evening
he said it on the way. It was often my privilege
to join him in this devotion while walking or in the
carriage. "The steady stream of the milk of human
kindness flows" he said, "from the heart at peace
with God and man." It was his own case, and he
left the Divine Presence with a serene heart. It
was the
secret of
his gentle-
ness and
strength.
Though
pietyis pro-
fitable for
all things,
ace ording
to the A-
postle,
bodily ex-
ercise i s
useful. His
day was
never com-
plete with-
o u t exer-
cise and
h i s Emi-
n e n c e
loved h i s
walk. The
cares of
the day
were for-
gotten i n
this exhila-
rating ex-
ercise and
it kept him
in good
health.
Those
pleas ant
hours with
him on this
walk! Ire-
call them
now as a-
mongst the
most preci-
ous of my
life. It was
an education in itself: — the reminiscences, personal,
storied, historical, the questions affecting Church
and State; the problems, social, political, economic;
his hopes and fears for the country he loved so well ;
— all were told and discussed. I was always glad
to be "held up" for that walk. His Eminence walk-
ed steadily for an hour at a nice gait, and he was
always pleased to get your views on the questions
of the day.
AMES I'AKDIXAL C.IRHnXS
THE f SIGN
The priests of his own household sought to
keep needless trouble from him and so prolong his
days. This was no easy task, his Eminence was so
democratic and accessible. I followed the same
rule. On missionary and other duties, up and down
the country, I was alert to catch up every note of
hope and safety and progress in Church and State
and report it to him. The welfare of the Church
was a joy to him as it not only advanced the King-
dom of God but added greater security to the
country. How beautiful are his words in the
"Retrospect of Fifty Years": "My countrymen and
my fellow-Catholics will forgive me if I seem to
yearn over this Church and this people ; but I do so
because I believe both the American Church and
the American people to be precious in the sight of
God and designed, each one in its proper sphere,
for a glorious future." They are an echo of his
earlier words in Rome when he was created Cardinal
in 1887: "I belong to the country where the civil
government holds over us the aegis of its protection
without interfering with us in the legitimate exercise
of our mission as ministers of the Gospel of Christ.
Our country has liberty without license and authority
without despotism. The men who would endeavor
to undermine the laws and institutions of this
country deserve the fate of those who laid profane
hands on the Ark."
Some years ago on returning from Rome I
recounted to the Cardinal a remark made by another
illustrious member of the Sacred College in Rome.
The Cardinals in Curia come to the Passionist Re-
treat of Sts. John and Paul, sometimes for confes-
sion, and sometimes to walk in the gardens with
their friends among the Fathers. They like to meet
the "American Consultor" and chat with him. They
are always interested in America. Fr. Thomas
O'Connor, at this time represented the Americans
in the General Council. On hearing from him an
account of the Church in America the prelate ob-
served : "In thirty years the Church in America has
made greater progress than she has in three centu-
ries in the so-called Catholic countries." On hear-
ing this the Cardinal said: "The Church is free in
our country to live her normal life and this accounts
for her progress." The calumny that "a good
Catholic cannot be a good American" is dead. The
Cardinal killed it. A normal man would be ashamed
to reiterate it today.
CARDINAL GIBBONS had the simplicity
of greatness, yet charming natural dignity,
without a tinge of "effect." It was simply
natural to him. In sereneness of heart
and courtesy of manners, he was like St. Francis de
Sales who says: "Courtesy is the spontaneous ex-
pression by word and act of genuine kindness of
heart. Affability and good breeding are indispensa-
ble for a clergyman. The want of them is apt to
impair, if it does not neutralize, his usefulness."
Hence he looked for gentle refinement and courtesy
in the clergy. "The precious gems of domestic
charity," he said, "hang like pearls on slender
threads, and these threads are common civility and
gentle manners. Charity cannot long abide without
them." In twenty-eight years of closeness to him,
I never detected in his Eminence the absence of nice
composure even under aggravation. His gentle
courtesy and forbearance never failed him. He
combined gentleness and strength. So innate was
his gentle urbanity, that those nearest to him, the
priests of his own household, and his friends, with
whom he held the most familiar intercourse, seemed
singled out for its delicacy.
He requested me to accompany him to Lake
Mohank where he was to address the Inter-
national Peace Congress. We were to stop with the
Fathers at West Hoboken en route. We arrived
there early in the evening and at once the Cardinal
told me to go to see my father in Brooklyn, as I
might not have time to do so on our return trip;
and when death entered the home, his Eminence
sent a kindly message and counselled us as if we
were his own. Who would not love him?
At the opening of the Congress at Lake Mohank
the Cardinal offered the prayer. Just before leaving
his rooms at the hotel for the hall down stairs I said:
"Your Eminence, won't you wear your robes ? These
people have read of the great Cardinals of history;
they have seen the 'stage-Cardinal' but never a real
Prince of the Church." He answered: "Father, if
you think it well I will do so." He entered the hall
wearing his robes and the assembly arose to receive
him. Next day his address was on the program.
His gentle manner and his modesty won all hearts.
His address was surely the best at that meeting and
there were very distinguished men amongst the
speakers. At the close of the morning session an
impromptu reception was held for his Eminence.
All crowded to the stage to be presented to him
and express their appreciation of his address, and
I was charged by many of the ladies present to take
the greatest care of the Cardinal's health, he seemed
so frail. The Episcopal Bishop of Massachusetts
was present, a very large man of the English type,
but poor Dr. Lawrence elicited very little sympathy
on the score of health. He conceived the greatest
friendship for the Cardinal, and we found him a
very nice gentleman.
At home in Baltimore we resumed our walks.
One evening we stopped before an humble dwelling
and entered. Death had been a visitant there, and
the Cardinal came to offer his condolence to the
family and a prayer for the dear one departed. His
visit brought peace and comfort to the bereaved
family. I recall another instance of his gentle
charity. It was a cold evening in winter and
we walked rapidly. The Cardinal stopped and said :
"Father, we will enter here for a moment." It was
an elegant home. This time his Eminence called
to see a venerable gentleman, who had come into
Baltimore to visit his friends. He fell on the ice
THE + SIGN
and injured himself severely and was now confined
to bed in his friend's home. The injured man was
the former Episcopal bishop of Maryland, but now
retired. They had met often, the Cardinal and
bishop, in their rounds of duty and were friends.
As the Cardinal entered the room, the old man
reached out his hands in welcome, and the tears
came to his eyes as he said: "Whence is this to me
that my Lord Cardinal should come to visit me?"
The scene was touchingly beautiful.
Sometimes the poor on the street would ask
his aid. This he never refused, though he knew
there were cases that did not deserve much pity.
He once said : "Father, I would prefer to be deceived
ninty-nine times than refuse one worthy person in
need."
On his way home from the Conclave that
elected Pius X, the Cardinal wrote me from Paris
to meet him at the pier in Hoboken. Delegations
of the clergy and laity had come from Baltimore
to meet his Eminence. After the addresses of wel-
come and the reception in the saloon of the great
liner, the Cardinal turned to me on the gang plank
as we were stepping ashore and said : "Father, I
am coming up to spend the day with the Fathers at
the Monastery." I sent word ahead to Fr. Stephen
Kealy, the Provincial, and the clergy took their
places in the carriages. His Secretary, Fr. Gavan,
Mgr. Fletcher and I were with the Cardinal. As
we drove around the hills on that lovely morning in
Autumn, the glow of health and happiness was on
that gentle face, while he recounted the incidents
of the Conclave. The only thing about the Cardinal
we didn't fancy was the little low French hat he
wore. It didn't become him at all and we were
amused. The Cardinal saw it and said: "But
gentlemen it's the only hat I have." The day was
pleasantly spent with the Fathers at the Monastery.
The representatives of the press came with their
cameras. The Cardinal received them all very
graciously and the evening papers of New York
were crowded with accounts of his mission aboard.
In the evening we drove over to Major Keiley's
in Brooklyn as the Cardinal wished to visit the
family who were his devoted friends. We crossed
the ferries and were driving up Fulton Street in
Brooklyn. We passed a large hat store and it
occurred to me that this was a chance to get rid of
the French hat. I asked his Eminence to step out
for a moment and we entered the store. The pro-
prietor at once recognized the Cardinal and he
brought a chair and would attend to us himself. In
a moment the Cardinal's little red cap was recog-
nized from the street. A crowd gathered and grew.
Traffic was held up. The police hurried to the
scene. The way was cleared and business resumed.
Then two of New York's "Finest" entered the store
and knelt down to receive the Cardinal's blessing
and kissed his ring. It was the triumph of their
careers on the force. "What a privilege, and his
Eminence just from the Conclave," they said. The
Cardinal now wore an elegant silk hat suitable for
an elderly gentleman and looked himself again.
The clergy complimented him and Mgr. Fletcher
said: "Father Felix, this time you have given his
Eminence 'The Cardinal's Hat.' "
©
UT what was the secret of the Cardinal's
life, the secret that won the hearts of men ?
One distinguished priest said: "His pru-
dence was genius and this was the secret."
Another said: "His tact was genius and this is the
secret." One great prelate said: "The secret of the
Cardinal's life was his simple piety;" while another
declared: "It was his intense consciousness of his
divine calling as a priest." This consciousness
accounts for his simple piety; and it may be said,
it was his priesthood. For sixty years he bore its
sacred character with the same lovely innocency,
the same high ideals and the same zeal for souls as
on the morning of his ordination, but ever mellowing
with wisdom and age and grace. His priesthood
was peerless, beautiful, precious to him beyond all
things else. He was preeminently the "Ambassador
of Christ" as portrayed in his own writings.
The Baltimore Sun of April 2, said: "His
Christ-like spirit won the hearts of all to him and
was the secret of his influence;" "he strove to be like
his Master;" "he simply lived the life of Christ."
The Sun spoke for the people of Baltimore and
they knew the Cardinal's "secret." His ideal of the
priesthood seemed ever present to him; it was part
of his life; he simply lived it, but with a grace and
beauty that precluded even the suggestion of
"effect." It was like a delicate essence of which he
was unconscious, but which diffused sweetness about
him. We all felt it.
I recall the place and surroundings as he stop-
ped on our walk. He was intense at the moment:
"It would be a crime," he said, "for the priest to
fall below the estimate of the faithful and betray
their confidence. He enjoys their esteem and ad-
miration. Their intuitions come from the instinct
of Faith. He 'the dispenser of the mysteries of
God', the priest must be as pure as though he stood
in Heaven itself in the midst of the heavenly
powers." Unconsciously the Cardinal for a moment
drew back the veil and revealed his own priestly
life. St. Francis de Sales was his model and he
loved the ideals of St. John Chrysostom. Life on
earth, they said, like that which the Angels and
Blessed Spirits lead in heaven "renders souls as
fair as lilies and as pure as the sun." Excessive
rigor and pernicious laxity the Cardinal disliked.
He made our Lord's yoke sweet and His burden
light for the faithful and they loved to hear him.
The word of life fell so sweetly from his lips that
he won their hearts to God. They loved to receive
his blessing and to feel the inspiration of his gentle
and holy presence. The clergy often invited me
to assist his Eminence at Confirmation and other
functions; and it was delightful to see the radiant
THE + SIGN
faces and wrapped attention of the people as he
addressed them. Naturally the little children clung
to him. He was their friend and they clustered
round him as they did around our Blessed Lord
Himself. He was indeed the good shepherd. I
once said to him : "Your Eminence, I have heard you
often; you never compromise the truth and yet you
win non-Catholics to it." "It is the best way to
reach them," he answered. "St. Francis de Sales
simply set forth the doctrines of the faith without
controversy and he decares that the preacher who
does so with love, preaches sufficiently against
heresy. Our people are fond of hearing about re-
ligion and we should treat them with courtesy and
benevolence and abandon controversy if charity is
likely to be offended by it."
He had won the attention of the country and
he presented the Church to the American people,
not as she is misrepresented by traditional bias,
but as she is, the Spouse of Christ without spot or
wrinkle but holy and unblemished; and he lived to
see the most pronounced opponents of the ancient
Faith her staunchest defenders. It wasn't his
"reformation" of the Church, but his "presentation"
of the Church, that won them to her. He always
claimed that those who are out of her fold are so
without any fault of theirs and their upright and
honest hearts when they seek the truth win the
grace of faith for them. "The people of our country
are not hostile to the doctrines of the Church; but
to what her opponents represent as her doctrines."
Though he loved the people, he would never
sacrifice principle to be popular. His stand on
every great issue affecting the welfare of the country
is well known. He stood for the Constitution and
"sensed" danger to it. Any tampering with it by
faddists was a menace to the country and he dis-
liked it. "Let no profane hand touch it," he said,
"it will secure the permanence of our institutions."
On this point he stood with Lincoln. On the ques-
tion of amending the Constitution, the grand old
President said: "I think we had better let it alone.
No slight occasion should tempt us to touch it;
better not take the first step which may lead to the
habit of altering it; better rather habituate ourselves
to think of it as unalterable. New provisions would
introduce new difficulties and thus create and in-
crease appetite for further change. No, sir! Let
it stand as it is. New hands have never touched it.
The men who made it have done their work and
have passed away. Who shall improve on what
they did?" Lincoln would stand no tampering with
the Constitution by faddists and the Cardinal was
like him. He did not agree with the people who
sought to "reform" the country by amending the
constitution. He was opposed to the "eighteenth
amendment." I remember well the occasion on
which he said it would be "the first wedge" to under-
mine it. He said it could never be enforced; it
would lead to evasion, hypocrisy and contempt for
the principle of authority. This was before the
Amendment became law. He had always stood
for temperance and the correction of abuses and
declared that the liquor traffic should be regulated.
But like Lincoln he was opposed to prohibition and
its methods.
Still his faith in the future of the country and
the fine sense of the American people never wavered.
On his last birthday when the disturbed state of the
pubic mind was referred to and he was asked:
"What in the present emergency are the duties
devolving upon the American citizen ?" he answered :
"I would say the temporal salvation of the American
people and the endurance of our government in
every emergency are secured, under God, by the due
enforcement and the faithful observance of the
Constitution and laws of the country as long as they
remain on the statute books. When the citizens
of the United States find from experience these laws
to be vicious or unpractical, they will not hesitate
to modify or repeal them, because the people are
not made for the laws, but the laws are made for
the people." The professional reformer feared his
wisdom and his keenness, while the people trusted
him and wanted his views on all great social pro-
blems affecting the welfare of the country.
OFTEN I had occasion to observe his fine
tact in eliciting the views of others on these
subjects while formulating his own. He
received men from every part of the
country with the greatest civility and they felt
honored in giving him their views. These he weigh-
ed in the light of Christian ethics and the enduring
welfare of the country. His wisdom and patriotism
were recognized by all. Mr. Taft spoke for them
in his tribute : "The Cardinal was a man of most
kindly heart and broad vision, of statesman-like
views on great questions and with indomitable
courage in expressing them. He represented the
highest moral aspirations of the community and all
classes of good people, without regard to creed,
were grateful to him for his constant effort to lift
its members out of sordid ambitions and pursuits
and to aim at higher things. As a non-Catholic I
am glad to bear witness to the power for good which
Cardinal Gibbons exercised. He was an able
churchman and patriotic citizen." On hearing of
the death of the Cardinal, President Harding sent
the following message to Bishop Corrigan: "In
common with all our people, I mourn the death of
Cardinal Gibbons. His long and notable service
to the country and to the church makes us all his
debtors. He was ever ready to lend his encourage-
ment to any movement for the betterment of his
fellowmen. He was the very finest type of citizen
and churchman. It was my good fortune to know
him personally and I held him in highest esteem and
veneration. His death is a distinct loss to the
country, but it brings to fuller appreciation a great
and admirable life."
THE +SIGN
When trouble came to the Catholic University
in its great financial loss, he was in retreat with his
devoted clergy. It was a staggering blow and all
feared its effect on the Cardinal's health. I arrived
in Baltimore on Friday evening and called to see
him on Saturday morning. He had just returned
from the seminary at the close of the retreat. As I
entered his room he reached his hands out to wel-
come me and said: "Father, you will be my friend,
won't you?" It pained me to see his Eminence in
distress and I replied: "Your Eminence, it is the
privilege of my life to be your friend." Then sud-
denly he rang the bell and the porter answered.
The Cardinal directed him to bring back the mail
he had just given him for posting. He took from it
a letter he had written me with the request to come
to see him, and gave it to me. I was Provincial at
the time and I pledged the resources of the Passion-
ist Fathers to aid the University. His Eminence
then requested me to go to Pittsburgh to see good
Bishop Phelan and his coadjutor, Bishop Canevin,
and other gentlemen whom he had met at the Pas-
sionist Fathers Golden Jubilee, in the interest of
the University. All came to the Cardinal's rescue.
His friends everywhere answered nobly. They not
only saved the University, but the Cardinal's health.
The Cardinal's first episcopal act after his
consecration was to bless and open St. Joseph's
Monastery in Baltimore, on Sept. 13, 1868. After
fifty years in the Episcopate, his Emenience was
present at the Golden Jubilee of the Monastery on
Sept. 15, 1918. His great kindness to the Fathers
during his long career will be told in The Passionists
in America, now in preparation for the press. Just
one incident here.
He was invited to the Golden' Jubilee of the
Order in America, held in Pittsburgh, 1902. He had
never refused a request from the Fathers but now
he pleaded pressure of work and begged to be
excused. There were other requests in the way
and to these he had been committed. The Rector
and the people of Pittsburgh looked for his coming
and his presence would crown that celebration.
They appealed to Fr. Stephen Kealy, our Provincial,
to see if he could not bring the Cardinal to Pitts-
burgh. Fr. Stephen requested me to go to Baltimore
and explain the situation to his Eminence. I told
the Cardinal that we would ask him just to preside
at the grand function on the first day, that Arch-
bishop Ryan would sing the Mass and Fr. Fidleis
would preach the formal sermon. His Eminence
said: "Fr. Felix, I don't want to refuse you." Then
he walked back and forth across his room, as if in
thought. Suddenly he stopped and said: "I have
just mailed a letter to Bishop Donahue promising
to be with him on Dec. 10. If I could interrupt that
letter and ask him to postpone his celebration till
after yours, I could make both on one trip. Could
you go to Wheeling?" "Yes, your Eminence" I
answered. "Can you go tonight?" Again I answer-
ed in the affirmative. "Then go with God's blessing
and arrange it with the bishop." I left that night for
Wheeling and arrived there as soon as the Cardinal's
letter. The Bishop readily agreed to the Cardinal's
proposal. I reported to his Eminence and all was
arranged for the Golden Jubilee. Never was the
Cardinal received more cordially anywhere than in
Pittsburgh by all the people.
nE loved his priests and I could repeat many
a delicate tribute he paid them individual-
ly as their names came up in our walks,
but I must refrain. He loved to see them
honored. "God sanctions the reverence paid his
priests," he said, "not to gratify personal vanity,
but to render their ministry more fruitful and effec-
tive, for the word of God acquires additional lustre
and persuasive force when it is proclaimed by men
who are honored with public esteem and veneration."
To the clergy he dedicated "The Ambassador
of Christ." In it we have the experience and
wisdom of his years. The lessons that he learned
are set forth with a modesty and gentle charm that
win us. Its illustrations are delightful; its facts
are the best from his readings and personal inter-
course with the leading men of the nation and the
illustrious prelates and priests with whom he lived
or came in contact during his long career. There
is nothing finer in this line of literature in our
language. The saintly gentle presence has passed
away. We shall see him no more, nor hear him
again, nor feel the virtue that went out from him.
But he said himself : "We are drawn nearer to great
and good men and we know them better in reading
their thoughts than in seeing their portraits. Their
portraits are the work of another; their thoughts
are the photograph of their own mind. The por-
trait fades with time; but the words of the author
are as fresh as when first spoken." "Our beloved
Cardinal" still speaks to us in "The Ambassador
of Christ."
Once on our walk his Eminence referred to the
sad state of men without faith when the end of
this life approaches. Here I quoted the words of
Cardinal Newman: "Either the Catholic Religion
is verily the coming of the unseen world into this,
or there is nothing positive, nothing dogmatic, noth-
ing real in any of our notions as to whence we come
or whither we go." The Cardinal added: "There
would be nothing for us but black dispair, if the
Church is not divine."
I saw his Eminence shortly before the end and
he told me he would not recover and then added :
"God's Will be done." He was willing to live, but
resigned to die. He declared that our holy Faith
sustained and consoled him in the supreme trial.
It was "The Faith of our Fathers," the faith of the
Saints, the faith delivered to the Holy Apostles, the
faith of the one, holy, catholic, and apostolit
Church and in this faith he passed from earth to
Heaven.
The White Rose of Lucca
Tke Stor? of Gemma Galgani
MATTHEW KUEBEL
1 — Birth and Childhood
XT has always Deen the fashion of un-
believers to stigmatize ss imaginary
tales the authentic records of those
saints who have given extraordinary
manifestations of the workings of God's
grace. The bold assumption that such things can-
not happen is an easy way for the skeptic to relieve
himself of the necessity of proving that they do
not happen today. The Catholic, of course, can
have no sympathy with this attitude of the skeptic
But it would be a matter of surprise if many were
not led, unconsciously it may be, to think that God
no longer sees fit to bestow upon a few favored
souls such miraculous favors as are recorded of so
many saints of former times. Besides the spirit of
the age, being one of absorbing pre-occupation with
and love of material things — physical science, in-
vention, and the luxuries to which they minister and
give birth — like a lowering cloud tends to obscure
in many the quickening light of faith. The example
of the servant of God, Gemma Galgani, refutes the
skepticism of the one, and rebukes the wavering
faith of the other. Her life-story, authenticated as
it is by the unimpeachable evidence of contempor-
ary witnesses, proves that the wonderful super-
natural manifestations recorded of other great
servants of God are not necessarily legendary; that
God is as near to us through the Church as ever
before; and that His desire and willingness to unite
men to Himself in the closest bonds of familiarity
and friendship still endure.
The sanctity of Gemma Galgani, a child of our
own time, is quite in line with that recorded of the
greatest servants of God. In fact she is unique, if
not in the nature of the supernatural favors of which
she was the recipient, at least in the abundance and
variety of the heavenly gifts which were lavished
upon her. She was indeed a flowering field of lux-
uriant spiritual beauty upon which beamed in full
strength a supernal light, all the more visible to the
eyes of men by contrast with the surrounded gloom.
As the radiant glimmerings of dawn bespeak
the beauty of the coming day, the infancy and child-
hood of Gemma were the pledges cf her future
holiness. Given saintly parents like Henry Galgani
and Aurelia Landi of noble and saintly forbears, a
flourishing little garden of the faith like Lucca, and
given such an ideal Christian maiden blessed with
the noblest qualities of heart, and mind, and soul,
and at once we recognize a providential arrange-
ment of circumstances, that, with due co-operation,
will naturally produce a saint.
Camigliano, a village in Tuscany, was the birth-
place of the angelic girl who is the subject of this
story. She was the fifth child and first daughter of
Henry Galgani and Aurelia Landi and was born on
the 12th of March, 1878. Before the birth of
Gemma her mother was filled with extraordinary
joy. Signora Galgani had prayed to Jesus for a
daughter. What could those abundant emotions of
supernatural happiness never experienced before
or after at such a critical time, signify to one of her
saintly dispositions, but that now her prayer was
to be answered? She was not perhaps aware that
through this child she was to become, with the
mothers of other great seivants of God, blessed
among women. To Signora Galgani belongs the
honor, whether or not she anticipated it, of being the
mother of one who was destined to be especially
favored of Heaven. Signor Galgani participated
in her happiness as soon as he rested his eyes upon
the new-born child.
The name of Gemma bestowed upon her next
day at the baptismal font of St. Michael's Church
shall be the witness to men of his conviction that
God has given him a gift beyond price. Only a
few short years will be necessary to reveal that
Signor Galgani's daughter is indeed h resplendent
"Gem" in the crown of his fathers, in the crown of
the Church, in the crown of the Crucified in Heaven
— a new request of His Blood.
Camigliano, where the Galganis were living
when Gemma was born, must be content with the
honor of being her birthplace. Lucca whither the
family removed when Gemma was but two months
old, will be forever glorified by being associated
with her name, because it was there that God ac-
complished in her the miracles ot His grace.
■^^^^HE manifold graces with which Gemma
a C~\ was adorned and by which God made her
^ i entirely His own even from her birth, are
^^^ all that is to be recorded of her infancy
and childhood. Applying the principle laid down
by the Master Himself, "by their fruit ye shall
know them," we should know without further in-
formation that the parents of such a child as Gemma
Galgani were models of Christian faith and piety.
Even if Providence had destined for her merely
the ordinary gifts of grace, it is certain that under
THE 1* SIGN
the care of Aurelia Galgani, they would have blos-
somed into the finest flowers of virtue. Has God
made it a law unto Himself to give a mother who
is a saint to one whom He destines for high
sanctity? At all events Signora Galani was such a
saintly mother.
This good mother sought to learn from the
Divine Master Himself, how to instruct, guide, and
educate her children. Living in her Savior, as she
did, by constant prayer, by daily Mass and Com-
munion, Signora Galgani had but one desire, to
sanctify her home. With gentle sweetness she
supplemented the teaching of the school by her
own zealous words. Children do not quickly for-
get, nor can they easily divest themselves of the
influence of a devout and loving mother's teaching.
Words that come from a heart glowing with natural
affection purified by Divine Love, have an unction
and authority like the words of a Sheoherd of the
Flock.
Signora Galgani loved Gemma as she did none
other of her children, because it was clear to her
that Gemma was especially dear to God. But she
was too wise, as well as too spiritual, to waste time
in useless caresses. Her special love was apparent
rather in her special pains to bring her child nearer
to God. It is like a record from the Golden Age
of Christianity to be told how this good mother
would kneel in prayer with Gemma, morning and
evening, in order to teach her to pray; how she
would take her to Church in the early morning to
assist at the Holy Mysteries; how at home she would
take her into her arms and explain to her the truths
of faith — the malice of sin, the goodness of God,
the happiness of serving Him, the joys of Heaven,
and the meaning of the cross and of Christ's sacri-
fice. "Look, Gemma," she would say, "see how
much this dear Jesus has suffered for us." The
Holy Child relished these instructions so much
that her soul would hunger for them between times.
It would sometimes happen that while her mother
was engaged in household duties, Gemma would
take hold of her dress and say, "Mamma, tell me
more about Jesus."
Signora Galgani was particularly eloquent on
the subject of Heaven. Her thoughts must have
frequently turned to that consoling truth during the
years of Gemma's infancy, because consumption,
the disease to which the Signora afterwards suc-
cumbed, was then rapidly undermining her health.
"Gemma," she said one time, "Gemma, if I take
you with me where I am going would you come?"
"Where is that?" asked the child. "To Heaven
with Jesus and the angels." "Yes," she replied,
her young heart being filled with eagerness to go to
Heaven at once. This desire thus awakened, went
on increasing as long as Gemma lived, until it be-
came a consuming fire.
Signor Galgani also cherished a special love
for Gemma. He delighted to be with her at all
times. On entering the house his first inquiry was
for her. He would often take her with him on his
walks and at home Gemma received almost his
undivided attention. Not being as discreet as his
saintly spouse, he made no effort to conceal his
predilection.
"I have but two children," he would say,
"Gemma and Gino." Gino was an elder brother,
like her in piety and innocence and emulating her
in the practice of virtue. Who would be proof
against such partiality when the object of it was so
completely informed by spiritual beauty and sweet-
ness? None of Signor Galgani's other children
was so charming in person and character, none so
full of unearthly seriousness and dignity of bearing.
None inspired in him such delight, admiration and
even wonder as little Gemma.
We do not wonder that Gemma's brothers and
sisters were not jealous, as children are wont to
be. They were too well convinced of her worth,
too full of the same love for her to resent their
parents partiality. Therefore it seems entirely true
to say, that neither the holy mother nor the devout
father, nor even both together were the focus of
the family union and affection; rather it was angelic
little Gemma, still an infant lately carried in her
mother's arms.
And Gemma — shall she not rejoice ? Shall she
not take a childish complacence in such devotion?
Rather she weeps and pleads with her father not
to give her any marks of his preference. What
more natural for a doting parent, who has a saint
for his child, than to bestow caresses upon her. But
he never succeeded in doing so. Gemma not only
remonstrates, but resists, "Am I not your father?"
he would say to her. "Yes; but, Papa, do not touch
me. I do not want to be touched by anyone."
Signor Galgani, we are told, wept with joy at this
evidence of such saintly dispositions in his child.
That young cavalier cousin, seated upon his
horse standing at the gate, had a novel experience.
Having forgotten something, he called to Gemma
to bring it to him. No doubt in his mind that she
would do it. But such charming grace in the doing
was irresistible. Could any stalwart cousin do
otherwise than pat her on the cheek? Much less
could he forget the manner in which his expression
of appreciation was received. He was repulsed
with such impetuous firmness, that in a twinkle of
an eye he was sprawling in the dust at the feet
of his horse. The injuries he afterwards nursed
must have taught him caution in bestowing his
caresses on Gemma.
TGNOR GALGANI removed his family
to Lucca because of the better opportuni-
ties there afforded for the education of
his children. Gemma was but two years
old, when with two brothers and a sister, she was
sent as a day scholar to a private school kept by
two estimable ladies, Emilia and Elena Vallini.
The same qualitites that endeared her to her family,
THE + SIGN
made her a favorite with all at school. , Her pre-
cociousness proved that her parents made no mis-
take in sending her to school so young. In fact it
soon became known that she was blessed with
unusual mental gifts. Her mistresses have left it on
record that she quickly memorized all the prayers
the children were accustomed to say, though it
would take a half hour to recite them together. She
learned with ease whatever was taught; and found
no difficulty in mastering certain branches that
seemed rather beyond the capacity of even older
children.
Teachers naturally like a bright pupil, but
Gemma was especially dear because of the beauti-
ful qualities of her heart and soul. Though of a
lively disposition, she was always diligent and
exact, and seldom needed correction. But when she
was corrected for the little faults natural in a child
of such tender age, one word was enough. She
received praise and blame with an angelic com-
posure, that was beautified by the delightful smile
with which both were received. She was never
seen to give expression to bursts of anger or of
childish caprice. In a word there were so many
beautiful qualities in Gemma, her conduct was al-
ways so exemplary that her mistresses were con-
vinced that she had come to the use of reason long
before the usual age.
In fact it was apparent even from her earliest
years that Gemma was no ordinary child and that
God had "marked her for His own." Such was her
sweetness and seriousness, and even dignity, that
she appeared to be an angel in human form who
had taken up abode in the large family — five boys
and three girls — with which God had blessed the
devout Galganis. The sacred water of baptism
would seem not only to have removed the stain
of original sin, but also to have healed its wounds.
The innocence of her soul seemed to beam from
her white brow, the pallor of which was heightened
by her jet black hair and her dark luminous eyes.
The engaging beauty of her countenance when lit
up by the sweet smile natural to her, endowed her
with charm that seemed altogether divine.
Meantime Signora Galgani's malady had pro-
gressed to such a critical point that the children
were withdrawn from school. Though confined
to her bed Signora Galgani's anxiety for her
children's spiritual education increased, because
she knew that her time was short. She prepared
them all for confession, although some were scarce-
ly six years of age. She was particularly delighted
with Gemma. How carefully she examined her
conscience, and how bitterly the dear chid lamented
the faults she felt she had committed against the
good God.
It was the earnest wish of the Signora Galgani
to have her Gemma confirmed and thus to entrust
her into the keeping of the Holy Spirit. Gemma
was judged worthy even at the age of seven to
receive this great sacrament. Her mother instructed
her with great care, and also engaged the services of
the Sisters of Christian Doctrine to supplement her
own efforts. Gemma was confirmed on May 26th,
1885, in the Basilica of St. Michael in Foro.
Gemma needed the strength this Holy Sacra-
ment gives, for the great trial that was in store for her.
When the malady, from which her mother suffered,
was recognized as consumption, by the advice of
the physicians, who feared contagion, the children
were forbdden entrance into the sick-room. This
was a great privation to Gemma, who pleaded so
earnestly that an excepton was made in her favor.
She tells us how she was occupied during these
visits. "I drew near to mamma's pillow and we
prayed." Later on Gemma bitterly regretted her
importunity in this mattter, thinking it was the result
of caprice and self-will.
How could such a child bear to be separated
forever on earth from this beloved mother. Besides
giving her the grace through Confirmation to support
this trial, God also ordained that she should have
all the merit of a sacrifice wholly voluntary. After
the ceremony of Confirmation, Gemma with those
who accompanied her, remained to hear another
Mass in thanksgiving. It is better to give in her own
words what happened. "I was hearing holy Mass
as well as I could, praying for mamma, when all at
once a voice said to me : 'Wilt thou give me thy
mamma?' 'Yes,' I answered, 'providing thou takest
me also.' 'No,' said the voice, 'give me thy mamma
unreservedly. For the present thou must remain
with thy father ; I will take thy mother from thee to
heaven.' I was obliged to answer, 'Yes,' and as
soon as Mass was over I hastened home." The
poor child feared, perhaps, that her dear mother
would die before she got there.
When Gemma reached home, her mother was
dying. She knelt beside her bed, praying and
weeping as if her heart would break. Signor
Galgani feared that the child would die before her
mother. She was therefore removed to her Aunt
Helen Landi's at S. Gennaro. Afterwards Signora
Galgani rallied somewhat, and lingered for a few
months longer; then relapsing, she rapidly grew
worse, and died Sept. 19, 1886.
This loss was a crushing sorrow to Gemma, bet-
ter imagined than described. In the death of her
mother, she had sacrificed all that she held dearest
on earth. "Who will now teach me," she was heard
to lament, "who will now teach me to love Jesus."
Gemma could declare that her mother was her first
teacher in the knowledge and love of God and
divine things.
Though her mother's death was a great cross
to her, Gemma's resignation was a source of wonder
and admiration to all. Gemma knew by divine
revelation that her mother had exchanged a place
of suffering and trial for the Crown of Eternal glory,
that she had merited by her holy life. She was
too well aware of the benefits of a sainted mother's
prayers to wish that her exile had been prolonged.
A Galakad of the North
Gabriel Francis Powers
V^^^^^IiE faint sound, like a muffled knock,
A <^~>k came at the door again. The wood-
■ | man took his PiPe from his mouth,
^L^ M and turned, from the ten-days-old paper
^^^l^r he was reading, to listen. The woman,
busy with the child in her lap, had not even heard.
Beside the fireplace, in the glow of the fire, a curly-
headed small boy was singing lustily, keeping time
with his tin cup and a spoon. "Ta, ta, ra-ra,
ta tah". . .
"Stop your noise, Jimmy!"
The man turned again to listen. He was quite
young, barely thirty, of medium height, with a lean,
keen face, eyes of steel blue, and the clean, ener-
getic, elastic movements of one who lives out-of-
doors.
One of those snow-storms which sweep down
upon the mountain, even in July, was noisy with
gusts and soughing of pines and cedars around the
house, but the trained ear of the hunter had detected
another sound. "Can't be nobody outside," he ex-
plained to his wife, "and yet I heard a scuffling."
"You're dreaming, Dermot. Who'd be coming
up here, and in the snow?"
"I know who it is, Daddy! It's the baby bear.
Him is hungwy and wants his bwead and milk, he
does!"
The woodman opened the door.
Outside was a dumb figure, motionless, the head
wrapped in a muffler, the face dead white. The
hands clung to the door-post. Sharp, icy snow whip-
ped into the cabin.
"Come in, man, come in!" There was no an-
swer. The figure, which some stark, subconscious
power kept upright, was as though it had been
frozen stiff where it stood.
The vigorous arms of the forester shot out, and
with quick force brought it in, laid it flat, and, un-
ceremoniously, with a fist full of snow, proceeded
to rub that face so ghastly in its waxen pallor. The
eyes looked at him, but gazed, as though death had
already entered in.
The young man worked almost with fury:
"Take off his shoes, Mary, and get me some ice-
water." The woman, calm, yet with anguish in her
expression, obeyed.
"He aint going to die, Dermot?" . . .
"I d'no . . . seems pretty far gone . . . Jimmy boy,
kneel down and ask God to let this man live."
Jimmy tumbled to his knees, and squatting,
with two round blue eyes fixed upon his father's
face, prayed aloud in emphatic tones : "O God,
please let this man what was out in the snow, and
got cold, and wasnt the baby bear, be alive as
Daddy says . . . And make me a good boy. Amen."
He ended with an elaborate Sign of the Cross,
begun carefully at the left shoulder, and made with
the left hand.
The man upon the ground moved his head
and sighed. The woodman fetched more snow.
Presently, over the blue lips, came the faintest pos-
sible sound of a human voice: "Where am I?"
The woman answered. Laying a comforting
hand upon the limp arm, she said: "Don't worry,
you are with friends."
The stranger turned his head to glance at her:
"Who are you?"
"Just Mary," and she laughed a little, happily.
"Ah, Mary, I am so glad; I had forgotten you
were there."
Then he looked, still wondering, at the fine
young face of the woodman bending over him. "I
know you very well," he murmured. "I have often
seen you at the Communion rail."
Husband and wife glanced at one another,
mystified.
"I never left the mountain, sir, except to go to
France."
"I have been walking in the cold and the dark
so long ... I don't remember very well." Presently
he made a determined effort to raise himself. "I
must be going on. I have to be in Valley Mill by
Sunday. This is Friday, is it not?"
"No, sir, Saturday."
"Saturday? . . . Why where have I been! Are
you sure it's Saturday?"
"Positive!"
The stranger struggled to get upon his feet,
and fell back dizzily. "I guess it's weakness, I have
not eaten since Thursday."
The housewife got to her feet quickly and
went out.
"And you've bin on the mountain all this time?"
"I fell in a crevice once, I don't know how long
I was there — but it -was the wind that finished me.
Maybe you know what the wind is like up there?
I was so near over the brink of a precipice that I
don't know myself what saved me."
"Take the coffee now and a bite of bread; it
won't hurt you! Supper will be ready before long."
"Thanks, friends, you are very good to me, ar.d
I won't forget it. After supper I must be going on."
"You had best wait for the morning light, sir.
The mountain is full of pitfalls in the dark, and
its very hard to find the paths in the snow. It's
lucky for you that you have no baggage to carry."
"Lucky? Between yesterday and today I lost
a pack that I would not have taken ten thousand
dollars for. And I've got to go look for it, or it's
no use for me to go on."
THE 1* SIGN
"What are you selling?"
"Nothing; I'm a priest, a missionary. And all
that I need to say Mass is in that valise."
"We're Catholics ourselves, Father. Of Father
Francis' parish."
"I don't know why, but I felt sure you were
Catholics. And I was sent down last month to help
Father Francis. Some parish he has! Mountains,
valleys and plains, ten thousand square miles of it,
and only God's holy Name to keep him on horse-
back or in a rattletrap Ford. What's your name,
neighbor?"
"Dermot Healy, sir."
"A woodsman, I take it?"
"Yes, sir, and guide."
"The Lord directed my footsteps . . . Would you
be willing to help me look for my baggage and then
show me the way over the mountain?"
"That I will, Father!"
"God bless you, boy! I'll hear your confes-
sions before we go to bed."
"How often does the priest get around?"
"About every three months, sometimes its four
if the roads are bad." How did you come to lose
your baggage?"
"I'll tell you. You see that I am hatless? Well,
the wind took all I had. I was sitting down eating
my lunch in a place that I thought sheltered, when
the wind suddenly rose and started to blow a gale.
I had no idea it could be so terrific! My hat and
my thermos bottle went like straws, and before I
could catch the pack which I had rested against a
tree-trunk, it started to go down hill in leaps and
bounds. I ran forty or fifty yards, striving to catch
it, but right in front of my eyes it was whirled over
the edge of a ravine, and the snow which had just
commenced prevented my seeing further. On top
of that, I lost my way."
"Could you give me any idea of where you
were at the time?"
"I can tell exactly where I stopped for lunch,
and the spot wasn't far from there. There is a small
stream, three or four juniper trees in a group, and a
towering rock with the initials A. C. S., and a date
scratched on it."
"Steel's camp! I know it well. He was hunt-
ing here the year before we went into the war."
"And you'll take me there first thing in the
morning?"
"I surely will. I guess an outfit for Mass like
that is worth a lot of money?"
"This one isn't worth so very much; its old and
shabby, but we can't have Mass without it. It holds
a little crucifix and candlesticks, the vestment and
cruets, all in the smallest possible space. Then an
altar-stone that it takes a bishop to bless and con-
secrate; a round gilded plate we call a paten for the
sacred Host, and a chalice that has held the blood of
Christ. Think of all that lost somewhere up on the
mountain!" .... Let me look out at the weather,
Dermot."
He struggled to get up on his feet and fell back :
"That's curious ... I don't seem to be able to stand.
It's my knees ... or maybe my spine."
The young man regarded him with some
anxiety. "Better get to bed tonight, Father. A
good rest will set you up." To his wife, an hour
later, he was whispering. "Unless I'm much mis-
taken, his two feet are frost-bitten and he won't
walk for four days."
His own practise was to rise at dawn. Some
unwritten law seemed to require it. Every day,
summer and winter, he must see the sun rise : that,
solemn, magnificent, awe-inspiring spectacle, spread
like a sign in the heavens, and new and different
every day that broke. At that elevation, the cold
was intense, though the lower world was at summer.
The morning promised to be clear after the storm.
It was a marvelous world, somewhat sullen still with
drifts of clouds clinging mistily to the crags, but
overhead the air was transparently pure. The
woodsman prepared his breakfast and ate it without
haste, then put the coiled rope over his shoulder,
took his pick, his lunch-box and a change of gar-
ments, systematically, like the man who means busi-
ness, and was slipping noiselessly out when his wife
appeared. "You won't take any risks, Dermot?"
"Mary dear, you see me go out every day,
don't you? And wouldn't you say I was an ordinary
careful man?"
" 'Taint snowing," she answered, "but somehow
I feel worried. I coudn't help thinking of poor
Larry all night."
"Now, Mary, that's just blamed foolishness.
Would you leave all those holy things, the stone of
consecration, the gold plate for the Blessed Sacra-
ment and the chalice, that, as he says, has held the
Blood of Christ, would you leave them lie up there
among the rocks? I tell you frankly that I was
glad he made me go to confession last night, other-
wise I would be scared even to touch the outside of
the pack. "Goodbye, dear . . . and don't worry if
I'm late."
Another voice reached the woman from the
door of the inner room. "Has he gone? . . . Call him
back quickly, child! I'm going with him.
He stood in the gray half-light, a plain man in
a flannel shirt, breeches and leggins; he was a little
bald and his eyes looked tired, but what amazed the
woodman was that he was on his feet at all.
"You're not thinking of going out, Father?"
"I'm ready to start now if your wife will just
give me a cup of coffee."
"But your feet are badly swollen and I bet they
hurt like the mischief."
"They do hurt a bit, but I managed to get
my shoes on."
"You can't walk like that, Father. Let me go
look for the valise and I'll come back for you soon
as I find it."
"No, sir : You lead right on, Macduff, and the
tenderfoot follows."
THE + SIGN
'5
In about five minutes they were out. The gray-
ness of first dawn had lifted and a pale, chilly light
was all around them. The great peak in the shadow
of which they lived, towered blue and dreary. The
east was behind it, and, in that sky, was a burning
and a stirring, an actual busy, rapid, observable,
rotatory movement of incandescent cloud-bodies as
though in that immense, limitless, aerial furnace,
the fire was being kindled for the new day. The
snow lay underfoot, virgin, and as yet untouched by
color; fields of white cloud and mist shut out the
world below; and only two things were really alive
and significant, that tremendous, isolated indigo
peak above them, flinging its fingers of rock toward
high heaven, and, behind it, those fires, burning,
spreading, spark-launching, a conflagration which,
if it lasted more than a few minutes, must consume
the very sky.
At the head of the first steep ascent, the mis-
sionary begged for a short rest. The guide guessed
that he was in pain and proposed returning but the
suggestion, in fact the appeal, was made in vain.
"I shall be all right when I get my second wind."
So they trudged on again, with the snow up to their
knees.
"I thought we would go to Steel's camp first
and walk back from there," the young man pro-
posed. "Suits me," his companion answered. "I
could never find the way myself."
"And were you going over the mountain like
that, Father, without a guide?
"My boy, I'll tell you: its a long story. A
friend brought me in his own car the first lap of the
road. Then the mud got so bad I had to leave him
and the machine in a village of sixty inhabitants
and go on in the auto-stage. The gasoline gave out
and the chauffeur advised me to go forward on foot
since I was in a hurry, for, at about two miles from
that point, I could connect with another conveyance,
the wagon that takes the mail to Valley Mill. I
believe this connection was to be made at a place
called Fir Crest."
"Fir Crest is right."
"It may be, but I never got there. I must have
walked ten miles instead of two, and round about
instead of forward for night came on, and then the
wind and the snow storm, and I have not got to
Fir Crest yet."
"You are more than five miles to this side of it
now."
Once more they tramped on in that silent,
sympathetic companionship of the long trails, until
at length, close on noon, the guide pointed to a
massy rock ahead of them. "Steel's camp," he said.
"So it is, and the stream. Let's rest a bit and
you eat your lunch."
"There's plenty for two, Father . . . Right here
is where the timber belt ends!"
They sat down together, the priest with a Latin
grace, the woodsman with one of his own that he
never failed to say, and he said it with reverence:
"God bless my grub." But they did not sit long.
There was a thought in the minds of both of them
that spurred them on.
"Now, look, Dermot, this is where my hat went
overboard, and yonder, no, come along the path a
little, boy, you can't see it from here. Down there,
to the left, where there is an edge of sheer rock,
and kingdom-come beneath it, that's where the pack
went down."
"You'll never see your pack again, Father "
"I won't?"
"You never will. That ravine is from two to
three hundred feet deep with sheer walls of rock,
smooth as board, and a torrent at the bottom of it.
"But I've got to try."
"Not if you value your life, Father."
"Couldn't you let me down with your rope and
let me take a look around for it?"
"The rope ain't long enough."
"I've got to try, Dermot. I see some little
ridges and a bush here and there out of the crevices;
with the help of the rope I am sure I could do it."
The young man threw his own belongings upon
the ground. "If it comes to that, Father, I'm the one
to go!"
"Nonsense, you've got a wife and a child. I
wouldn't think of it. I'm free."
"Being free don't help much if you can't climb.
It takes the head and it takes the foot. You'd grow
dizzy and drop. Sure you would ! . . . And your feet
are aching you!" He was stripping off his coat.
"You stay and watch, and pray that I may find it;
that will help me much more."
He secured the end of the rope to the trunk of
a tree, testing it before he threw it over, made a
pad of his muffler lest the sharp edge of the rock
saw it, stuck the pick in his belt, and gallantly,
with laughter upon his face, began the downward
slide. The rope oscillated, swinging with the weight
of the body. "Top of the morning to you, Father!"
"Same to you, boy . . .Careful there now, care-
ful .. . Go easy" . . .
The white face, peering over the cliff's edge,
was far more anxious than the bright, ruddy face
of the guide. Feats of this kind were not new to one
born in the mountain. But if anybody had told him
yesterday that he was going to attempt Knife Gorge,
he would have thought the speaker insane. The
place had a bad name, having cost several lives
already. Little did the stranger know of those too
daring climbers and naturalists! Healy knew, but
he went down humming. The face of granite was
passing, passing before his face, as though there
would never be an end to its gigantic slab. He came
to the end of the rope with: "Ho, boy!" ... to him-
self, and a sudden tightening of grip as it swayed
and jerked. The thing now, clinging with both
hands, was to find a footing. Fortunately, the knot
gave him some support. The watcher overhead
could not see clearly, but he guessed that he had
come to the end of the rope. The faintest, furthest
i6
THE + SIGN
sound of a human voice came floating down: "All
right, Dermot?" . . . and the echoes took hold, even
of those weak sounds . . ."All right ... all right . . .
Dermot . . . Dermot" . . ."Yes !" went back the lusty
shout, so vigorous it carried clear to the top. A
volley of echoes repeated it. Then silence. He set
his foot in a crevice and relinquished the rope. Hand
by hand downward, with almost prehensile feet, on
the narrowest ledges, clinging to trifling patches of
green powdered with yesterday's snow, and flat
against that tremendous adamant expanse of the
great wall. He tired of it at last, the caution,
the slowness, and looking over his shoulder decided
to jump. It was a long flying leap some twenty
or thirty feet, and a bad landing in the midst
of brambly shrubs and broken quartz, but at least
he was there. Rising, short of breath and a little
stunned, he surveyed this gorge in which he had
never been before. There seemed no entrance and
no issue from it anywhere. The huge cliff-sides
went up sheer, perpendicular, and, if there was the
smallest inclination, it was outward toward the top.
The sky was a mere rift of blue between two im-
mensities of rock. The small torrent poured and
brawled noisily as it picked its difficult way ob-
structed by boulders. The guide gazed up and
down, and across. Not a sign of baggage anywhere.
"The chances are," he soliloquized, "that it broke in
the fall, and that the stream swallowed the things
all up." He tried to look into the water, but the
foam made it impossible to see. Stepping from
rock to rock, he endeavored to cross over, but in the
very midst fell, a hard, sharp, unexpected fall —
upon a stone slippery as glass, and the thick, warm
trickle from his forehead, told him he was cut. His
handkerchief, confirmed the information, but he
kept on, too eagerly bent upon his task to heed so
slight a wound. No, there was no valise here. He
walked, or scrambled, some thirty or forty yards
along the stream-bed, searching diligently as he
went, and became convinced that no parcel was'
there. Then he waded into the ice-cold water,
searching and probing that too, and at length made
up his mind that the quest was vain. "But its
got to be here, its got to be here," he raged, baffled
and furious at the idea of giving up. And once
more he began to search the banks, going in the
opposite direction. As he lifted his eyes, they
chanced to alight upon a dwarfed tree, growing"
hardily out of a crack in the granite, and some dark
object hidden among the branches caught his at-
tention. Could it be the package? Or was it
merely a bird's nest, or blackened foliage? He
drew near, scanning it carefully. Too large for a
nest . . . solid . .it was certainly an unfamiliar object
in the branches of a tree. And as he drew nearer
and got a better view, he saw quite distinctly that
it was that object of his desires, a traveller's pack!
For a moment he was almost beside himself with
joy; then came the question how to reach it. It
hung, seventy or eighty feet above his head, tanta-
lizingly, among the scrawny boughs, against an
implacably smooth wall. He stood and looked at it.
There was only one thing to do, and that was to
climb for it. He could no longer see his companion;
by now he had travelled perhaps fifty yards up
stream; and the watcher, gazing in vain over the
cliff's edge, could no longer see the figure which was
hidden by a jutting vertical ridge. Consumed with
anxiety, the older man kept pacing back and forth
the path at the edge of the chasm, and praying
desperately that no harm might befall the brave
lad whom he had unwillingly allowed to expose
himself to this danger. The agony of self-reproach
was added now to the horror of fear.
Dermot, using hands and feet, and with his pick
slung behind him, had begun the perilous ascent.
At every step he was obliged to pause and consider,
and look where he would next place his foot. He
was extraordinary calm, as men often are in great
peril, with mind keen, and heart resolute upon his
undertaking. His hands, spread upon the granite
surface, felt for and found inequalities almost in-
visible to the eye, and yet an assistance to him in
that difficult situation. His shoe tip, or the side
edge of the sole, rested upon almost imperceptibly
narrow ridges, mere wrinkles in the face of stone.
Once, seeing nothing above him, he felt for his pick
and gently, with infinite caution, broke a tiny dent
in the rock. It did not respond as ice does, but he
succeeded in breaking away enough to give him a
tiny foothold; then another in the same slow, labori-
ous way, and up again. How terrible! And how
precarious! Could he ever make it? And would
it not be better to go back to where the rope hung,
where there seemed to be more scrub growth, move
the rope, and try to reach the package from above ?
Ay, but if the rope fell short, then the face of the
rock which was just as smooth above as below the
dwarfling tree, would be even harder to travel in the
descent. The climber rested a moment, his fore-
head leaning against the rock. There was some-
thing up there, dangling among the branches, for
which the missionary had said he would not take
ten thousand dollars. What would he, Dermot
Healy, be willing to give for that golden cup which
his hands were not worthy to carry? The humility
of the young man's heart was faith, tremendous
faith, and adoration of what the Cup had held.
"Would you leave all those holy things to lie up
there among the rocks?" he had asked his wife,
and he asked himself the same question now. It
was in great lowliness of spirit that he went forward
once more. "I am not worthy to touch them, as it
is!" A little higher was a small ledge. He reached
it and paused again to breathe, with arms extended,
flat against the bosom of the rock. Then on again,
his muscles aching from the mere strain of the posi-
tion, and his finger-tips, his nails even, called upon
to support him. And above him loomed endlessly
the adamant surface of granite. He felt himself
tremble a little and grow dizzy. Was he going to
THE 1* SIGN
faint? He had never done such a thing in his life,
and had always esteemed the weakness womanish
but this cloudiness of vision, this nausea! He
closed his eyes and rested once more. If he let go,
he must fell. Courage, only a few feet more now,
and he could touch it! There it was, just above him,
he could see it plainly. If he could but reach it!
He was praying now, eager and fearful that at the
very last he might fall. A large parcel, wrapped
in waterproof cloth, bound around with thin cord,
and over that again with straps. He leaned toward
it and the very rock seemed to grow more friendly,
warmer, as though it were trying to support him.
Could he carry it ? Could he secure it, or would it
be best to drop it? Then he observed that the
straps formed loops; it had been carried haversack
fashion, on the missionary's back; and turning
slightly with infinite caution, he passed one arm
into the further loop, holding fast by the fibrous
trunk of the tree. Even then he did not feel that he
had secured it, or that he was safe himself. A jerk
might cause it to fall to the ground, or unbalance
him. Clinging hard to the boughs, he allowed the
weight of the pack to depend from one shoulder
and, with lightning quickness, thrust the left arm
through the second loop. The settling of the sack
had the expected pull and he held fast. He shut his
eyes, breathed as deep as he dared, and said : "Thank
God!" Then suddenly, sweeping over him as the
realization of a thing for which he was totally un-
prepared, came the thought that he must retrace
his way; seek with his feet for the invisible foot-
rests, go down with arms extended and gripping
hands, and the added weight upon his back. The
thing was impossible! He had not been climbing
for twenty years in vain. He knew that with
infinite labor and pain the ascent was possible,
where sometimes the descent meant certain death.
How had he ever been so insensate as to suppose
he could do what his knowledge of the mountain
told him very clearly he could not do! ... A genuine
trembling seized him, and he felt the sweat drops
forming upon his forehead. Motionless, he stood,
and the certainty that he must drop and die, or live
on, a broken cripple, paralized his whole frame. He
clung there shaking so that the leaves moved and
trembled under his clutch. Then the lilting refrain
of one of those songs of France, drifted, mocking
through his brain.
"What's the use of worrying? it never was
worth while,
Just pack up your troubles in your old kit-bag,
And smile, smile, smile!" . . .
He lifted his head and began to feel for the next
foot-rest. God would not let him die. Mary needed
him and the kid needed him. The priest was up
there in the path, praying for him. And this that
he bore upon his back was a something that the very
angels of heaven would help him to sustain." How
hard the little ledges were to find! . . . but slow does
it, and easy does it . . . There is another! No, wrong
guess, he can't get his foot on that. Ah, yes, there
it is! Now another. . . Where have they all gone to?
He found a few, and made a few, and he got up by
them. Now they have all disappeared and he finds
nothing. Once more he pauses and his foot gropes.
This time he cannot find it. And his arms are so
tired, the muscles "ache like toothache." It is no
use; he might as well give up; the thing is impossi-
ble. And the agony of his mind is terrible as he
realizes that the measure of his life will be the
few short moments he is able to hang there cramped
and straining. Desperately he clings. And then,
comforting him, comes the remembrance of a pious
mother's teaching in childhood. When he was in
any trouble or difficulty he must always say a "Hail
Mary" and the holy Mother of God would infallibly
help him. He tried it now, with closed eyes, his
face against the stone. And then once more reached
out and felt, and felt, until his foot found the
infinitesimal projection. He breathed a deep sigh
and tried once more. "Might as well die moving,"
the thought made him quite cheerful, "Sure, might
as well die moving!" and found another cranny.
Suddenly, something struck him from above.
He recoiled in horror, almost losing his footing, a
something dangling and serpentine like a snake that
is darting to bite. Then he looked again and laugh-
ter came to his lips. "O you man up there, God
bless and love you!"
It was the rope. The watcher had found him at
last and understood. With a gasp of relief, the
young man laid hold of it. First he secured it
around his chest under his arms, then began to haul
himself up by its assistance, seeking every ledge,
every crevice as before, to plant his feet; but
mounting hand-over-hand, with all his weight upon
the rope. From time to time, he felt a strong pull
so that he knew the man above was trying to hoist
him, but he was too much accustomed to help him-
self to allow any other person to bear the burden of
succoring him unasssisted. Even at the best, the
ascent seemed very long and very slow, that inevi-
table face of granite, passing, passing, in dread
monotony before his face. Would it never end?
Then he raised his eyes once more, and, just above
him, was the lip of the chasm. At that point a sud-
den fear seized him that his rescuer would let go,
and that he would plunge into the abyss. He held
his breath, so imminent, so deadly the danger
seemed. Perhaps at the very last, the rope sawing
over the sharp edge of the rock would break. . . .
But no, it is his own right hand that reaches out,
straining to clutch the brink, and the left follows it;
and he is in the act of hauling himself up over the
edge, when those two strong arms enfold him and
lift him bodily in an embrace that crushes him
against the heaving chest. "Boy, boy . . . you are
hurt .. your head is bleeding! My God, why did I
let you do it." . . .
.... "Tis nothing . . skin . . ." But for a moment
THE f SIGN
he lies flat upon the ground breathing hard, like a
swimmer that is exhausted, and glad to close his
eyes.
The older man kneels to wipe those dark
streaks from the brow and cheek. Then, suddenly,
with the joy of a child, the mountaineer sits up.
"Here it is, Father". . he cries, "your chalice . . . I've
got it!". ..And folding his arms about the shabby
pack, he presses it close against his heart . . ."Your
chalice — that has held the Blood of Christ."
Still kneeling, with his two knees in the snow,
the missionary drew the bundle gently away from
those tense hands, spread over it so eagerly every
sinew in them was taut. "Give it up to the priest
now, Dermot, though God knows, he is not more
worthy than you to carry it; but the Blessed Sacra-
ment is inside the pack. I had not told you : I did
not dare to tell you. Father Francis advised me to
take it for the sick he frequently finds upon his long
rounds, and I had it around my neck as usual in the
burse. The string broke the other day when we
were struggling with the machine in the mud, and
I almost lost it. So I put it inside the valise think-
ing it would be safer. That is what you brought up
that frightful wall." Then he laid his hand upon
the wounded head and the young man saw, in the
depths of the grey eyes, the unspeakable gratitude
of the priest for reverence shown his Eucharistic
Lord. — "Boy, you can remember all your days, and
when you are dying you can remember, that once
you risked your life for the sake of a Mass kit . . .
and God put the Body of Christ into your hands."
Txtfo Timely Antidotes
A Clean Heart
XN the recent drive for the Catholic press
the need of an antidote against misrepre-
sentation and calumny was emphasized.
As great is the need, if not greater, of an
antidote against the bare-faced immorality that
boldly stares from out the printed page. If through
the campaign of vilification some non-Catholics are
kept out of the Church, many who are already within
her fold are exposed to the loss of faith by the
rampant immorality which is photographed and
published in our daily prints.
A metropolitan daily carries the emblazoned
boast: "The Newspaper of a Million Homes."
Can it be that this enormous circulation has been at-
tained through a correct appraisal of the public taste
by its pandering editors? Are we to conclude that
the reading public is for the most part composed
of morbid sensualists and avid sensationalists?
Rather, we should affirm that in their feverish
ambition to build-up and maintain a huge circulation
the editors have wantonly betrayed a sacred trust
by deliberately and unblushingly catering to all
that is base in human nature. To this purpose, in-
genious and fake illustrations flaunt the religion and
fire the inflammable imagination of the reader.
Lest this all too crude violation of public pro-
priety and decency should defeat their purpose, the
editors intersperse their pages with some valuable
information and instructive articles, the while they
justify the 'rot' by an appeal to high-sounding mo-
tives.
The clean-minded reader will not be deceived
by such an appeal. The Catholic will remember
that "the carnal man perceives not the things that
are of God," and that only "the clean of heart shall
see God."
The Sacred Thirst
'N American audience would be much start-
led to-day on hearing a preacher announce a
sermon on temperance. Why try to interest
•them in the 'dead and buried'? Has not
the parching Volstead Act succeeded where moral-
ists for ages failed? The familiar talk on tem-
perance may no longer be heard in the land, but that
has not come about through the conviction that the
abuse of drink has been destroyed. Prohibition has
been on trial and furnishes another proof of the
homely truth that you cannot legislate men into
virtue. To be effective, Prohibition must not over-
look the personal equation. Its steam-roller method
and slashing decree open the way to a sanctimonious
hypocrisy and pussy-foot subterfuge. It brandished
its club and, forsooth, bar-lights went out, mirrors
and brass-rails were scrapped. But, alas!, it did not
extinguish the thirst or eradicate the craving. What
the Volstead Act buried with official pomp,
avaricious cunning uncerimoniously digs up. You
can whip the huge elephant into servility, for the
Almighty has not endowed him with the faculty
into servility for the Almighty has not endowed him
with the faculty of free-will and choice. It is just
this faculty in man which must be approached and
which Prohibition evidently fails to consider. Often-
times men, from selfish motives, or in the consequent
disgust of intemperance, have resolutely sworn-off.
The more compelling are the religious motives — the
sinfulness, the scandalous example, the crushing
injustice of intemperance. More powerful than all
else to the Christian should be appeal of the Cruci-
fied. How many a weak mortal has at last strength-
ened his palsied will and found peace by pleadging
himself to total abstinence in honor of the Sacred
Thirst!
Impressions of a Present-Da}? Calvarj)
ff
BERNARDIME DUSCH. C. P.
UMORS of the wonders occurring at
Limpias had reached us before we set
sail, in April 1920, on our maiden
voyage to the Eternal City; ample and
graphic accounts were given us while
we were in Rome by a party of Spanish priests who
had actually witnessed them. These thrilling tales
— no longer to be called in question — fired us with
the ambition to see for ourselves this new evidence
of God's immediate dealings with men.
So, toward nightfall on June 23, two months
later, the train from Bilbao brought us to Limpias,
a village of about fifteen hundred inhabitants,
charmingly situated on the northern coast of Spain.
No throbbing industries pulsate within its drowsy
limits. Hidden away among the spurs of the
Pyrenees, this village, until but yesterday, was
unheralded and unknown. We were not surprised on
our arrival to find the spot so unpretentious. Jesus,
the Carpenter's Son of Nazareth, is wont, when He
has riches to disburse, to seek out places of no ac-
count and shunned of men, that so His mercies
may shine forth the more. Least of the villages of
the Spanish domain, from out of Limpias were to
come marvels unsurpassed in the annals of Chris-
tendom. Lifted out of her lowliness, she was to be
crowned with an aureola of glory, and to command
the reverence of the world.
As the village boasts of no hotel, we arranged
for a night's lodging in a private dwelling, after
which we made our way without delay to the church,
there to do homage to the far-famed "El Santo
Christo de la Agonia" — the Crucifix which has
brought world-renown to this secluded hamlet. The
church, which is dedicated to St. Peter, serves as
parish church for the neighboring district. The
present structure, according to best calculation, was
erected in the fifteenth century. It stands at a
distance from the village on a hillside; encircling
trees and shrubs relieve an unattractive exterior.
Within the church are five wooden alters each
delicately carved and heavily guilded. In a niche
over the tabernacle on the high alter is a Calvary
group, also wrought in wood, depicting the Sorrowful
Mother and St. John standing on either side of a
cross, which rises to a height of more than eight
feet, whereon hangs the riven body of the Savior.
This is the miraculous Crucifix, — the cynosure of
every eye. The corpus is six feet in length and
portrays the Crucified in the throes of lingering
death. The head is thrown back, the eyes are
raised heavenward, the whole telling of mortal
anguish and of intense prayerful pleading. To such
as are of the Faith, it is enough to behold this
Crucifix to have the heart melt as wax. It may well
be that the more than human expression of the
Sacred Countenance is in some way due to the
many extraordinary transformations it has under-
gone during the last two years.
The only trustworthy information concerning the
origin of this Crucfix is, that previous to its being
erected in the church of Limpias, it was in the
possession of a merchant of Cadiz, a city in the
south of Spain, where it adorned his domestic
chapel. Certain priests and bishops, chancing to
come upon the Crucifix, thought that it ought to be
venerated in a public church. The owner, acting
upon this pious suggestion, determined to present
it to the parish church of his native town, Limpias;
whither it was transferred in 1749, one hundred
and seventy years before the first miraculous mani-
festation in 1919. Of the artist who executed this
exquisite work nothing authentic is known. Many
legends there are, indeed, clinging to this now cele-
brated antique, but these cannot be substantiated
by historical proof. For those one hundred and
seventy years it reposed, shrouded in obscurity, in
the little church of St. Peter, without attracting more
attention than do the other beautiful and realistic
figures of the Crucified of which Spain has many.
But since that eventful March 30, 1919, when the
Sacred Countenance became, for the first time, a
living image of Christ's agony, it has been the focus
of an ever-widening interest.
Remarkable manifestations on the part of the
Crucifix have been accompanied by still more re-
markable effects worked in the consciences of be-
holders. A new spirit of fervor has freshened in
the souls of the once tepid inhabitants, and the
Holy Christ of the Agony is become the axis
around which the spiritual life of the village now
revolves. Grace has fallen plentifully upon the
constantly increasing influx of visitors who have
sought out this remote shrine; both upon such as
were guided hither by a propulsive faith, and who
have gazed with wistful gratitude upon the Holy
Christ, as likewise upon sinful calloused souls whom
an idle curiosity or some less worthy motive has
brought within the transforming influence of the
wondrous Crucifix. Instinctively men feel that
effects, so multitudinous and astounding as are
authoritatively attributed to the Lympian Crucifix,
are not due to any innate worth had by a mere
inanimate figure, however inspiring in its conception
or artistic in its workmanship such an object may
be, but must inevitably emanate from some higher
source.
ON entering the church we knelt for fome
little time before the main altar absorbed
in prayerful contemplation of the most
expressive Crucifix that it has ever been
our privilege to gaze upon. While kneeling thus,
we were prenetrated with an unwonted feeling of
awe and reverence mingled with deep confidence.
THE 1* SIGN
A consciousness of a very close proximity to the
supernatural rested upon us.
Having satisfied our devotion, we entered the
sacristy to arrange for mass on the morrow. Here
we met the village pastor, Don Eduardo Miqueli
Gonzalez, a n
aged priest of
over seventy
years. He re-
ceived us with
true Spanish
cordiality and
very graciously
acceded to our
long cherished
desire to say
mass at the
high altar — one
of us at five
o'clock, the
other later. It
fell to my lot to
say the early
mass. The next
morning I of-
fered the Holy
Sacrifice at the
shrine but saw
nothing unusu-
al. Twelve or
fifteen Vincen-
t i a n Fathers
from a nearby
college follow-
ed me, cele-
brating at the
various altars.
About eight
thirty o'clock a
pilgrimmage of
five hundred
arrived from
Barcelona
among whom
were some
thirty priests.
They likewise
said mass, the
pilgrims receiv-
ing Holy Com-
munion. A t
eleven o'clock
a solemn high miraculous CRt
mass began.
After the gospel one of the visiting priests ascended
the pulpit and addressed the assembled pilgrims.
Towards the close of the sermon the preacher turned
to the Crucifix, beseeching a blessing on the con-
gregation and on the nation. It was during this
prayer that many of the faithful present distinctly
observed the mysterious phenomenon. I was not
present at the time, but was afterwards informed
that very many saw the head and eyes of the Christ
moving as though in agony, and that many of them
swooned away, while others cried out for mercy,
all being thrilled with a strange emotion. Short-
ly after the
solemn mass
was over, I met
one of the
priests who had
witnessed the
miracle. H e
was visibly
agitated, and
still so over-
wrought as to
be scarcely a-
ble to narrate
what he had
seen.
Lunch over,
we returned a-
g a i n to the
church. The
pilgrims were
reciting in com-
mon the rosary
and litanies,
and occasional-
l y singing
hymns. At two
o'clock, as ac-
curately as I
can recall,
there was a
sudden, un-
looked for
commotion i n
the congrega-
tion. The eyes
of the figure
were moving to
and fro. A
salvo of aston-
ishment sound-
ed throughout
the church.
This time, I
too, saw the
wonder. It is
quite impossi-
ble for me to
CIFix of UMPIAS analyse fully
the emotions I
then experienced. I felt a great longing steal upon
me that the whole world might see what I saw, and
might come to realize, as I then realized, the ach-
ing craving of the Crucified that all men might be-
lieve in His immeasureable love for them and
might profit by the fruits of His redeeming sacrifice.
The movement of the eyes lasted for a considerable
THE + SIGN
spectacle
period and was witnessed by most of the pilgrims
present, the storm of whose vehemently agitated
emotions was long in subsiding. At length, in mid-
afternoon, we quitted the scene of this soul-stirring
spectacle to continue on our journey.
'Y fellow-traveler, the Very Reverend Father
Clement Lee, C. P., of Holy Cross Pre-
paratory College, Dunkirk, N. Y., confirms
my experience in the following account.
"I can never describe adaquately my feelings
and emotions as I beheld that wooden Crucifix
hanging over the main altar
transformed suddenly into
the living, breathing, life-
like, body of my Crucified
Saviour. All I can do is to
relate, simply and truth-
fully, what I beheld with
my bodily eyes. I arrived
at Limpias about five
o'clock one Thursday even-
ing in June, 1920. I went
immediately to the church
and saw the crucifix. There
was nothing out of the
ordinary about it — just a
life-size figure of Our Lord
on the Cross, as may be
seen in many of our
churches in this country.
It hangs on the wall directly
over the main altar. I
prayed before it for a long
time that evening and
watched it very closely, but
observed no movement of
any kind. Next morning I
had the privilege of cele-
brating Holy Mass beneath
it and remained in the
church afterwards to make
my thanksgiving. During
this time the crucifix, while
satisfying my devotion, for
it is very beautiful to look at, remained a lifeless
image. About nine o'clock a pilgrimage arrived
from Barcelona. There were about three hundred
pilgrims. They marched in solemn procession from
the railroad-station to the church. Nearly all were
fasting, though they had left Bilboa, where they had
put up for the night, that morning at six o'clock.
Some of the priests in the party went to the several
confessionals scattered throughout the church and
heard confessions; others began the celebration of
Holy Mass at the side altars. A priest at the main
altar gave Holy Communion and I observed that
nearly all the pilgrims received the Sacred Host.
I scarcely took my eyes from the crucifix during all
this time and the pilgrims too were all gazing
intently at it, but nothing extraordinary took place.
The crucifix was motionless. The solemn pilgrim-
FUIX FACE VIEW
age mass began at eleven o'clock. The little church
was crowded to the doors. The priests, about
twenty in all, were in the sanctuary. Solemn Mass
began and went on as usual. After the first Gospel
a priest ascended the pulpit and delivered the
sermon in Spanish. I could not understand what
he was saying, but I could see that his words were
making a deep impression on his auditors. Pres-
ently I saw him turn abruptly in the pulpit, and with
outstretched arms, make an appeal to the crucifix.
At once there was a great commotion in the church.
Shouts and shrieks seemed
to come from every nook
and corner of the edifice.
Something like pandemoni-
um reigned. I became very
much frightened, for I did
not know what was happen-
ing. I could not under-
stand the cries of the men
and women about me. I
was too frightened to think
of looking at the crucifix
at that time. I began to
fear that in the turmoil
about me some would be
seriously injured. Some of
the women fainted. A man
directly in front of me stood
with his arms outstretched,
frantically gesticulating to-
wards the crucifix and cry-
ing: "0 Signor! 0 Signor!"
He fell down in a swoon
and was carried out by
some men. The priests in
the sanctuary stood up on
the benches and tried to
quiet the people. After a
while quiet was somewhat
restored. The Mass pro-
ceeded. I knelt down and
took courage to look
towards the crucifix. I
seemed to see a vision. Though I was looking
directly at the crucifix, I have no recollection now
of seeing anything else but the head. The arms,
feet, and trunk were not visible, or at least I did not
notice them. The head was indeed a living head
and moved distinctly from side to side very slowly
and deliberately. Sometimes I could see the full
face looking directly at me, then the side view with
the long flowing hair. The face was beautiful but
very pale. It was not an angry face; the expression
was one of intense sadness. The eyes were cast
down but not entirely closed. Time and again I
watched the bowed head gently sway from right to
left, and it seemed to me that it turned more to the
right than to the left. This movement continued
until after the Elevation of the Mass. After that
the vision was gone, the crucifix hung before me as
THE + SIGN
motionless and lifeless as it had been the evening
before. Strange to say, I did not feel afraid when
the head was actually in motion. I had a feeling of
calm and quiet contentment that I cannot very well
describe. It was only after the marvel ceased that
I became nervous and agitated, when I realized that
I had had the special privilege of seeing the great
Miracle of Limpias.
The picture of that beautiful face of my Re-
deemer will always be deeply imprinted on my
memory. May it ever serve to make me a better
Passionist priest and religi-
ous and more zealous to
bring many souls to the feet
of Jesus Crucified."
QHENOMENA,
such as here de-
scribed, cannot
be easily gain-
said. It was on March 30,
1919, at the close of a mis-
sion given by two Capuchin
Fathers, Anselmo de Jalom
and Agatangelo de San
Miqueli, that, while an in-
struction was being given
by the latter, the congrega-
tion was thrown into panic.
Expressions of wonder and
amazement arose from
every side. From the fren-
zied exclamations and fran-
tic gesticulations the prea-
cher gathered that his au-
ditors were convinced that
the Crucifix over the high
altar was agonizing before
their very eyes. Persuaded
that they were the subjects
of an optical illusion he at-
:empted to calm them, but
in vain. Young and old
persisted in affirming that
the Figure upon the cross
had really moved, that the head had swayed, and
that the eyes had rolled as if in living agony. So
certain were they of this that later they signified
their willingness to testify under oath to what they
had seen.
For prudent reasons the two missionaries as
well as the pastor used every endeavor to cover the
facts. It was not long, however, before the stories
which had begun to circulate throughout the dis-
trict reached the sharp ear of the newspapers in
that locality, so that reporters came swiftly to un-
earth material so fertile for sensational copy. The
resultant publicity gave rise to a stream of visitors
that gathers steady volume in its course. The
subsequent sphinx-like silence of the Spanish irre-
ligious press, together with the incredulous, dis-
cordant voices of the willfully deaf and blind, could
PROFILE VIEW
not obstruct the ceaseless onward-flowing current of
public opinion which carries the fame of Limpias
unto remotest tribes and peoples. Already Limpias
is become a household word, and is held in benedic-
tion by thousands of grateful pilgrims.
Manifestations alike to those which happened
during the closing exercises of that memorable mis-
sion of more than two years ago have often since
recurred. These have been avouched by simple
country-folk, by lawyers, by doctors, by scientists,
by atheists, by leaders of secret societies, by those
of the household of the
faith and by such as are
outside her pale, by men
high in church and state;
in short, by friend and foe.
The marvels vary. The
corpus, at times, seems a-
live, when the spectators
behold the very pangs of
the dying Christ. Again,
the sunken eyes turn from
side to side, now darting a
piercing look upon a scof-
fer, now casting a melting
glance upon some chosen
soul. Not infrequently,
the thorn-crowned head
oscillates; from time to
time, the cracked and
fevered lips are seen to
part, disclosing the mouth
frothed and bloody. Occa-
sionally, the ashy counten-
ance takes on a purplish
tinge, while oftentimes cold
perspiration bedews the
body, or blood issues from
the open wounds, streaking
the Sacred Form. Such
heartrending sights can-
not but elicite tears. Un-
believers and sinners re-
peatedly fall upon their
knees converted, whilst robust men often faint away.
The Limpian Crucifix presents certain unique
features which have given rise to much discussion
and are still an unsolved riddle to the most pain-
staking investigators of the facts.
The manifestitations are irregular. Several
days may pass during which visitors are doomed to
leave the church disappointed; at other periods, not
a day will go by without its averred record of extra-
ordinary signs and harrowing scenes. By showing
forth, on occasion, all its singular manifestations
together, the Figure appears to all present veritably
to live; or, mayhap, this overwhelming appeal is
reserved for one only, or but few, among expectant
hundreds. Sometimes, the congregation sees but
one such manifestation, perchance, the rolling of the
THE 1* SIGN
23
abysmal eyes, the remembrance of which will haunt
the beholder throughout life.
PRUDENT man will naturally demand
strong proof before crediting happenings
which transcend common experience. But
such a man will not deny facts, such as the
marvels of Limpias, which stand upon irrefutable
proof.
A local committee, made up of men of recog-
nized integrity and ability, received the sworn testi-
mony of hundreds of eye witnesses, and passed
upon it favorably. Greater care, perhaps, has never
been taken to winnow doubtful testimony and to
secure unimpeachable evidence than here. They
who deposed on oath, were, for the most part, pro-
fessional men having a national reputation. Some
there were who had no religious belief whatsoever;
others were indifferentists ; while a few were avowed
atheists. A number of them made no secret of the
fact that their coming to Limpias was motived by
cynicism; but having viewed with their own eyes
what they had meant to impugn, they were forced to
avow that hearsay had fallen short of reality.
The Roman ecclesiastical court has appointed
a further body of learned and fair-minded men,
which is at present making formal investigation of
first-hand witness. There is every reason to think
that the finding of this committee will accord with
the impartial judgment of the first.
The fact of these phenomena is beyond cavil.
The manner in which they were brought about is
still an open question. A discussion on this point,
though interesting, would take us too far afield, and
would be out of harmony with the scope of this
paper. The settlement in so delicate a controversy,
as to the mode of these prodigies, were best left in
abeyance until the rightfully constituted authorities
have determinately pronounced.
HOR the Almighty to choose a crucifix of
wood to make known His power before
the world is not strange in Him Who put
a rod into the hand of His servant, Moses,
whereby mighty signs were wrought before all
Egypt. What Providential design underlies these
present-day wonders may be conjectured by con-
sidering a few incidents casually selected from a
well-nigh exhaustless store.
The good pastor, Don Eduardo Miqueli, is our
surety for the following anecdote, which first ap-
peared in the Diario de la Rioja. Eighteen young
women, dressmakers of Santander, came one day on
a pleasure trip to Limpias. The day was to be
spent in merry-making in a grove hardby the church.
A_ dance was to be held in the evening. Little in-
clined to piety at best, and totally immersed in the
enjoyment of the moment, the Miraculous Crucifix
worried these volatile young women not at all. In
search for a new thrill to stimulate their flagging
gaiety, they betook themselves to the church to
glimpse the village curiosity. Besides, to have seen
a real miracle would bring such a coveted notoriety.
Boldly they entered the church, and unabashed they
proceeded to a supercilious scrutiny of the altar-
piece Suddenly, the Holy Christ turns His
agonized eyes full upon them, and, presently four-
teen of the group, as if struck down by an invisible
hand, fall unconscious to the floor. On recovery,
all whole-heartedly pleaded pardon, pledging an
open promise to forsake their loose and shallow life.
Reluctantly they left the hallowed precincts resolved
that henceforth their chief concern would be the
culture of the soul.
No dance took place that night.
The experience of Father Anselmo, the Capu-
chin, during whose sermon the first manifestation
occurred, is more relevant than the former. For
over sixty days his "eyes were held" so that his
credence in the Holy Christ was based solely upon
hearsay and what he personally saw effected in
the lives of others. During this time he often visited
the parish church, for he longed, as he himself
admits, to behold with his own eyes what countless
others about him were professing to have seen;
that so, to the many questions, which quite naturally
were being daily put to him, he might answer as
one having authority. He resolved, at all hazards,
to spend a night alone in the church. Permission
to carry out his design was readily granted by the
parish-priest.
The night of June 2, 1919, was the time deter*
mined upon. He procured a ladder from the sacris-
tan to the end that should the privilege be vouch-
safed him of seeing the Crucifix vivified, he might
obliterate, once and for all, by the closest possible
view, any trace of misgiving still lurking in his
mind. Long had he watched before the electrically
illuminated Image, when, on a sudden, he was aware
that the head and eyes were in motion, bespeaking
the heart-rending anguish of the dying Christ. Still
distrustful of self and fearing an optical illusion,
he viewed the figure from divers parts of the church
and from every angle the amazing spectacle was
the same. Then, to dispel the last lingering doubt
as to the actuality of what he saw, he ascended the
ladder to the niche over the altar, and so stood face
to face with the animated form of the Savior Cruci-
fied.
Thus he relates the sequel. "I no longer beheld
the figure of wood, but the living Christ in agony,
I felt as if I myself were about to pass away, and to
prevent my falling threw my arms around the Savior,
and so remained, how long I cannot tell, in rapture.
When I came to myself, I looked up once more at the
sacred face, and could see naught but the lifeless
wood."
In the investigation held on this event, Father
Anselmo was asked to describe what transpired
whilst he was in ecstacy. He replied with frank-
ness, "There are things which human tongue cannot
utter." Questioned further as to whether these
24
THE + SIGN
wonders were to continue, he answered, "Not only
will these continue, but you shall hear the Christ
speak." Again, when the query was put as to the
significance of so great marvels, he said, "I was
always under the impression that they portended
some dire calamity with which God was about to
discipline the nations because of their abominations ;
but now I am convinced that they are nothing more
than another token of God's mercy, Who wishes to
save men despite their coldness and enmity."
■^^^^HE authenticated list of acknowledged
d C~\ favors contains few cures of bodily ills,
^L J but the many spiritual blessings accorded,
^^^ prove that the purpose disclosed by the
Capuchin missionary is being luxuriantly attained.
Hardened hearts are touched; the spark of faith
falls into unbelieving minds, while the dying
embers of languid faith rekindle into a brightening
flame; freethinkers are metamorphosed into ardent
apostles of the Crucified; they who come to scoff,
remain to pray.
"By their fruits you shall know them." "Every
good tree bringeth forth good fruit, and the evil tree
bringeth forth evil fruit." This Christ-given criter-
ion may be applied with the same persuasive force
to the occurrences at Limpias as when applied by
the Master to the moral life of individuals. No
daring fraud, no deliberate deceit, no fervid imagi-
nation, no unhinged brain, no optical illusion, can
account for transformations so radical as are effect-
ed today at Limpias. Indeed, the finger of God is
here!
At a time when the nations would get rid of
Christ Crucified and treat the doctrine of the Cross
as a worn-out legend; when Governments, inflamed
by a positive hatred of Him, are striving to blot out
His very memory; when many of His professed
followers are tempted to think it the part of pru-
dence to cloak their allegiance to Him; it would
seem that Christ Himself has come back, not in
person, but through a lifeless figure, to preach to
a gross generation the essential lessons of self-
abnegation and just dealing; to reveal anew to for-
getful men the transcendent love that bound Him
to a tree; to bruit the Cross, to-day as of old, the
Power of God and the Wisdom of God.
Persuasive mystery enveloped the Cross on
Calvary. May the kindred mystery of the Limpian
Crucifix fit individuals and nations for the saving
graces of the Crucified!
Much has been written about the Crucifix of Limpias. This article from the pen of an
American priest who visited Spain with the sole purpose of studying the Crucifix, will, we trust,
prove interesting to our readers. We are in receipt of a letter under date of May 10, from the
Rector of the Passionist Monastery of Santander, a short distance from Limpias, in which he
writes "On the eighth of this month Limpias was visited by a pilgrimage of 612 persons, more
than 200 of whom saw the movement of the head and eyes and also the agony of Christ on the
cross." — Editors.
Resignation
COLMAN LADD
Were God a ruthless reaper
Rushing through the world,
By whom both weed and flower
Beneath his scythe were hurled,
Then might we stand and question
His purblind fierce decree,
And shun it with defiance
Or bear it mockingly.
But He who clothes the lily
And marks the sparrow's fall,
Who midst all earth's full, loud lament,
Hears e'en the feeblest call,
He bids us come in spring-time
Or in our full-spent years,
By long decline or sudden blow,
Despite our present tears.
Were God to heed the sorrow
Of parent and of child,
We reck not what He'd save us for
Amid the tempest wild.
Then, let us bide the morning,
When, wakened from this spell,
We'll stand together in God's light
And tell how all went well .
Were God the world to govern,
Just by His children's whim.
Oh, how the wreck of life and love
Would teach us to trust Him!
Yourself and the Monies
Anselm Secor
"T night, in the theatre district of any
large city, one's eyes are assailed by a
brilliance wonderful to behold. Lights
of every kind abound, and more than
abound: — lights that twinkle invitingly;
lights that spell names and do acrobatic feats and
race in dizzy circles overhead; lights that glitter
with a splendor outshining the stars and rivalling
the sun; lights that emulate the rainbow in prismatic
effect, and burst into bombs of color as gorgeous as
any pyrotechnic display. All this energy of effort
is for the purpose of calling our attention to the fact
that some screen celebrity or other is depicting love
or adventure, or tearing an emotion to tatters on the
celluloid strip which ingenious mankind has endow-
ed with life.
Do the lights succeed ? It is not hard to find an
answer. Watch the crowds as they scan, with keen
interest, the gaudy posters outside the door of the
theatre; observe the long line of motor-cars parked
for blocks around the neighborhood ; see the throngs
wending their way past the urbane doorkeeper, to
settle themselves in the darkened hall for an hour
in the land of make-believe, — and you have the best
kind of evidence of the popularity of the movies.
The development of the motion-picture is one
of the marvels of modern industry. Commencing
in the crudest way, with disconnected episodes as
its offering and vacant stores as its places of exhi-
bition, it has grown, with astonishing rapidity into
an attraction ranking among the foremost, both in
size and in hold upon the public interest. Its capital
runs into the hundreds of millions; its popular
artists receive enormous salaries; its performances
play, night after night, to packed audiences; its
theatres, long since discarding the humble nickelo-
deons of former days, now rival, both in size and in
splendor, even the most elaborate of legitimate
playhouses.
And how fascinating the pictures are! Pictures
always attract; but when they are cunningly
blended so as produce life and action, the appeal
is intensified a hundredfold. They have a variety
and flexibility impossible in the living performance,
and consequently, even though deprived of the sup-
port of the spoken word, they can produce effects
which are the envy and despair of the stage. The
wide range of topics is another source of their at-
tractiveness. The motion-pictures vivify the dry
chronicles of past centuries, and call forth from their
musty pages the great characters who have left
their imprint on the history of the world. They
present before us the mask-like face of Lincoln,
seamed with the nation's sorrows; they summon
Napoleon and Washington and Dante and Caesar
into our presence; they re-enact the great events of
dead ages, unrolling, with stately pageant, the bat-
tles and conquests and discoveries of times long
since passed away. They call forth from the pages
of fiction, the immortal creations of the classic
authors. John Silver leers at you even more cunning-
ly from the screen than he does from Stevenson's
thrilling pages; Oliver Twist and Little Nell unfold
their pathetic tale; Huck Finn, the mischievous, acts
out the various episodes of his adventurous career;
the fairies and gnomes and giants, so dear to the
fancy of childhood, disport before your eyes : — in a
word, the pictures often improve on the original, and
present the story more concisely, more vividly, more
appealing than it is told on the printed page.
They bring the great world before our eyes,
showing us the wonders of nature, and the habits
of peoples of far distant lands. We can see on the
screen the silver beauty of the lakes of Killarney,
or watch some nimble-footed South-Sea Islander
climb a cocoanut tree, or view the impressive cere-
monies of St. Peter's, or see the patched, fin-like
sails of the sampans navigating the yellow waters
of the Yangtze Kiang. Important happenings, great
catastrophes, noteworthy events, — all these are
eagerly gathered from the farthest parts of the earth,
sometimes at risk of life itself, and reproduced with
a fidelity of detail which is the next thing to witness-
ing the actual occurence. When we consider these
facts, it does not seem strange that the silent drama
should have taken such a strong hold on the popular
fancy.
DEARLY every great achievement has had
the misfortune of being seized upon by
tainted hands as a means of unscrupulous
enrichment. Thus perverted, its very
power makes it all the more dangerous. Such,
evidently, is the case with the motion pictures and
one need not be a sour and meddlesome alarmist
to relize this fact only too keenly. Honest observa-
tion can easily see that a mighty force for good has
been perverted by conscienceless producers, — and
this with an influence all the greater because so
alluring. As presented today, the movies are a
menace, rather than a blessing. The good film is
the exception, not the rule : and the majority of
productions which are being let loose on the public
set before their audience a type of picture which is
debasing to a deplorable extent.
A casual scanning of the announcements in the
daily papers serves to furnish clear evidence of
this fact. The general theme of them all seems to
be the sex-topic : and by sex is meant, not legiti-
mate love or honest affection, but a debased kind
which lingers morbidly over that which is illicit.
There are many variants of this theme in the motion-
26
THE 1" SIGN
pictures. There is, for instance, the tale of unlawful
affection, — the kind that casts aside the most sacred
obligations in a wild pursuit of what is forbidden.
Only too often, such dramas, presented in a most
artistic manner, are a glorification of passion, and
an extenuation, if not an actual defence of sin.
Then there are problem-plays, officiously concerned
with the noisome exhalations of human depravity: —
solemnly analyzing and discussing, with lofty pre-
tense at zeal for betterment, what could, a thousand
times better be passed over in silence. It is a
fallacy to think that loftiness of motive justifies the
indiscriminate discussion of some themes, — and
then, too, one is inclined, at times, to question the
motive. What a pity that scenario-writers have to
go to the gutter for their subjects, when there are
so many noble stories waiting to be told!
The late war, with its necessary attention to the
health problem, has brought before the public
certain educational films, dealing with moral topics
of the most delicate kind. Perhaps, such films,
handled properly, and shown before select audi-
ences, can accomplish something in the way of warn-
ing as to the wages of wrong-doing. But shown
indiscriminately, or with a pretended exclusiveness
which is merely a bait for the curious, they are
certainly worthy of condemnation. We may be
reasonably sure that announcements such as: "Men
and women not admitted together on account of
delicate subject and scenes," are not printed in the
newspapers because of excessive solicitude for pro-
priety, or of zeal for the public welfare. Besides,
considering the fact that, in nearly every case, the
sole restraining motive put forth in these films is
the danger of physical harm, the adequate force of
the appeal may well be disputed. Only too many
have drawn as their conclusion from such produc-
tions, not the warning of religion, "Be chaste," but
the warning of prudence, "Be careful."
The country is flooded with a certain class of
pictures, — mostly comic, — which deal with the low,
the vulgar, and the suggestive. Designed expressly
for this purpose, they cater to the grossest instincts,
and represent a sordid phase of the degradation of
the screen. They go as near the immoral as the law
allows, — and, unfortunately, the law allows a great
deal. At times, even when the general character of
the film is wholesome, it is spoiled by offensive
scenes, dragged in with no regard for relevance, in
order to give, as some producers say, "pep," to the
picture. Those who have had any experience in the
selection of films know this fact only too well ; and,
to their vexation, have found out, with an uncen-
sored showing, that what they thought was presenta-
ble, contained parts which had to be eliminated
before a future performance. In their chagrin, they
ruefully modernized an old saying so as to read:
"Call no film safe till it is ended."
What effect has the unclean film on the mind
of an audience? Certainly, anything but an edify-
ing one. The eyes are the soul's windows, letting in
from the outside the impressions that fall under
their observation. They furnish the greater part of
the material which the imagination uses in making
up the images it presents to the mind. And what if
that material is sensual and debasing? Will not the
imagination which welcomes and harbors the pic-
tures be an unclean one, reeking with the slimy
creations of its own construction? Who can esti-
mate the harm done in this way: — the souls that
are tainted, the hearts that are besmirched; the
minds which, moved at first by curiosity, gradually
become more and more familiar with evil, until, with
familiarity, there grows the lessening of fear and
the dawn of a liking which only too soon deepens
into fascination. Surely, upon those who produce and
upon those who exhibit, there is a mighty weight of
responsibility for the iniquity of which they are the
purveyors. Some, perhaps, can view such things
and yet remain unscathed. Their natural cleanness
of mind makes them instinctively reject the vulgar,
and refuse to gloat over that which is suggestive.
Yet, even they cannot trust too much to their im-
munity; for evil can find a weak joint in the strong-
est armor and can exercise its debasing influence
so subtly, yet so effectively, that, almost before one
realizes the harm, it has done its deadly work.
The young, with their curiosity, their ignorance,
and their impatience of correction, are the chief
victims of the unclean film. It is true that a certain
percentage are not harmed, at least to any great
extent, by these productions. Owing to good home
training and religious surroundings, they are able to
throw off the bad impressions that come to them,
just as a healthy body will resist the attacks of even
the most malignant germs. But to others, the evil
film does a great, and sometimes an irreparable
injury. Their home environment is by no means
favorable; false principles and bad example have
made their minds a fertile field for vice: and then
comes the immoral picture with its sensual appeal
and its instruction in what is debasing. The result
is an advanced course in depravity. Their thoughts
are of the unwholesome kind that batten on corrup-
tion; their conversation expresses these thoughts;
and thus they become carriers of contagion, spread-
ing to others the moral infection which they them-
selves have contracted. No one who is concerned
about the welfare of others can question the harm
of the unclean film. Its pernicious results are too
evident to be denied, and too serious to be passed
over in silence. Plenty of pictures, now showing,
could well have as their caption: "Satan Film Co.,
Inc.," and have as their ending, the malignant face
of the devil, leering at those whom he has done his
best to corrupt.
M^^^HE day of the blood-and-thunder motion
m C\ pictures seems to have passed away and
^^ J few there are who will shed even a sur-
^^^ reptitious tear over its passing. The two-
gun bully who terrorized western towns, and the
THE + SIGN
27
professional bad man who cowed shrinking mail-
clerks into a corner while he rifled the registered
letters, and then casually lit a cigarette as he drop-
ped off the speeding train into the darkness are not
so much in evidence of late years. They are rapidly
passing into the limbo of discarded popularities, to
join company with Diamond Dick, and other thril-
lers of by gone days. And yet, crime is still a
popular theme with the movies. Having graduated
from its cruder stages, it is now more refined, more
subtle, and, perhaps, more dangerous. It goes in,
at present, for dress suits and international intrigue,
with Sherlock Holmes as its model and the under-
world as its setting. We may well be thankful that
the average boy is not harmed, at least to any con-
siderable degree, by such themes. Usually, all he
sees in them is the adventure and the excitement,
which, — because he is a boy, — appeal to his pirate-
loving, rowdy imagination. It may even be possible
that he looks on them with vague approval, as he
would on any career, — be it of buccaneer or aviator
or policeman, — which gives promise of thrills and
novelty. But as far as real mischief is concerned,
they have scarcely any practical or lasting influence.
But what of the lad whose vicious surroundings
are an encouragement to evil ? Certainly, this class
of pictures is a crime-school for him. Particularly
in the cities, where lawlessness seeks the slums
where it can hide and plot with comparative im-
munity, the movies which depicts violence and
shows methods of crookedness is a liberal education
to the gangs who congregate for mischief, and who
are a source of annoyance to the neighbors and of
concern to the police. Youngsters who should be in
school, getting an education, are getting it, indeed,
but not of the right kind, or in the right place.
Instead, they are eagerly absorbing lessons which
fit them for the reform-school, from which, later on,
they will emerge, full-fledged criminals, outrivalling,
in real life anything they saw on the screen.
Some things do harm because it is their nature ;
others because they are abused. In the latter case,
the fault lies, not with the object itself, but with the
manner of its using. We may well apply this axiom
to the case of the motion-pictures.
We all like, at times, to be lifted out of the
daily grind. Lives that are drab demand color;
lives that are monotonous crave change; lives that
are commonplace seek the thrill of adventure and
the charm of romance, where they can be for a time,
the hero of their dreams, and thus enjoy, at least by
proxy, that which is denied them in real life. This
fact explains, in great part, the popularity of the
pictures. They provide relaxation and diversion,
where the cares and burdens of daily existence can
be forgotten for a time, while the spectator absorbs
himself in the story which is passing bo vividly be-
fore his eyes. Some can enjoy their little excursion
into the land of fancy, and return, with renewed
2est to their daily tasks. Others, succumbing
to the lure of what fascinates them so greatly,
fall ready victims to the unrealities they are so con-
stantly absorbing. It would be interesting to find
out how much of the present discontent, especially
among the young and recently married, is traceable,
directly or indirectly to the pernicious effect of too
much movies. Impressionable young women, satu-
rated with silly notions gained from this source, are
constantly comparing their plain home surroundings
with the false ideals they have formed from the films,
with the result that they become dissatisfied, critical
and petulant. And perhaps, if the whole truth were
known, the downward career of many a girl began
in the eagerness with which she absorbed the arti-
fical atmosphere of the screen; — an eagerness which
combined with a shallowness that prevented her
from realizing that life is different in fact than in
fiction, and a wilfulness which determined her to
soften her surroundings, no matter at what cost,
made her sacrifice duty to love of pleasure, and buy
at a pitiful price, the attractions she had learned to
love and resolved to have. Certainly, the best cor-
rective of this false hunger for romance is the same
viewpoint which accepts things as they are, and
which strives, by cultivating the spirit of content-
ment, to take the realities of life with a cheerful
mind, instead of nourishing bitterness and resent-
ment against the position in which Providence has
placed us.
er
'VEN of good things, too much, is bad.
There is a time for everything; and to use
that which attracts without due regard
for moderation, is bound to bring harmful
results. Certain people are what is called, in
popular parlance, "movie-fans." So great is the
lure of the flickering film, that they simply cannot
resist its captivating appeal. They spend hour after
hour in the theatre, making a frequent occupation
out of what should be merely an occasional diver-
sion. Children, because of their love of the fanciful,
fall a ready prey to the picture habit. Attracted
by the glitter of lights and the lure of posters, they
are inclined to sacrifice home study to the easier
task of patronizing some neighboring movie, where
they can gain much pleasure but little profit. And
thus is added another conspirator to the already long
list of enemies of knowledge, that are combining
to steal the hours which should be spent at books.
Nor are grown-ups free from blame in this matter.
An inspection of quite a few homes would reveal
the fact that, with household duties left neglected
and necessary work piling up, the mistress of the
home is comfortably seated in the theatre, deeply
absorbed in some story which were, perhaps, better
untold. The clock-hand is pointing imperatively to
five ; children are home from school ; a fretting hus-
band is awaiting the evening meal; — and still she
lingers to see the final uniting of two faithful hearts,
which she must not miss, no matter how urgent the
call of duty. It is such things as these that bring
discord and quarreling into the home.
28
THE 1* SIGN
A prominent insurance company found it neces-
sary, not so long ago, to actively combat the incli-
nation, on the part of some of its solicitors, to yield
to the soothing seduction of the pictures, during the
time when they should have been hard at work
getting business for the firm that employed them.
And, if truth were told, nearly every audience, es-
pecially the afternoon ones, represents, to some
degree, the squandering of time by those who can
ill-afford such prodigality.
HATELY the films have drawn on themselves
a great deal of criticism, — and not only
criticism, but an active opposition, which
threatens to take a very energetic, and by
no means favorable turn. Prominent men and
women all over the country are realizing, with ever
growing concern, that the motion-pictures have been
steadily degenerating, and that, if vigorous measures
are not soon taken to purify them, they will become
hopelessly submerged in foulness. A cleaner
standard is imperative; without it, the screen is a
menace to public morals.
The question of censorship is one that gives
rise to a host of opinions, — some favorable, others
loudly condemnatory. Naturally enough, the pro-
ducers look with suspicion on outside reviews of
their productions. Many of them claim that legal
censorship is wrong in principle; that it violates the
liberties of an untrammeled people, and therefore
has no place in a country such as our own. Perhaps
they speak thus because so many of them learned
to love freedom from the lack of it in the ghettos
of Odessa or Petrogard. Perhaps, too, their idea
of liberty is that of the foreigner who, when fined
for beating his wife, exclaimed in grieved tones as
he left the courtroom, "and yet, they call this a free
country!"
Some, however, oppose censorship on account
of the practical impossibility, — as they claim, — of
wise and impartial application. Standards differ,
it is alleged, and individuals are often swayed by
interest, prejudice, likes and dislikes. One producer
instances the case of the woman censor in Kansas
who, because of a recent death in her family, ruled
out all funeral scenes as too depressing. The pro-
ducers want their own censorship, if any; and some
of the more responsible ones, alarmed, very likely
by threats of drastic legislation, have given pledges
of an honest and thorough effort towards cleanliness.
But what of the other kind? Should there not be
something to take the place of the conscience they
lack, and to force these purveyors of filth to do by
law what they will not do by inclination? Self-cen-
sorship may work out very well for the men who are
really in earnest, but with a certain class it is apt to
prove just as one-sided as any the state can impose.
To have the parties involved pass judgment on their
own work is like letting the customer pick his own
change from the cash-register, or permitting each
ball-team to make its own decisions on the diamond.
Such things could be done, — theoretically; but then,
we have the principle, as true in life as in law, that
no one is a judge in his own case. Particularly is
this the fact when thousands of dollars are involved,
and when an adverse decision means heavy pecuni-
ary loss. For a man to discard a picture after he
has spent money on it demands heroic determina-
tion. The producers are well supplied with determ-
ination;— but it is to get their money back, with a
good rate of profit if they can.
The attitude of the National Catholic Welfare
Council on the question of censorship is an eminent-
ly sane one, and one which, if followed, will furnish
the best solution of this perplexing problem. It
starts out with the principal that, while indeed there
are many abuses to be corrected, a reasonable amount
of good will on both sides will serve to remedy these
abuses, and raise the moving pictures to the high
standard which morality demands. It recognizes
the fact that constructive criticism can do more than
mere condemnation. Co-operation, rather than
coercion is its method, and it regards legal censor-
ship as a final resort, to be used only when all
other remedies have proven unavailing.
In last analysis, the only effective censors are
the public. It is the court of last appeal, and
what it condemns will inevitably prove a failure.
For this reason, the burden of approval or disap-
proval rests largely with those who have at heart
their own well-being, and that of those committed
to their care. Parents, in particular, should be
deeply concerned with the uplifting of the motion-
pictures. Part of their responsibility consists in
watching over the moral welfare of their children;
and what is of greater moment regarding such moral
welfare than the supervision of the vivid scenes
which can educate so rapidly and so effectively,
either for good or for evil. If fathers and mothers
only took this obligation more seriously, their pres-
ent attitude of tolerant indifference would change to
one of close and vigorous watchfulness.
Our Catholic people should realize the fact that
they are a power in this matter, and chould bestir
themselves to use this power for good. To patronize
the vulgar movie even when disapproving, is to give
positive encouragement to that which is harmful.
To express active condemnation, both by word and
by action, is to take the only effective measures
towards betterment. Intelligent interest and a keen
zeal for what is wholesome will do more, in the long
run, than anything else to maintain high ideals, and
put an effective stop to the salacious and the sug-
gestive. Such a course of action will result in
pictures which, while striving for interest and popu-
larity, will draw their inspiration from what is
ennobling and inspiring, instead of seeking for
material from the dregs of life.
Wkat Do You Know About:
Luther and the Reformation?
VJ^^^^HE centenary of Luther's exploits at
M^^T^\ Wittenburg and Worms was celebrated
■ | witn a soft-pedal. There was a reason.
^ J The centenary in 1883 of his birth had
^^fc^^ been the occasion for impartial scholars
making researches anew into his tumultuous life.
With their revelations at hand we must conclude
that if the Reformation was God's work, then He
choses for His ends not only the "weak and the
foolish" but the hypocrite and even the impure.
However, in the recent celebration they ventured
once more to proclaim the unfrocked friar of Erfurt
as the herald of a pure evangel and the liberator
of men from spiritual and intellectual thraldom.
Even President Harding benignly contributed an en-
comium.
Hence it is timely to reassert that the following
facts or rejoinders are based on Luther's own or on
Protestant authority:
1. As a FRIAR he was scrupulous, moody,
fractious, proud and singular; ever heading toward
apostasy.
2. As a PRIEST, of his own first Mass he
declared : "I was almost dead, for I was without
faith."
3. As he a STUDENT: he specialized in
Scripture, otherwise he was not exceptionally
learned nor brilliant. In handling philosophical and
theological problems he was without depth; all his
force sprang from passion and invective.
4. Concerning Christian ORTHODOXY, he
denied free-will to man and the efficacy of good
works. Thus alone he eliminates responsibility,
duty, guilt and repentance and undermines the
sublime system of morality established by Him Who
says: "Before man is life and death, good and evil;
that which he shall choose shall be given to him."
5. In his treatment of the BIBLE : He had no
fixed theory of inspiration, and in framing his
arbitrary canon declared he would brook no opposi-
tion from a thousand popes, from St. Paul, nor from
the angels of heaven. Where Scripture failed to
support his theories he expunged ruthlessly or dis-
torted even with levity and blasphemy. Lutherans
themselves have restored the Epistle to the
Hebrews, the Epistle of St. James and the Apo-
calypse.
6. His Scriptural STARTING-POINT: the
distortion of St. Paul, "the just man liveth by faith."
Spurred by the cravings of a libertine he interpreted
"faith" to be the assurance of salvation and claimed
that justification was imputed not imparted. From
this followed logically his theory about the harm-
lessness of sin and such advice that the best way
to confound the devil is to sin the more.
7. The DELIVERER of the BIBLE to the
people: In Germany prior to the publication of
Luther's Bible there was no fewer than thirty
editions of the entire Scriptures and parts of the
Bible appeared in the German vernacular. Long
before the Reformation every Catholic nation had
versions of the Bible in the vernacular.
8. The DISPELLER of IGNORANCE:
Germany had 40,000 elementary schools before
Luther was born and the figures of attendance at
the universities set us to wondering how many were
left in the material pursuits of life.
9. The LIBERATOR of the people: He
handed over ecclesiastical power and favors to the
princes and bound up Church with State : cuius
regio, eius religio. Against the peasants he wrote
some of his most violent invectives and even ad-
vocated their slaughter.
10. The REFORMER: All agree upon what
should be the qualifications of a reformer. Luther
made sport of Moses and the ten commandments.
He condoned impurity, claiming that none could at-
tain to continence. His own colleagues had to plead
with him to curb his passions. He was addicted to
intoxication, licentious talk and actions. The first
effects of the preaching of the "pure Gospel" was
an unparalleled orgy of viciousness among all ranks.
Fortunately his followers as well as those of his
contemporary Henry VIII, have rejected both as
examples of morality.
Yet when we contemplate these two large
Christian bodies in their decency of principle and'
practice, we must marvel at their courage in remind-
ing an intelligent world who were their founders
and in exhibiting these for admiration on their re-
curring centenaries.
In conclusion we quote the very apt words of
Mgr. O'Hare, author of Facts About Luther. "Four
hundred years have passed since Luther's Reforma-
tion scheme was given to the world and in spite
of all the attacks which the Church has had to
sustain from heresy, she and her Supreme Head
remain. The overruling arm, which in its wondrous
movements confounds the schemes of wicked men,
interfered to preserve the religion of Jesus Christ
which though so mysterious in its doctrines and so
opposed to corrupt nature in its morals, remains in
open daylight in every quarter of the world to en-
lighten and guide and lift up and heal human nature
in spite of calumny, in spite of popular out-breaks,
in spite of cruel torments, the Church on to unfold
to a wicked world the purity of her morals, the
sublimity of her mysteries, the truth of her doctrines,
and the majesty of her worship, and the hope of
eternal life with which she insDires her members."
In Our Lady's Praise
Frederic L. Kemp
0 gloriosa virginum,
Sublimis inter sidera
A paradise of bliss,
As sweet as angel's kiss,
Thy unreproving looks sweet Mother are;
An aureole of light
Doth seem to veil from sight
Thy spotless brow, and uneuphrasied stare;
While angels, veiled, thy form attend,
Less by too curious glance their Lord they should offend.
Thine eyes are lucid seas,
Whose light the demon flees,
For in their depths is mirrored his dread Lord;
Just as a shaded pool
Whose waters, sparkling cool,
A glance at heaven to the parched afford;
And fearful, too, least he should see
In their bright depths, his own most foul deformity.
Rich woofs of skeined gold
Thy peerless form enfold,
Which brightest seraphim were joyed to spin;
A silvern girdle winds
The sacred zone, and binds
Thy glittering robe with gorgeous wrinkles in;
And on thy blest and lovely brow
A changeful veil, now red as flame, now white as snow.
And all around thee cling
The perfumes angels bring
To scatter thro the air — a needless task;
Thee, God himself hath called
A paradise enwalled
In whose delights no mortal was to bask; —
What's made for God most perfect is;
And thou art filled with sweets and all those sweets are His.
Alas, all we can say
Will still be far away
From what thou art, we only too well know;
For if a mortal tongue,
Thy perfect praise had sung,
What need for us to thy own home to go, —
To see thee in thy royal state
But in song, a paradise on earth it would create.
Yet human speech in vain
If mortals still remain
As weak and sinful as they were before.
Sweet Mother, then bestow
On us the grace to grow
In love for thee and Jesus more and more;
And when the hour of death draws near
May we, confiding, thy maternal accents hear.
Archconfraternit)) of
CONFRATERNITIES are designed to
foster certain devotions. In taking up
a special devotion you pass from the
hard lines of mere duty into the
pleasanter sphere of generosity. Where
duty ends, generosity begins. With a little close
reflection most of us discover that we never rise out
of the rut of our strict obligations to God. Often
the discovery leads to confusion and confusion be-
gets an impulse and resolution that henceforth we
shall be accredited with higher motives. That
impulse, being of the heart, finds its easiest ex-
pression in devotion.
The impulse of generosity and devotion will be
strong in the measure that we apprehend goodness
and interest exercised in our behalf. This is what
makes devotion to the Passion of our Lord most
satisfying and reasonable. The Passion reveals
Christ suffering and ourselves as the objects of a
solicitude which His love implies. Hence, our Lord
defines it with a note of appeal : "Greater love than
this hath no man, that he laid down his life for
his friends." Therefore, can anything mean more
to us than the Passion and Death of the Savior?
There are few Catholics who never feel the
impulse of gratitude or the desire to show their ap-
preciation in some way to Him Who did not count
the cost of His love for us. Failure to put these
good impulses and desires into daily effect is often
due to lack of knowing how. It is the object of the
Archconfraternity of the Passion to supply an easy
and attractive plan of practical devotion. Member-
ship in it, therefore, should appeal to those who
acknowledge their immense debt of gratitude.
The Confraternity of the Passion was instituted
by St. Paul of the Cross, a most ardent lover of
the Crucified. His zeal was not satisfied with
having founded an Order of priests and brothers
to foster and spread devotion to Christ suffering,
nor yet with establishing an Order of women whose
prayers and contemplations were directed to the
same object, but he also formed sodalities of men
and women living in the world but not of the world,
the principal purpose of which would be to make
known and loved the Passion and Death of the
Redeemer.
In the year 1861 Pius IX. approved these Con-
fraternities and gave to the General of the Passion-
ists residing in Rome the power to erect Confraterni-
ties of the Passion everywhere and to grant to the
members all the indulgences and spiritual favors
which had any time been granted to the Passionists.
This approbation of the Pope soon gave to the work
of St. Paul of the Cross great increase and before
long confraternities were to be found in France,
tke Sacred P
assion
England, Ireland, Spain, and in North and South
America.
The principal of these were established at the
time of the canonization of St. Paul of the Cross,
1867, in the church of the Scala Sancta at Rome.
There are preserved, and venerated by almost every
pilgrim to Rome, the Scala Sancta, the Holy Stairs,
which our Lord ascended to be judged by Pilate.
Finally the present Holy Father, Benedict XV.,
on Feb. 26, 1918, having confirmed all the indul-
gences granted by his predecessors, and granting
extraordinary new ones, raised the Confraternity
at the Scala Sancta to the dignity of an Archcon-
fraternity of honor or of the first class. Thereby
it was empowered to communicate all its privileges
to affiliated confraternities throughout the world.
* J^ >HE RULES of the Archconfraternity of the
m C~\ Passion are so simple and definite as to
^ J involve no serious inconvenience in their
^^ faithful fulfillment.
1. As the object of the Archconfraternity is
to promote devotion towards and a grateful remem-
brance of the Passion and Death of our Lord Jesus
Christ and the Sorrows of His holy Mother, the
members keep this object in view, and pray daily
that they may know better and that others may
better know Jesus Crucified.
2. The members are formally invested with
the Black Scapular of the Most Holy Cross and
Passion. They wear this scapular constantly. (The
scapular medal, blessed by one authorized to do so,
may be used instead.)
3. Each member adds to morning and evening
prayers the Litany of the Passion or some ejacula-
tion in honor of our Lord's Passion.
4. Friday, the day especially dedicated to the
memory of the Sacred Passion, is sanctified by some
special act of devotion, as the Stations of the Cross
or reciting the Litany of the Passion.
5. When the Stations of the Cross are made
publicly in the church, the members should en-
deavor to be present.
6. As the Holy Mass is the "Memorial of the
Passion," the members should assist at it as often
as possible, mindful of the words of our Lord. "Do
this for a commemoration of Me." Luke xxii. 19.
7. Once a month the members receive Holy
Communion wearing the insignia of the Passion.
8. The members will endeavor to be present
at the monthly meeting on the fourth Sunday of
the month.
These rules do not oblige under penalty of sin.
Their faithful observance is left to the spontaneous
but steadfast good-will of the members.
Index to Worth-while Reading
OO you read for entertainment only of for mental
and spiritual improvement? What do you
select to read after scanning the contents of a
magazine, the titles on a library shelf, the pro-
digious menu of the daily paper? Do you read
only to excite your imagination or to satisfy idle curiosity?
The best that can be said for the sort of reading
catered to by lending-libraries, is that the librarians might
be more mischieviously employed. The need of relaxa-
tion might justify merely ephemerial reading, but this
only on the supposition that you have been making some
protracted mental effort.
Many are deriving neither knowledge nor edification
from their reading although there is so much to be
acquired over and above what has been learned through
compulsion in school-days. They falsely take for granted
that all instructive and edifying reading is dry and insipid,
they assume that only one faculty, the imagination, can
be the medium of entertainment or interest. They create
the demand for the perennial output of trivial fiction,
much of which is lurid and withal so prolific as to seem
the product of imagination run riot.
Habitual readers of light fiction should learn that in
serious reading there is an exhaustless source of instruc-
tive entertainment. Biography, travel, lives of the saints,
essays secular and religious, and the divers forms of
secular and religious treatises, all go to make up a rich
deposit whence you may derive true mental culture.
Such reading, if approached understandingly, will
not fail to afford genuine pleasure. It cultivates the
instinct of inquiry which in turn broadens the intellectual
outlook so that through a little self-discipline many first
sense the power attainable through the methodical exer-
cise of the brain, and come in time to acquire a whole-
some nausea for their former habit of light and useless
reading. They learn to appreciate at its full value Bishop
Spalding's saying : "Formerly there were a thousand
thoughts in one book, now there is scarcely a single
thought in a thousand books."
As an aid to our readers in the choice of their
reading matter we shall list and review on this page
every month a number of books which they will find
profitable.
THE VISIBLE CHURCH, by REV. JOHN F. SUL-
LIVAN. Pages 276. Price $1.00; postage 15c. P. J.
KENEDY & SONS.
A copy of THE VISIBLE CHURCH ough to be
found in every Catholic home, it ought particularly, to
be found among the text-books of every Catholic student.
Clearness, completeness, conciseness give this handy
compendium of Catholic teaching a unique place among
books covering the same ground. Within its 276 pages
such a wide range of subjects as the following is em-
braced: The Church's Government, the Religious State,
the Sacraments, the Sacramentals, the Ecclesiastical
Year, the Church's Books, Services and Devotions, Art
and Architecture, with a final chapter on the more im-
portant points of the Liturgy. The value of the volume
is enchanced by an ample index and a large number of
illustrations that illustrate. The price is unusually low.
TRESSIDER'S
BENZIGER BROS
Miss Clarke ha
long list of enterta
Tressider's Sister is
blems of life and
of the human heart
literary output. V
wine of her prose ;
SISTER, by ISABEL C. CLARKE.
. Net $2.25. Postage 15c.
s added yet another to her already
ining novels. What is significant in
that the author's grasp on the pro-
her insight into the devious ways
are strengthening with her versatile
olumnes have not deluted the pure
work has not weakened her vigor;
nor spoiled the freshness of her style: neither has it
paled the fire of her orginality ; nor dulled the edge of
her delicate taste. Tressider's- Sister shows the author
at her best. They who have come to admire Miss Clarke
in The Ellstones and Eunice will not be disappointed in
her latest novel.
THE ART OF INTERESTING, by F. P. DONNEL-
LY, S. J. P. J. KENNEDY & SONS. Net $1.75. Post-
age 15c.
Father Donnelly has crowned his works in rhetoric.
The Art of Interesting bridges the gulf between the
class-room and the platform. This book is addressed to
all who essay success as public speakers. That it is in
a special manner addressed to preachers will not militate
against its general usefulness. The political speaker as
well as professional lecturers will find this book of para-
mount helpfulness. The book offers no short-cut to
'silver tongued' oratory. Rather it surveys a difficult but
clearly defined road leading to undoubted success. To
change the metaphor, we might say that it prescribes a
series of oratorical setting-up exercises which, if per-
severed in will develop a capable and compelling speaker.
The reader cannot fail to discover in this book that
the secret of the interesting speech is the appeal to the'
imagination : and the convincing speaker is he who
avoids airy generalities and dull principles, and visualizes
his message in the concrete. The chapter on St. Paul
will prove of value to clerical students. Not only is it a
lesson in directness of delivery, but is likewise a help in
penetrating the meaning of the Apostle's text. In an-
other chapter we have the late Father Pardow set forth
as the 'popular' preacher who through the play of a
well disciplined imagination and reiterated appeal to the
experiences of his auditors achieved a success which
certain physical defects would have naturally precluded.
The essay on Cardinal Newman hardly fits in the scope
of this book. A chapter on the great Oratorian setting
forth such points as we know Father Donnelly would
have his readers admire and imitate in Newman's style
would have been preferable and of more practical service.
The best thing that can be said of this interesting work
is that the author, as the old-time preacher, allures to
brighter worlds, and leads the way.
BECK of BECKFORD, by M. E. FRANCIS. P. J.
KENNEDY & SONS. Pages 350. Price $2.00. Postage
15c.
THE GREENWAY. LESLIE. MOORE. P. T.
KENNEDY & SONS. Pages 304. Price $2.25. Postage
15c.
Very often we hear the complaint from Catholics
that the only readable fiction is what is popularly known
as the 'best-seller' stuff. In this judgement they are
largely influenced by glaring adds and publishers blurbs
When taxed with the objectionableness of this unwhole-
some reading they retort that there is nothing else to
read sufficiently appealing. They identify Catholic fiction
with the altogether namby-pamby and goodie-goodie.
In this they are confessing their own crass ignorance.
Amongst modern Catholic writers there are many who
could easily command a wide reading circle if they were
willing to forget religious principle and unfrock them-
selves of decency. We do not hesitate to number amongst
these, M. E. Francis, author of "Beck of Beckford,"
who deserves well of Catholic readers for whom she has
written so much and so well : and Leslie Moore, a new-
comer into the field of Catholic literature, whose latest
novel, "The Greenway," bids fair to gain for the author
a warm, and lasting place in the heart of discerning
Catholic readers.
The Eldest Devotion of the Church
Hubert Cunningham, C. P.
■^^^^HE mystery of the Passion of Jesus Christ
d C\ is all-embracing in its scope. It involves
^k J every grief, pain and sorrow, mental, moral
^^^ and physical, endured by Christ from the
first instant of His Incarnation to the last moment
of His mortal life on the Cross. The cries and tears
of the frail little Babe, the poverty and want and
loneliness of the growing Boy, the hard toilings of
the young Man, the weariness, neglect and calumny
borne by the divine Missionary during His three
years of public life — all these, as well as the scourg-
ings and the lashings, the thorns and the nails,
which were suffered by the innocent Victim, form
an integral part of the mystery of the Passion of
Jesus Christ. The Passion of Christ means the
sufferings of Christ, and
since the sufferings of
Christ run all through His
life, so the life and
Passion of our divine
Lord can be said to be
coterminous.
The Passion of Christ,
however, has received a
more definite or restricted
meaning than this: the
word Passion is applied
to the last hours of the
Savior's earthly life, and
in this narrower sense
it has been universally
accepted by the Church.
But the ill-instructed Catholic is too often dis-
posed to contract the meaning of the Passion over-
much by referring it only to Our Savior's Crucifixion
and Death. This, of course, is erroneous. The specific
term, Passion of Jesus Christ, comprises the sum-
total of the intense sorrows and brutal cruelties
which began in the Garden of Gethsemane on Holy
Thursday Night and which steadily multiplied upon
rHIS is the first of a series of articles
which will appear in future issues of
The Sign. The thoughtful reading of these
articles will beget a deeper and more intelli-
gent devotion to Christ Crucified. The
Author happily combines historical, scienti-
fic and devotional aspects of the Sacred
Passion. — The Editors.
His divine Person during the eighteen torturing
hours preceding His expiration upon the Cross.
This consecrated word — 'Passion' — was first
given to the sufferings of Jesus by the inspired pen
of St. Luke in the passage : "to the Apostles Jesus
showed himself alive after His Passion." Here the
sole meaning that can be given to the corresponding
original Greek wording is that which we have last
described. The word passion in Greek means a
great misfortune, a personal calamity, or a condition
of intense suffering; and so the dreadful calamity
which befell our blessed Savior, St. Luke calls
"His Passion." This is the way in which St. Jerome
uses the word when translating the New Testament
from Greek into Latin. Other ecclesiastical writers
followed the lead of St.
Jerome, so that the word
'Passion' in this very
determined sense came
into universal use in the
Church and was so under-
stood by the faithful.
Thus has it been uniform-
ally rendered in every
English translation of the
Scriptures. The 'Passion,'
in the Christian mind, is
always associated with
that accumulation of mis-
fortunes which suddenly
broke above the head of
the Savior and which was
the immediate cause of His death.
The Christian world does not forget that Jesus
Christ suffered, and suffered much; that, prior to
the Last Supper, He endured mental, moral and
physical pains which were keen and various; but
those eighteen hours of concentrated and diversified
torment have gripped men's minds and wrung men's
hearts as no other period of His life has done or
THE + SIGN
could do. Those final agonies stand alone, as a
thing apart, even in the life of the "Man of Sorrows,"
and they are called by the Church the "Passion of
Jesus Christ."
^^^HE Passion, as here specifically explained,
1^) won the tender pity of the human race : it
^^"^ tapped the love-spring from which has issued
that stream of Christian piety known as devotion
to the Sacred Passion. Even a superficial study
of this subject suffices to prove that devotion to the
Passion of Christ is the most ancient of all Catholic
devotions. It is the fountain-head wherein all other
devotions take their rise; it is the embodiment of
of all primitive Christian devotion and the central
point towards which all other forms of early Catholic
piety converge.
No other devotion is so deeply or so obviously
founded in Christian principle, no other is so
intimately knitted into Christian life, no other has
so radically influenced primitive Christian practice.
There is no devotion of the Catholic Church today,
or throughout her history, that is so abundantly
manifested and solidly authenticated by historical
evidences, such as Holy Scripture and Tradition,
ancient liturgies and chronicles, Christian literature
and art, crumbling monuments and archaeological
excavations, as early devotion to the Passion of
Christ. All other devotions without a single excep-
tion, whether in honor of some mystery of the
Holy Faith, or of some fact in Christ's life —
devotion to the Blessed Trinity, to the Holy Ghost,
to the Incarnation, to the Resurrection, to the Sacred
Heart, to the Joys or Sorrows of the Blessed Virgin,
to the Martyrs or other Saints — all these devotions
are of yesterday when compared with devotion to
the Sacred Passion of Jesus Christ.
Devotion to the Passion is more ancient than
devotion to the holy Mass. The very purpose of
the Mass is devotion to the Passion of Jesus Christ.
It is the memorial of the Passion. "This do," says
Christ, "for the commemoration of Me;" and St.
Paul warns the faithful, "as often as you shall eat
this bread and drink the chalice, you shall shew
the death of the Lord until He come." The Mass
is itself an act of devotion to Christ's Passion; it
is the greatest of all possible acts; it is the original
act of devotion to the Passion; it was instituted for
this very end by Jesus Christ Himself, and it stands
as the most convincing evidence that devotion to
the Passion of Christ is the earliest of all Catholic
devotions.
Read the Gospels for an intrinsic proof of this.
The four Evangelists treat those eighteen hours
of our Savior's Passion, not as a mere series of
circumstances in His Life, nor merely as a separate
group of experiences; they treat the history of the
Passion as a phase distinct and separate from all
other phases of Christ's activity. All, with one
accord, treat the Passion as the most prominent,
and the most important work in the life of the
God-Man.
To view this matter aright we must remember
that each of the Gospels is, and is intended to be,
a summary of the life of Jesus Christ more or less
detailed from His birth to His death — the narrative
of the events which made up His earthly career.
St. Matthew in writing his chronicle of the Master
devoted about one ninth of his entire work to telling
the story of those final eighteen hours of suffering.
St. Mark gives the same relative space in his Gospel
to an account of the same few hours. St. Luke and
St. John both stress with great wealth of detail the
same brief period.
QLL this is, indeed, remarkable. But more
remarkable would it grow, were we to con-
sider the four Gospels as constituting one
book, and then recall that about one tenth of the
entire work is devoted entirely to narrating the
events that transpired within the last eighteen hours
of the Savior's life. Then, surely, we are compelled
to conclude that the hearts of the biographers were
fixed upon the sufferings of that short space, that
their minds were absorbed in the contemplation of
them, and this is nothing else than to say that the
four Evangelists were filled with devotion to the
Passion of their beloved Redeemer.
On reflection a further thought occurs in this
connection. The previous life of Christ was not
void of incident. Rather, it simply bristled with the
marvellous. It was a life of wonders — wonders of
teaching and reformation, wonders of conflict and
of conquest, wonders of love and of hatred, wonders
of miracle and of blessing — wonders that have
animated the pens of thousands since that day; and
yet, these are passed over, or are noted by the
merest word, while one tenth of the divine story of
the thirty three years Christ dwelt with men is given
to the recording of what happened in just a few
hours of suffering.
This fact becomes more impressive still when
we recall that it is not a pet notion or characteristic
trait of one only of the inspired narrators. It is a
mark common to them all, although they wrote in
different places, in different tongues, and at dif-
xerent times. One Evangelist, St. Matthew, a tax
collector, wrote his life of Christ in Syro-Chaldaic
in the year 39; another, St. Mark, probably a Levite,
wrote at Rome, and in Latin, about the year 43;
a third, St. Luke, a physician, with a marked dis-
position to art, letters, and travel, composed his
work fourteen years later; while a fourth, St. John,
a fisherman and octogenarian, wrote his account
about the year 95, when his fellow Evangelists were
long since dead; yet, each biographer makes those
eigheen hours the principal topic of his history
of the Savior.
THE +SIGN
XF now we add to what has gone before the
crowning fact that these records were written
under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, that
each is the whispering of God's own voice, then we
have a cumulative argument irresistible in its con-
vincing force; an argument which teaches us with
mighty power not only that the Passion of Christ
was the first and greatest devotion of the Catholic
Church, but what is more satisfying still, it dem-
onstrates to us that by God Himself it was intended
to be so.
The effects of all this showed immediately in
the life and conduct of the early Christians. To
those holy men and women the greatest thing in all
the world was the Sacred Passion; it was every-
thing; it lived ever and always in their hearts, so
that the first Christians were the first 'Passionists,'
and the first 'Passionists' were the first Christians.
These are, in fact, convertible terms. With the
first Christians love alone drew the heart's devotion
to the Passion of Christ, drew it so strongly that
those first 'Passionists' lived, suffered and died for
Jesus Christ Crucified! "And I, if I be lifted up,
will draw all things to myself!"
St. Gabriel of the Sorrowful Virgin
'OME of our readers have anxiously in-
quired whether the life of St. Gabriel will
appear in the pages of THE SIGN. The
editors are glad to say that it is their pur-
pose to give a prominent place to the lives of the
Saints of the Passion. In particular, they will stress
the beautiful life of St. Gabriel of the Sorrowful
St. Gabriel of the Sorrowful Virgin
Virgin. They have in preparation a series of articles
which will further endear the saint to his many
clients.
It is natural that this life should appeal to
present-day Catholics, as he is a saint of our own
time. Just how close he is to us may be learned
from the fact that his own brother, Michael Possenti,
was present at his canonization and is still living.
Many of the most charming saints lose some-
thing of their attractiveness for us, because of their
having lived at times and under conditions so utterly
estranged from our own. St. Gabriel was a typical
young man of modern times, with none of that
austere contempt of the joys of life, such as we are
accustomed to associate with a saint. Rather, in
his youth he was strongly inclined to all the gaities
of life. Only the insistent calling of divine grace
could enable him to detach his heart from the world,
so bright to his eyes with the manifold vision of
pleasure, ambition, achievement which, like a dream
of Eldorado, beckoned him away from the glorious
career of sainthood to which he was called.
There is no remoteness in time or circumstance
in our thought of him to lessen our love and confi-
dence. Our nearness to him inspires a feeling of
kinship, as well as the conviction that he has special
sympathy for us in the difficulties with which we
labor in our spiritual warfare. Those bred in the
lap of luxury find in his sacrifice of great temporal
blessings, inspiration to the practice of penance
and to a life of service to God and to the neighbor.
Youths of the world carried about by every wind of
pleasure, St. Gabriel's holy example will teach how
to keep unspotted from this world. Christian
parents are reminded of the sacredness of their
calling by remembering what a powerful factor ideal
Catholic parents were in Gabriel's sanctification.
Consecrated souls are reminded once more that their
rule is the norm of Christian perfection, when they
realize that strict fidelity to rule was the instrument
of Gabriel's holiness. In fine, in whatever walk of
life we are placed, St. Gabriel teaches us that the
essence of sanctity is constant and unswerving
fidelity to duty.
Fuller Cri
nmson
John Craig
QO longer can you write a tale of love
inspired (either the tale or the love) by
the coming of the crocuses — that is, if you
wish it to be accepted for publication. If
this story were prefaced by the lines from Locksley
Hall:
In the Spring a livelier iris changes on the
burnished dove,
In the Spring a young man's fancy lightly
turns to thoughts of love,
it would be rejected by ninety-and-nine editors with
polite regrets, etc. But my Lord Alfred Tennyson
knew a thing or two — about burnished doves and
the fancy of young men. Lapwings and robins also
came within his ken :
In the Spring a fuller crimson comes upon
the robin's breast,
In the Spring the wanton lapwing gets
himself another crest.
Your circumspect editor, wary of all Spring
bards, by this time has suspected that he is about
to read another tale of Spring love. Guilty, 0
Honorable! What follows is a tale of Love. It
concerns the love of Tommy McCarthy and a girl
named but on with the story!
Outside, the night gave unmistakable evidence
of the arrival of Spring. Through the open window
from where he sat, Tommy McCarthy could hear
the intermittent drip-drip from the eaves of the
house-tops — the remnant of a month-old snowstorm
succumbing to the equinoctial zephyrs. Over the
backyard every-man's-land floated a heterogeneous
barrage of the city's noises of the night: the solici-
tous crooning of a patient young housewife over the
near-slumbering bundle, her first-born, cradled
snugly in her arms, as she rocked it to and fro;
the piquant strains of a violin which pierced the
hum of minor noises, reflecting the effort of a wilful
young virtuoso who, with commendable diligence,
repeated many times a particularly difficult bar;
as if trying to out-do each other in an attempt to
obtain the casual listener's attention, John McCor-
mack's plaintive notes vied, against formidable
odds, with Enrico Caruso's voluminous aria, which
carolled the night in all its Victrolean abandon.
No, there was no doubt of it, Spring was here!
In his hand Tommy held a picture, and gazed
at it affectionately — as lovers down the years have
been wont to do when gazing at the picture of one
beloved by them. Reminiscence took him back to
other days of his life — days when, yielding to secret
urgings, "life" had appeared to him, in its ultimate
purpose, as the pursuit of "happiness" that meant
affluence, no matter how achieved, and the attend-
ant pleasures that money could purchase. As for the
main business of life, of which he was reminded
constantly by the adjurations of his mother and
voices from the pulpit — well, that would be attended
to probably, he conjectured, though definite ways
and means were mentally pigeon-holed with other
things which Tommy vaguely intended to do. The
goal of the next ten or fifteen years would be to get
money. Thus the philosophy of Tommy at seven-
teen. And then something happened. That some-
thing came by way of a Girl.
ONE Sunday evening he met her as she was
going into old St. Mary's. He was wondering
at the time how he might "kill" the evening.
" 'Lo, Rosie," he called.
"Oh, hello Tommy," she returned.
"Goin' to church?" Inasmuch as she was at
the moment on the steps of the church he was
hastily conscious of the banality of his question.
"No," she replied gaily, her eyes twinkling.
"I was just about to step into an aeroplane for a
flying visit to Kamchatka."
"Gosh!" he cried. "You're funny." Secretly
he marveled at her knowledge of geography and
wondered where Kamchatka was.
In an instant she was contrite. "Forgive me,
Tommy," she said, a winsome smile dimpling her
cheeks. Before that smile, the Sphinx of Gizeh
might have become articulate and shouted: "For-
given!"
There's no need of describing Rose McLoughlin.
In some of her moods you've seen her in the
Madonnas of Michelangelo and Botticelli; in other
moods, her facial lineaments, sui generis, adorn the
respectable magazine covers. For six days out of
every seven, from 8 :30 to 5 :30, Rose "pounded the
keys" in the office of B. Hertzheimer & Sons,
Imported Skins, filling the somewhat exalted posi-
tion of "secretary" to no less a personage than B.
himself. Though B.'s relationship with the work-a-
day business world might be indicated by his
favorite cliche, "Yours received and contents noted,"
Rose's viewpoint of life involved more of giving
than of receiving. For her secretarial ministrations
to the head of the firm she was paid — but what's
the use of going into sociological statistics? Three-
fourths of her weekly wages went to the support of
an infirm mother. With the balance she clothed
herself, defrayed the other incidental expenses of
urban life, contributed to charity "drives", the parish
school and debt association, gave freely every week
to the church's indigent by way of the poor box,
assisted struggling missionaries in distant lands by
her prayers (and generous contributions of money,
from time to time, to the Society for the Propagation
of the Faith), and was rarely able to ignore the
THE 1* SIGN
piteous appeals of such mendicant beggars as one
meets in the thoroughfares of New York. What
was left she spent on frivolous amusements!
fUCH a girl was Rose. As you have already
surmised, beneath her shabby shirtwaist there
throbbed a heart of gold — or whatever sub-
stance composes the heart of one whose thought
is constantly of others. But let us not delay her
on the steps of St. Mary's. Even now her thought
is of Another.
"Coming in to Vespers ?" she asked of Tommy.
"Me? Guess not," he retorted.
To another person it would have been a chal-
lenge for a battle of persuasions. Not so to Rose.
All she said was, "Oh, excuse me!" But volumes
could not describe the supreme artistry of the in-
flection of her voice. In it were mobilized and uti-
zed all the gentle graces that are the prerogatives
by heritage of the daughters of Eve. Tommy
escorted her up the aisle of the church — and stayed
for Vespers.
That had been three years ago. Sitting now
by a window that looked down upon a labyrinth
of clotheslines on this evening of the springtime,
Tommy involuntarily shuddered at the thought of
the goal of his earlier 'teens. Gratitude and love
warmed his heart as he contemplated the gentle
influence that had set him on the right track of life,
and his eyes moistened wistfully as he gazed upon
the picture he held in his hand.
"It was You," he murmured, affectionately.
"Only You. I love You." And he pressed it to his
lips.
And how he had arrived at the most important
milestone on the forked highway of his life. For
tomorrow Tom and Rose, for better, for worse —
A neighborly phonograph, as if reflecting the
universal spirit of Youth in the springtime, gave
forth the noble strains of the Wedding March from
Lohengrin.
The following morning an unusually large
number of parishioners foregathered at St. Mary's,
for both Tom and Rose were parish favorites. The
sun shone down its golden benediction for their
great day. Father O'Toole, the saintly old pastor,
offered up a Mass especially for them, and at the
end of it gave each of them his blessing and
addressed to them an affectionate word of farewell.
Friends came to the railroad station to see
them off on their journey. No relatives accom-
panied Rose — her mother had died a year previous.
When the train was about to depart, Tom's mother
enfolded him in his arms.
"Good-bye, dear," she sobbed; but withal, a
radiant happiness lined her face. From her
corsage bouquet she plucked a hothouse rose and
pinned it on the lapel of his coat. "One of God's
roses for you, dear," she whispered, "as a remem-
brance from me."
There ensued such hustle and bustle as usually
accompanies the departure of friends upon a journey.
Two trains left the station simultaneously. From a
rear platform Tom waved good-bye to his friends
and threw kisses to his mother.
Thus the story ends. Youth and springtime
and love — it's an old story, but none the less beauti-
ful for its antiquity; love that means wedding bells
for some; for others —
ON the same day, as dusk was purpling the sky
over a Pennsylvania country village, a priest
and a young man were walking up a hill on
the crest of which, serene and solemn, stood a
Foreign-Mission seminary. It might have been
a twilight borrowed from Heaven. A hidden brook,
held in bondage for months by an unrelenting
Winter, now rippled a song of thanksgiving for
its release to the God of the seasons. Early
marigold and azalea and meadow saffron combined
in a conflagration of color and wafted up their
fragrance as an incense to the same God. A
lonesome whip-poor-will whistled to his mate to
join him in a vesper song to the Almighty Lord;
from his vantage perch on the topmost branch of a
burgeoning roadside elm, a bobolink trilled an
ecstatic rhapsody to its Maker; a meadowlark on a
weather-worn fence-post fluted a joyous Te Deum
before retiring for the night.
Few words, after their first affectionate greet-
ing, had been exchanged between the priest and the
youth during their walk up the hill from the little
railroad station at the foot of it. As a turn in the
winding path gave them an unobstructed view of
the western skyline they came to a halt simultane-
ously, and stood as if transfixed. The blazing glory
of the sunset held them in its spell. Finally the
youth spoke :
"It reminds one of Francis Thompson's 'flaming
monstrance of the West,' doesn't it, Father?"
"Yes, my boy," answered the priest in an ab-
stracted sort of manner. And then, as if returning
to the subject of his thoughts that had been inter-
rupted by the boy's remark : "Tell me, are you sure
you are not making a mistake in entering the priest-
hood?"
The boy dropped the traveling-bag he was
carrying. His face reflected his amazement.
"Why, — why Father! So that's what had made
you so silent on our way up from the station! Why
on earth do you ask such a question at such a time?"
The boy smiled as he said this, and in his voice was
a tor.e that betokened a long-standing friendship
with the priest.
"For two reasons, son. In the first place I
noticed, a few moments ago when you thought I
wasn't looking, that you surreptitiously took a
picture from your pocket and kissed it. And in
the second place, I've been wondering about the rose
in the lapel of your coat. I observed secretly that
THE + SIGN
you have gazed at it tenderly, as if you were caress-
ing its giver."
A youthful laugh rippled over the quiet country-
side. The boy made an obeisance to the priest. His
eyes sparkled.
"The rose, 0 Holy Inquisitor," he replied, "was
given to me by one I love most dearly. She is my
mother."
The priest faced about suddenly. He ap-
proached the boy and placed his hands on his
shoulders.
"Forgive me, Tom," he said. Then his voice
trembled. "Keep it forever," he said, touching the
flower.
The boy's hand dove into his inner coat pocket.
"Here is the picture, Father," he said, a slight feel-
ing of embarrassment crimsoning his face. "I plead
guilty."
It was a picture of the bleeding Sacred Heart
of Jesus.
"I'll keep the rose as long as I live," he said.
"And my little picture, too. Somehow, I've become
greatly attached to it. It was given to me three
years ago, one Sunday evening after Vespers, by a
girl — oh, such a girl, Father! Without ever saying
a word of reproach to me, she changed the whole
course of my thoughts and my distorted philosophy
of life; and when I got home that night I actually
wept for having caused those drops of Sacred Blood.
Rose McLoughlin was her name. Beginning to-day
it will be Sister Mary Angelica, of the Order of
St. Dominic. A wonderful girl, Father."
From the belfry of the seminary on the hill
came the music of the Angelus bell.
Behold, I Come!"
Murtagh Moore
Upon what dire catastrophe does His anxious Vision fall,
When in that hushed momentous hour His Father hears His call:
"Behold I Come ! — none other may — Thy" Will, O God, to do,
"In form of Man, \\>ith Body1 joined!" What sorrow meets His v"eiw?
There are Wanderers in the Vale of Death where dismal shadows fall;
All wilfully* had they entered mid the beetling barriers' thrall:
No rift of blue abov*e them that might presage hope to come,
Mo shepherd there to rally them and lead them gladly home.
There are prisoners held securely mid dark, impervious walls,
Where through the narrow casement a single sunbeam falls:
A lane to glory forfeited: it mocks the drooping eye,
While a winged songster overheard marks summer passing by.
There are rebels lying bounded — their old defiance spent, —
The flaming sword relentless beckons them to banishment:
Of all the splendid sons of God, moved with pity at their woe;
None may a fitting ransom bring, or snatch them from the foe.
But what if He the task had shunn'd in that momentous hour,
Or with the chalice at His Lips in the shade of olive bower
Had paused and let the sw"ord descend — had uttered not the plea:
"Thy" will be done: Behold I come: Mine be the penalty!"
Retreats and the La}? Apostolate
Edward W. Joyci
m
EN often speculate concerning the probable
feelings of a being from a distant planet
if he were suddenly to find himself set
upon this earth. They delight in picturing
his surprise at the mechanical marvels of our age,
at our ingenious means of communication and trans-
portation. Beyond a doubt he would find himself
bewildered at the complexity of our vast industrial
system and would stand aghast at the height of our
gigantic office buildings. Yet, withal, one who stops
to survey the present condition of life here may
pause to think of the disdain with which such a
visitor might contemplate the world.
From no matter what part of the universe he
Built over the palace of the
saints for whom it is named and
who were martyred in the fourth
century. Motherhouse of the Pas-
sionist Order. Probably the oldest
retreat house for priests and
laymen in the world.
and the purpose of their bestowal, and that God
counts for but little in his calculations. In other
words man's efforts have perverted the natural God-
made order and instead of attaining the bliss of an
earthly paradise we have fashioned a terrestrial
limbo.
For years nations looked with covetous eyes
upon their neighbors' possessions. With studious
care they bred hatred in the hearts of their children.
Carefully they turned every advancement of science
into means for the destruction of life and property.
And lo! the world awoke to the clamor of war
and stood aghast to see its very life blood course
in torrents from a million wounds. For decades
.MONASTERY AND 15 At
JOHN AND PALL, ROME
might come he must have observed that order is
the first law of all creation. By the exercise of
ordinary intelligence he must easily have deduced
that, as lower forms of inanimate and animate
nature serve those that are higher, so should the
things of earth serve man that he might in turn
better serve his Creator. It is therefore not only
possible, but most certain, that such a being as we
here conjure up should look upon our earth as a
very sorry habitation and man as a creature deserv-
ing only of pity, if not contempt.
For, is it not true, that instead of obeying the
laws of nature we are in open revolt against them;
that instead of maintaining order we have regressed
almost to a condition of chaos? Instead of com-
manding and utilizing the free gifts of nature's
bounty has it not come to the point where man is
becoming more and more a slave of his own handi-
work? And with such developments it is becoming
more evident that man, blinded with worldly satis-
factions, is forgetting the source of his blessings
agitators played upon the passions of avarice and
injustice that lurk in every heart and we find Capital
and Labor at each others throats. For generations
men preached class hatred, the "rights" of the pro-
letariat, the evils of property.
And again, we were roused to the horrors of
Bolshevism in Soviet Russia. For four centuries
false Christs and false prophets have preached that
man needs bow to no authority beyond his own will,
that marriage is not a sacrament, but a mere civil
contract, that one's own conscience, however per-
verse, should be his sole guide and we find only
what we should expect; viz, that the world is over-
run by the bastard brood of murders, divorce, birth
control, mob rule, atheistic schools, juvenile delin-
quency, rampant selfishness and corruption in high
places and in low. Yet when a nation becomes
riven and nearly paralyzed by class warfare; when
regard for the sanctity of human life no longer
prevents the wholesale destruction of God's master-
piece, when strong nations oppress weak and stop
THE + SIGN
at nothing in their lust for gain, when a world-
encircling war threatens the very existence of
human institutions and civilization itself totters,
men curse God and ask — "What's wrong with the
world?"
^tt^HAT'S wrong with the world? I answer,
V I / nothing. It is only what man has made it.
^*>^ Then whence come our troubles? We apply
the laws of science to matter and the result is always
the same. But it makes no difference what laws
we formulate and apply to human relations, they
always fail. We have painstakingly studied every
phase of economics, sociology and politics and have
carefully put their teachings into practice, yet we
the soul of man is infested with a poisonous virus
and until the poison is expelled no cure can be
effected. Virtue cannot be legislated into man as
medicine is administered. It is of its very nature
interior and must arise from the well-springs of a
pure soul.
^^^HE greatest need of society today is, therefore,
I) some means of reconstituting man, of exorcis-
^*"^ ing worldliness and selfishness from his heart,
of raising his thoughts and purposes to a new and
higher plane and purifying his soul. Eminent
leaders in all walks of life admit this fact but there
they stop. They name the cure but fail to produce
it in concrete form. Still, a remedy for present
Retreat Move-
ment started Febru-
ary, 1911. Since
then 247 retreats
have been given.
Average attendance
27. In all over
10,000 men of all
ranks of society have
made retreats.. The
Laymen s Guild has
4.000 members. Its
success is largely
due to the personal
co-operation of Card.
O'Connell.
ST. GABRIEL'S MONASTERY. ROSTON. MA.'
are as far as ever from the goal of human happiness.
Is it not time that we tried a different course?
Like the wanderer who failed to see the forest
because of the trees we have been so occupied with
the problems of men that we have failed to compre-
hend man! B'or too long have we been engaged
with the superstructure of life. Is it not meet that
we should inspect its foundations to make sure that
every stone is strong and true and in its proper
place? In short let us start at the beginning and
consider, not men in the aggregate, but man the
individual.
The root of our^troubles lies, not with society
as a whole but with the men who constitute society.
It were folly to suppose that society can be any
better than its component members. And bitter
experience has proved that man cannot be put into
a test tube and his actions foretold, as with a com-
bination of chemicals, because man has a will that
is free to follow its own choosing. In a word, then,
conditions must exist. In fact it does exist and has
always existed. The means of society's salvation
abides in the lay-men's retreat houses throughout
the world.
A retreat, by reforming a man, accomplishes
the work most essential to social welfare. No other
means is so effective. No device of idealistic
reformers can possibly be so certain of success.
The retreat begins social regeneration at the only
logical starting-point because, by purifying the soul
and properly directing the will of man, the social
unit, it lays deep and strong the foundations of
human society of which he is a member. It is not
only impossible for any other agency to achieve
such a result so easily and quickly, but it is also
true that no ether cure is so lasting.
To one who has never made a retreat of three
or more days in a Passionist Monastery or other
retreat house the above statements may seem
exaggerated. Those who have experienced the
THE 1* SIGN
sublime transformation that occurs during the time
of a retreat, however, will certainly agree with my
conclusions. For there is no experience in the life
of the average layman to compare with that of
making a retreat. To attempt to describe the spirit-
ual change undergone during a retreat is to call upon
language to do the impossible.
Can one describe color to a person born blind?
Or the beauties of Dante to an illiterate? Just so
is it most difficult to convey an adequate conception
of the hidden glories of our faith that gush forth
in radiant splendor upon the vision as the retreat
director, with meticulous care, like a skilful surgeon,
lays open to view the innermost recesses of one's
soul. In periods of meditation what celestial tor-
upon him with convincing clarity he has never
before known. At the foot of the cross he reads
through his tears of remorse the infinite wickedness
of sin. In contemplation of the glorious Resurrec-
tion he learns the endless reward of a life well spent.
iy^ITH sadness for his past misdeeds, yet filled
Til with joyous gratitude that God has spared
him to make this retreat, he kneels at the feet
of Christ's representative in the tribunal of penance.
From a heart sick with sin, but now resolved as
never before to spend the remainder of his life in
the only way worth while — in God's service — he
pours forth the age-old story of human weaknesses ;
and arises, free from sin, God's friend once more.
Headquarters
of the Lay-
men's Retreat
Movement i n
the . Western
Province. Thus
far retreats for
laymen have
not been so fre-
quent in the
Middle West as
in the East. It
is . confidently
expected that
in a short time
the Movement
will make great
progress.
PASSIONIST MONASTERY WITH PROPOSED MONASTIC CHURCH. CI
rents of grace flood one's innermost being till his
soul-thirst is appeased and his cups runneth over!
Yes, and, under skilful guidance, what putrid sores
of sin reveal themselves in the unfathomed depths
of one's soul to which he may have long denied the
sunlight of sanctifying grace which alone can cleanse
and purify it!
For three days or more he lives in the cloistered
quiet of the monastery, inspired by the edifying
example of the priests and students with whom he
dwells. During silence-periods, in the solitude of
his room, he meditates upon the lessons so calmly
yet effectively developed during conferences in the
beautiful choir chapel. Away from the turmoil and
strife of shop and factory and office, he has time
for reflection upon the true value of life. In the
scales of calm reason he weighs pleasure against
virtue, heaven against hell, time against eternity.
The shortness of life, the folly of worldliness, dawn
At holy Mass he receives into his bosom the Great
Physician who pours into his soul the oil of mercy
and the wine that maketh virgins and binds up his
spiritual wounds as only God knows how. As the
retreat ends he receives the Papal Blessing which
obliterates completely in God's sight all temporal
punishment due for his past offences. He is once
more as he was in the days of his spotless infancy :
and his heart sings within him for he is filled with
the "peace that surpasseth all understanding." And,
with pure heart and a will so firmly steeled as to
make him stronger than a thousand men, he goes
forth again to meet the temptations of daily life,
equipped now to battle manfully with "the world,
the flesh and the devil."
Yes, he returns to the same world, but a far
different man. Into his house he brings love,
patience, forbearance. To his trade or profession
he carries honesty and justice into all his dealings.
THE 1* SIGN
Among his companions he is marked for his clean
tongue and his devotion to truth. In his parish he
becomes an indefatigable aid to his pastor in the
furtherance of all good works. If he be in public
life, there too does his faith shine forth as a beacon
light and he proves himself by fidelity to his trust.
To all with whom he comes in contact he becomes
a living example that gives the lie to those who
scoff at religion and scandalize others by the folly
of their ways.
350,000 did so in only ten years. The sublime faith
of the Breton peasant, so beautifully immortalized
by Pasteur, is due largely to the retreats they have
regularly made for the past 250 years. Especially
worthy of note is the case of Buenos Ayres where,
after five years it is recorded that "the whole
character of the people had changed." Mark well
that fact, for it proves the truth of my thesis that
in the retreat movement lies the perfect solution
of our social problems.
GROUP OF RETREANTS AT HOLY CROSS PREPARATORY COLLEGE. DUNKIRK. N. Y.
Beautifully located on the shore of Lake Erie, this college is an ideal place
for a few days retirement. Retreats were inaugurated here during the Summer.
One was given every week with an average attendance of twenty retreatants.
XS such a work worth while? "By their fruits
you shall know them." By the results
achieved is the retreat movement willing to
be judged. Retreats are not a novelty but, on the
contrary, they have existed in the Church from the
earliest days when hermits withdrew into the desert
for contemplation up to now when popular retreats
are organized on a large scale. During the life time
of St. Vincent de Paul 20,000 men made retreats
at St. Lazzare in France. Later the movement
spread to every civilized quarter of the globe. In
the city of Buenos Ayres alone 30,000 people made
retreats in the space of five years, while in Chili
Without resorting to base pessimism, it is true
that no thinking man can look complacently upon
present-day conditions. Half the world is starving
or in revolution. Our own beloved country is torn
with dissention of a dozen hues. Social unrest has
become almost a peril. An alarming increase in the
number of divorces, accompanied by a frightful
diminution in the birth-rate in many quarters, attest
to the prevalence of human depravity. Sixty mil-
lions of our people care so little for God and religion
that they do not so much as trouble themselves to
declare theii adherence to any church whatsoever.
And hand in hand with such indifferentism
THE 1* SIGN
stalks the grim spectre that history has recorded
oft before — open hostility to the Church. We see it
in proposed legislation to close the parochial schools,
as in Michigan; in the Sterling-Towner bill for
federal control of schools, in the fanatical statements
of some who would use the eighteenth amendment
to prevent the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass. As a
matter of fact if ever we have a Congress containing
a sufficient number of men hostile or indifferent to
our rights as Catholic citizens they may by a single
ballot so change the prohibition enforcement law as
to ban the Mass. The growing frequency of race
riots, murders and lynchings, in the North and East
as well as in the South and West bear shameful
witness to the lowered tone of popular morality.
men of good will, — that is the pressing need."
The lay apostolate! That should be our watch
word! We should strive for the creation of a
large body of men, militant Catholics, firm in their
faith, unswerving in their adherence to the right and
prepared at all times to raise their voice in its
defence.. Give to the world a sufficient number of
lay apostles, ready and able to meet and overcome
the monster of injustice and evil whether it be in
the halls of state, the councils of business, the
forums of labor or the family circle, and you will
overcome radicalism, purify the stage, the cinema
and the press, allay unrest and renew the face of
the earth. He who participates in this movement
furthers a two-fold result; his own sanctificatinn and
Was dedicated last November.
Especially designed to meet the con-
veniences of the retreatants. Will
accomodate 40. Retreats are given
every month with an average atten-
dance of 20. Plans are pending for
organization of Retreat Guild.
RETREAT HOUSE ATTACHED TO ST. PAUL'S MONASTERY,
XT is time we took definite organized steps for
the rescue of our land from the sinister blight
that overshadows it. The call is for lay
apostles, not merely educated men, — that title has
become a dangerous mis-nomer — but retreat-
trained men! Today we need Knights of the Faith
tried in the fires of discipline, drilled in the school
of penance and imbued with the ardor of Crusaders.
We need men of every age and class, trade and pro-
fession, able to stand their ground in the defence of
truth, justice and morality, yea ready to invade
the temple of Moloch and scatter the sybaritic hosts
that threaten to undermine the fortress of civilization
itself. The enemy is within our very gates and
naught but those clean of heart and strong in faith
can expel him.
To quote Rev. Fr. Archambault S. J. "An elite
alone can save us. To form a nucleus of Christians
tempered to resist the assaults of the foe, impreg-
nated with the apostolic spirit, ready to waive their
personal interests, to penetrate the masses, to
strengthen the faith that totters, to rally the scattered
the salvation of society and of our beloved country
from the slough of decadance into which we are
fast slipping.
^^^HE issue is plain! The means are at hand!
t J Naught remains but the necessary support.
To us comes the challenge! This work is
ours; and we laymen must see it through. ..We stand
at a crucial point in history at a time when a few
lay apostles like the three hundred Spartans in the
pass at Thermopylae can, and must, roll back the
ten thousand who rush to the assult. In the retreat
movement and retreat-trained men lies the hope of
America, if not of the world. We must do all in
our power to strengthen and spread retreats for
laymen lest it be said that in the hour of peril we
were recreant to the interests of the Church and
America. And no man can fortell what a blessed
reward awaits those by whose interest in this work
thousands of souls shall be saved to enjoy eternity
with Him who set the divine example of self-
sacrifice which is the ideal of the lay-apostle.
The White Rose of Lucca
The Stor? of Gemma Galgani
MATTHEW KUEBEL
2 — Life at School and Home
^-p-^HEN Signora Galgani died, the children
■ I ■ were sent to ^ve> ^or a while, with their
\ I / relatives, the Landis. The sojourn away
v**>^ from home did little to assuage Gemma's
sorrow. The circumstances of her stay with her
Aunt Helen only accentuated her sense of loss.
Helen Landi, though a devout woman, was not to
be compared with Signora Galgani for spiritual
culture. Now, there was no one to take Gemma to
daily Mass; or to visit the Blessed Sacrament; no
one to take her every week to confession, of which
she felt great need : no one to speak to her of Jesus
as her mother used to do.
These privations were a real suffering to the
holy child. "Then, indeed," she tells us, "I had
to weep for the time when my mamma let me pray
so much." Helen Landi did not dream that her
beloved niece was suffering. She had hoped, and
even tried, to keep Gemma with her. But this was
not to be. Gino, the only one at home with his
father, wanted Gemma back, and so did Signor
Galgani. Besides, he experienced some anxiety
about the education of his children, so that Gemma'
with her brothers and sisters arrived home at Christ-
mas 1886.
Soon after, Gemma was sent as a day pupil to
the Guerra Institute in Lucca. This establishment,
named for its foundress, Mother Guerra, was con-
ducted by the Sisters of St. Zita, who were in high
repute as teachers, in the city. This arrangement
filled Gemma with joy. She knew that under the
guidance of teachers consecrated to God she would
have ample opportunities to indulge her childish
pieties.
We know from her own words that she was not
disappointed. Later in life she affirmed that the
Sisters' school had been a paradise. The Sisters
on their part were very favorably impressed by their
new pupil. They were struck by her seriousness,
her modesty, and the candor of soul that radiated
from her person and beamed from her big eyes.
One of the Sisters said to her: "Gemma, Gemma,
if I did not read you through your eyes, I should not
know you."
She was not long at the convent before she
asked for something that was very dear to her heart
— to make her First Communion. She had cherished
a great love for Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament,
the effect, no doubt, of her mother's zealous words
about the sweetness and majesty of the Hidden God,
and the ardent faith she displayed when receiving
Holy Communion. But Gemma's request was not
taken seriously by the good Sisters. She was still
very young — only nine years of age — and custom
was against her.
(TILL she pleaded: "Give me Jesus, and you
will see how good I shall be. I shall be
quite changed. Give Him to me. I so long
for Him, and I cannot live without Him." At last
the chaplain, the Right Rev. John Volpi, gave in to
her repeated entreaties. "If we do not want our
Gemma to die of longing," he told her father, "we
must allow her to go to Holy Communion."
Gemma's happiness when this decision was
made cannot be described. She obtained her
father's leave to stay at the convent while she pre-
pared for her First Communion. She arose very
early the next morning, and, on entering the convent,
ran at once to the chapel to thank our Lord for His
latest kindness.
Then an immense desire welled up in the heart
of the sweet child, to know all about Jesus. At her
request, when the other children had retired, her
mistress would tell her stories from the life of the
Savior. When the good nun would come to the
sufferings of Jesus — His agony, scourging, crowning
with thorns, and crucifixion — Gemma would feel
such acute pain that she would not be able to leave
her bed the next day.
The lessons on the Sacred Passion were dis-
continued; but Gemma made up for this by listening
with absorbed attention to the instructions given by
the chaplain to the first communicants. She was
particularly struck by these words : "Whoever feeds
on Jesus, will live of His life." Then she reasoned
thus with herself: "When Jesus comes to me,
Jesus will live in me." And her heart became all
on fire with longing to have our Lord as the guest
of her soul.
Although Gemma had always been an angel of
innocence, the trifling faults she had committed
awakened in her the desire of purifying herself
of every stain. Young as she was, she made a
general confession, and was not satisfied until she
had returned to her confessor three times.
She made her First Communion June 17, 1887.
The sentiments she experienced on that memorable
day, she herself has left on record. "At last Sunday
came! I arose early and hastened to the church,
HE 1* SIGN
<5
and there received my Lord for the first time. All
my longing was satisfied; now I understood the
promise : 'He that eateth Me, the same shall live
by Me.' Father, I cannot explain what took place
between me and Jesus at that moment; but He
revealed Himself to my wretched soul. I felt that
the delights of heaven are not like those of earth.
I was seized with
the desire of abid-
ing forever in this
union with my
God. I felt my-
self more than
ever detached
from the world
and recollected in
God."
J^HO UGH
I) only a child
^*"^ at this time,
Gemma made use
of the grace of
her First Com-
munion for the
practical acquisi-
tion of virtue.
During her pre-
paratory retreat,
she wrote down
several resolu-
tions — no doubt,
at the suggestion
of the Sisters. In
a brief numerical
list, she recorded
her determination
to go to confes-
sion and receive
Holy Communion
every time, as if
it were to be the
last; to visit often
the Blessed Sacra-
ment; to prepare
for the feasts of
the Blessed
Mother by some
little act of pen-
ance; and every evening before retiring to ask her
heavenly Mother's blessing; to keep herself always
in God's presence; and to repeat an ejaculation
several times at every stroke of the clock.
Her list would have been much longer had not
her mistress come to her while she was writing and
told her not to add anything more. The Sister must
have been aware that the child's character was so
developed and was of such strength that whatever
she made up her mind to do, she would carry out
even at the cost of her health.
The impression which her First Communion
GEMMA GALGAN]
made on Gemma was deep and lasting. Listen to
her words fourteen years later: "Father, where are
my thoughts taking me? To my beautiful First
Communion Day. Yesterday, feast of the Sacred
Heart, I felt again the joy of that happy day. Again
I tasted paradise Truly the day of my
First Communion was the day on which I found
my heart burning
with the love of
Jesus."
After this
event Gemma
returned to the
convent routine
with her usual
diligence and
exactness. Before
long her winsome
disposition made
her a universal
favorite. There
was a sweet at-
tractiveness about
this lovely child
that was quite
irresistable.
Though the
youngest in the
school, she was
looked up to by
her companions
who could not
help but be
pressed by
dignity of
manner.
This is
the more remark-
able, because
there was about
her a certain re-
serve, emphasized
by a curtness in
speech, that to
some seemed to
indicate rudeness
and even pride.
To one such who
had upbraided
her, she answered smilingly and with unaffected
modesty: "What could pride have to do in the
matter? I am not thinking of it. I don't answer,
because I don't know what to say. I don't know
whether I should answer rightly or wrongly, so I
remain silent. There is an end to it."
XT was quite generally recognized, however,
that Gemma was of a vivacious temperament
and that she was readily capable of being a
mad-cap, had she not at all times held her boisterous
inclinations in check. The reserve, so apparent in
1m-
the
her
all
14
her, was the effect of a fixed determination to
acquire self-mastery.
How well she succeeded, we know from her
teachers who declared she never answered back,
never pouted or grew ill-tempered. When on occa-
sion she happened to be scolded for some childish
fault, she would listen silently, and would after-
wards say: "Don't be angry; don't let it trouble
you. You will see I'll be good, and won't do it
again."
The charge of dullness never disturbed her.
It is a matter of fact that she was more than
ordinarily intelligent. She proved this rather con-
vincingly on one occasion when a physician, who
was attending her, brusquely rebuked what he
thought to be excessive modesty, and undertook to
lecture her in worldly wisdom and common sense.
Her retort was so apt and incisive that he was
utterly abashed. Her spiritual director, in later
years, the learned Father Germanus, tells us that
he often purposely put her mental ability to the
test, and was always amazed at the unfailing quick-
ness and correctness of her replies.
e EMMA'S love for the Sacred Passion— all her
life the predominant trait of her holiness —
was the vehicle through which her high
mental gifts became known. Often did she beg her
teachers to tell her about the sufferings of Christ.
This coveted favor was granted her only when she
stood at the head of her class. No effort was too
great for her to make in order that she might claim
her reward. This was the reason why she always
carried off the highest prizes at the graduation
exercises.
At the end of one school term she was awarded
the gold medal in christian doctrine. Only when
inspired by a religious motive did she display her
gifts. Consequently it was very difficult to persuade
her to take part in the annual exhibitions by sub-
mitting to the view of the public specimens of her
work in Italian and French.
The first impression gained of this young school
girl was a conviction of her unusual piety, a con-
viction which deepened on continued acquaintance.
It was a matter of common remark among her
teachers that she evinced most seriousness during
the catechism classes.
It was likewise observed by them that this
exemplary pupil practiced daily examination of
conscience, meditation, and spiritual reading; but
the amount of time she devoted to these several
pious exercises, especially to meditation, their
interested curiosity could never discover.
Our Lord's Passion was the favorite, and almost
constant, topic of her thoughts. Sister Camilla, a
religious of tried virtue, was among the first to
guide her in the knowledge of Christ Crucified. For
a time it fell to her to give to Gemma her lessons
on the Passion — the merited reward of her diligence.
On such occasions her pupil manifested the greatest
THE t SIGN
sympathy for the sufferings of Jesus. "How often,"
she tells us, "did we not weep together during these
informal lessons."
As a result of these lessons, Gemma was
inspired to practice severe penance. She even went
so far as to fashion instruments of penance for her-
self, but her superiors prudently forbade the use of
them. To compensate for this privation she began
a rigid mortification of her senses, which in the end,
became a veritable crucifixion, and prepared her
for the grace of being numbered amongst those who
have most closely resembled the Man of Sorrows.
Upon the death of Sister Camilla, Sister Julia
Sestini succeeded the former as Gemma's mistress.
This good woman instilled her own great love of
prayer into the heart of her saintly charge. "It was
owing to her instruction." Gemma once said, "that
I, too, resolved to devote much time to prayer."
XT was at this time that she began her practice
of reciting daily the fifteen decades of the
rosary, and of rising several times every night
to reflect on the Passion. Besides these voluntary
penances, she was subjected to others which are the
common portion of all saintly souls. These trials
served only to strengthen her virtue and to urge her
on to greater efforts. With the consent of her con-
fessor, she received Holy Communion more fre-
quently; first, thrice a week, and then, daily. She
sought, whenever possible, to be alone and at prayer.
She dressed with the utmost simplicity, and seemed
to be wholly indifferent to the gaieties which make
such a strong appeal to those of her age.
The pronounced opposition of her family to her
singularity in dress added materially to her suffer-
ings. They did not see why she did not dress like
her sisters; and why she should not join in their
ordinary pastimes. Her studied retirement was not
due to excessive bashfulness, or to the lack of per-
sonal charm. Her photograph attests her excep-
tional beauty; and we know, from the testimony of
persons still living, that she would have adorned any
society.
Gemma was soon to be freed from these painful
difficulties by the death of her grandfather and of
her uncle Maurice. After this, her aunts came to
live with the Galganis; and their coming marked a
change in the family's attitude towards her. Hence-
forth she was at liberty to follow her own manner
of life. It was not long, however, before she was
burdened with another heavy cross. Her brother
Gino, to whom she was devotedly attached, was
wasting away with consumption. This deeply
affected the sensitive girl. Nevertheless she_ bravely
took upon herself the whole burden of nursing him,
reckoning the danger of contagion as nothing. Her
untiring solicitude was comparable only to the tender
devotion of a mother. She was inconsolable when
the end came.
Sorrow added to a physical weakness, brought
THE + SIGN
«5
on by long watchings in the sick room, undermined
her health, so that she was confined to her bed for
three months, and on several occasions was at the
point of death. On her recovery, it was thought
necessary that she should leave school. She was
now in her sixteenth year.
aFTER leaving school, Gemma devoted herself
with great earnestness to home affairs. She
was most exact in everything, and this was a
source of great edification to all. Her good example
was often spoken of with admiration not only during
her life but for many years after her death. One
Peter Maggi, a servant, particularly enthusiastic in
his admiration for the young mistress, said that
Gemma "stood alone and there was no one like her."
She had great love for the poor, and when
she became the head of the house had abundant
opportunities to exercise this love in a practical
way. She gave them everything she could lay her
hands on — money, provisions, and even the house
linens. Being forbidden by her confessor to do
this, she grieved much that she was unable to help
those needy ones whom she was sure to meet when
leaving the house; on returning home she often
wept. She resolved not to go out any more.
Her daily routine was always much the same.
She rose early for morning prayers and then went
to church for Mass and Communion; she visited
daily the Blessed Sacrament, and in the evening
spent some time in meditation, and concluded her
devotions with the rosary. She arose several times
during the night for about a quarter of an hour to
recommend the needs of her soul to Jesus. We
know from her own words that at this time she began
to receive direct communications from heaven. But
while always engrossed with spiritual things, she
never neglected her household duties.
It was the will of God to detach more and more
this saintly girl from earthly things, and Gemma
always corresponded with the divine will. A gift
of a gold watch and chain was the occasion on which
God made a special manifestation of His will. To
show her appreciation to the aunt who gave her the
present, Gemma wore the beautiful ornaments as
she went for a walk. On her return her guardian
angel appeared and reproved her: "The precious
ornaments that adorn the spouse of a Crucified King
cannot be other than the thorns and the cross." At
once Gemma discarded the watch and chain and
also a valuable ring which she had been accustomed
to wear. She made a determined resolution never
even to speak of anything savoring of vanity. This
apparition of the angel is the first recorded in her
life. It was the beginning of a long series of
supernatural visitations.
(To be continued)
The Sign
Anthony F. Klinkner
What Mother Mary saw
In Jesus infant eyes,
So Wondrous and so fair, —
Caused sorrow's sword
To pierce her loving heart, —
The shadow of the Cross was there !
/^\ROOF of one's having attended the Sunday
K^ services is the ability to repeat the substance,
or at least the text, of the sermon. Such
facility, however, is not proof that one has assisted
at the services with interest, understanding or
spiritual profit. It will stimulate attention in
children if parents regularly inquire of them what
the sermon or instruction was about. On a certain
occasion an old-fashioned parson preached on the
text: "An angel came down from heaven and drew
a live coal from the altar." In the audience was a
boy who himself became the most sensational
preacher of his day. The service over, his old-
fashioned parents asked him to repeat the text.
Thus did he render it: "An Injun came down from
New Haven and drew a live colt from the halter!"
Current Fact and Comment
WOULD YOU PUT IT IN WRITING?
OFFICE-SEEKERS are notoriously unscrupu-
lous in the matter of detraction. They find it
to their purpose to make out strong cases
against their competitors. Assistant Postmaster,
Hubert Work, has a buffer job of listening to appli-
cants for postmasterships from all over the country.
He has an effective method. The applicant, having
concluded his appeal with a conscienceless descrip-
tion of his rivals' delinquencies, is told: "That is
fine. It ought to be sufficient ground for action.
Now, you put in writing all you have said to me,
that I may have the record straight." Invariably
the applicant departs, vaguely wondering how he
becomes the victim of such ingenuousness.
How many things we say about the absent
neighbor that we dare not say in his presence, and
that we would not commit to writing over our plain,
bold signature!
"SAVE THE SURFACE AND YOU SAVE ALL'
^^-/HE above is a caption with which the
f) ubiquitous signboard has made us all familiar.
With manufacturers of paint it has long since
become a highly successful and remunerative com-
mercial slogan. This motto, however, is not confined
to the paintshop; it has a far wider territory. It
expresses very aptly the principle on which is built
up the moral conduct of many people. Not infre-
quently we meet persons willing to cast aside a solid,
substantial oak or mahogany table for a brightly
polished cheap veneer counterfeit of the same. It
is the looks that count. So, too, respectability,
culture, refinement become for many the substitutes
for solid virtue; they become the shoddy cloaks for
every manner of rottenness and sin. We Catholics
must remember that God demands something more
of us than mere external appearances. In the eyes
of God there is no such thing as camouflage. He
requires of us holiness. We do not save all when
we save the surface. Without holiness, which alone
makes us pleasing to God, all education, culture and
refinement are as "the driven snow that covers the
dunghill."
AN INJUDICIOUS JUDGMENT
Y^\ECENTLY, a decision handed down by the
l^r Chief Justice of Pennsylvania stops state
■*~^J aid to all charities conducted under religious
auspices. Sympathy is widely extended to the
institutions which are to suffer hardships through
this withdrawal of financial help. At the same
time the incident draws attention to the efficiency
of these institutions and to the fact that they
lessen substantially the burden of taxation. The
public is reminded that in their midst are homes,
refuges, hospitals, affording shelter, comfort, expert
aid, unselfish service : that it would be con-
stantly harrowed by the sight of acute distress if
these refuges were not so prompt to conceal distress
from public view.
It is well known that state institutions are
usually run at extravagant waste of public funds
without proportionate results. It is also well known
that in the sphere of charitable endeavor the best
results are attained by those who give their lives
and efforts to the service of the Master. Only the
other day the attention of the public was drawn to
waste, the inefficiency, the vice rampant in a Federal
home for disabled soldiers in Tennessee.
THE AMERICAN— CANADIAN PEACE ARCH
B PEACE ARCH has been completed over the
Canadian border, linking the State of Wash-
ington with the Province of British Columbia.
It will be dedicated this month. It commemorates
over a century of peace between two nations whose
competitive interests often brought about strained
relations just as grave in their import as the alleged
causes for precipitating the World War. This Arch
calls to mind that other pledge of lasting peace and
friendship which surmounts the loftiest pinnacle of
the mountainous border between Argentina and
Chile. It is a colossal statue of our Lord, called
"The Christ of the Andes."
To this the Peace Arch ranks second in impres-
siveness. Impressive, indeed, is the benign figure
of Christ set up by two Catholic nations. It is a
witness to their conviction that a lasting peace
must be founded on something better than an entente
or a commercial treaty. The Peace Arch gains its
impressiveness not only because it commemorates
a peace, but a peace maintained through conciliatory
methods. Modern victors are learning that you
cannot lick an opponent into helplessness and then
expect him to serve you in reparation — are learning
in how many subtle ways self-interested peace terms
are hurting the dictator of them.
THE t SIGN
THE MATERNITY BILL AND THE CATHOLIC MOTHER
BS an inducement to married women to bear
children there has been introduced into Con-
gress a bill known as the Maternity Bill
which, if passed, will afford government aid to
mothers in straightened circumstances in providing
for their children. If this Bill will help some
married women to live up to the dictates of their
consciences, it might possibly accomplish something
for decency and the State. Catholic women will
not need any such inducement.
The old-fashioned Catholic mothers are passing
but they are not all gone. We remember the calico
wrapper and the starched white apron which was
donned when baby was taken for a walk with the
other three or four little tots, one scarcely bigger
than the other. In those days Faith shone as with
a burning light. Every morning and evening its
warm rays were trained upon the innocent hearts
of the children as they were told of Jesus and Mary.
Then, the mother prayed (and the father, too) that
the day might come, when a son would stand at the
altar of God.
The calico dress and the starched apron are
gone : but we still have Catholic mothers, clothed
in smarter frocks, whose lives are an inspiration.
They are blessed before God, a credit to the Church
and the glory of their sex. They are also a reproach
and a judgment to the married women who forfeit
the privilege and happiness of motherhood for the
sake of sinful self-indulgence. Then, too, these
mothers give their quota to God even at the cost of
much pain and sacrifice. Gladly, yea cheerfully, is
the oldest boy given to minister at the altar; and
the capable daughter, often the main support of the
home, is bidden Godspeed when she makes known
her desire to enter the convent.
God bless our Catholic mothers. May their
number increase till the good odor of Jesus Christ
is diffused throughout the world!
IRELAND— "THE TEST OF AMERICANISM"
XN a splendid speech before the Senate — a
speech as convincing as it was eloquent —
Senator LaFollette characterized the Irish
Cause as "the Test of Americanism."
So much untruth has ben printed about the
Irish fight for independence; so many facts have
been deliberately distorted; so much 'news' has been
adroitly colored, that many Americans, having drunk
from the poisoned wells, are inoculated with a
deadly anti-Irish virus.
Among these are some Catholics with Irish
blood in their veins. They are so squeemish about
their 'unadultered patriotism' and so fearful of the
incriminating 'hyphen', that they lack the courage
to say before their fellow-men what in their hearts
they know to be the truth.
Their 100% Americanism resembles strongly
that of the dollar-a-year slacker and the loud-
mouthed war profiteer.
They are righteously incensed at the supposed
Polish pogroms against the Jews, and they enthuse
over the national aspirations of Jugo-Slavia, and
they bewail the plight of bleeding Armenia; but they
shudder at what they deem the vulgar insistence of
the Irish to end their seven-century tragedy!
George Washington and the Continental Con-
gress were high-minded patriots when they balked
at the stolid stupidity of George III. But DeValera
and the Dail Eireann are deluded extremists — dupes
of an impetuous fanaticism — when they scorn the
manikin pleadings of George V!
General Prescott was an intrepid soldier when
he thrice repulsed the Red Jackets at Bunker Hill.
But General Collins is a common assasin when he
blows up a defenseless British tank!
Thomas Jefferson was a statesman with vision
when he wrote the Declaration of Independence.
But Arthur Griffiths is only a visionary when he lays
down the platform of Sinn Fein !
The Boston Tea Party is fit for song and story.
But the armed defense of invaded homes is worthy
of a world's execration!
The burning of Washington was an act of
unjustifiable frightfulness. But the burning of Cork
was a merited reprisal to uphold the dignity of the
Crown !
The imported Hessians were brutal hirelings.
But the Black and Tans are the duly authorized
defenders of law and order!
To the sincere American the Declaration of
Independence is the exponent of national and indi-
vidual right. The application of this norm to Ire-
land is the test of true Americanism.
RELIGION THE PROP OF MORALITY
ffl
[ORALITY depends on religion; religion
depends on religious education, religious
schools and teachers, religious books and
influence. If the child does not receive religious
training, the man will not have religion. The child
is father to the man. Horace Mann, the father of
the public school system, once declared: "If the
intellect, however gifted, be not goverened by a
sense of justice, a love of mankind, and a devotion
to duty, its possessor is only a more splendid, as he
i8
THE 1" SIGN
is a more dangerous, barbarian. For we are fully
persuaded that the salt of religious truth can alone
preserve education from abuse." Ruskin said: "Ed-
ucation does not mean teaching people to know what
they do not know; it means teaching them to behave
as they do not behave." Wellington declared:
"Educate men without religion, and you make them
but clever devils."
By banishing God and religion from their
schools, France, Italy and Russia are raising a
horde of immoral and criminal infidels, socialists,
anarchists and bolsheviks, who have become the
propagators of suicidal revolution, and the menace
of all social order. By banishing God and religion
from our own schools, we too are raising another
horde of godless citizens who threaten the very
foundations of our American Republic. Take away
religion, and immediately you destroy the very basis
of morality, of stability, of social order in our
national life.
aNFORTUNATELY, there are some Catholic
parents who do not seem to know that the
parochial school stands as a protest against
the irreligious system that would blot God out of the
life of the child. They do not appreciate what the
Catholic school gives the child. They are so dead
to its worth and efficiency that they blatantly bray
their ignorance by comparing it unfavorably with
the public school; whereas, even from a merely
secular view-point, it is the equal of the public
school both as to methods and results. In every
parish are to be found 'climbers' who think that
because they have a few more dollars than their
neighbors, their children are of a higher intellectual
type. These children must not go to the parish
schools — the Sisters are not capable of teaching
them! After graduation from the grammar school,
the girls are packed off to some fashionable institute
to have their silly little heads filled with frivolous
fads and fancies: the boys are dispatched to some
exclusive secular college, because, forsooth!, the
Christian Brothers or the Jesuits cannot measure up
to the intellectual requirements of these youthful
prodigies.
Our Catholic parents have just reason to be
proud of the parochial schools. They have a strict
obligation to support them. Their children should
be found in them. That is where they belong.
A TRAGIC WITNESS TO BIGOTRY
HATELY, our Catholic people were shocked at
the report of the cold-blooded murder of the
Very Rev. James E. Coyle, pastor of St.
Paul's Catholic Church, Birmingham, Ala. The
murderer is the Rev. Edwin R. Stephenson.
Shortly before the tragic event Father Coyle
had married Miss Ruth Stephenson, the murderer's
daughter, to Mr. Pedro Gussmann. Miss Stephenson
is a recent convert to the Church. Her testimony
shows the motive of the murder.
"When I heard of the tragedy," she said, "I just
couldn't believe that such a thing had happened.
Poor dear Father Coyle was such a wonderful and
noble man.
"I was baptized in the Catholic Faith by
Father Kelly at Our Lady of Sorrows on April 10.
When I was ready to make my First Communion on
May 15, my father locked me in a room and mis-
treated me terribly. I was confined there from
Friday until Monday, when I was permitted to leave
for work. I never will forget these nights, and I
still have nightmares about the experiences I had.
"If I had stayed at home they were going to
force me to marry another man this fall. This man
is a Mason and a divorced man. I could not marry
him under the tenets of my religion.
"I met Pedro and we went to Bessemer and
got the license. We hunted for the priest at Bes-
semer but were unable to find him. We then re-
turned to Birmingham. Father Coyle was the only
one who could marry us.
"I do not want to see my father. He has done
a terrible thing for which there is no excuse."
We understand that Mr. Stephenson will be
defended by four of the ablest lawyers in the State.
The only defence that they can possibly offer in this
outrageous case is that the mind of the murderer
was unhinged by his hatred of the Catholic Church.
We have no difficulty in believing that a weak-
minded person preyed upon by the damnable bigotry
so rampant in some of our Southern States could
easily become the victim of religious insanity.
What a pity that the life of one of God's anoint-
ed priests should have been sacrificed in the new-
born wave of insensate anti-Catholic bigotry that is
sweeping the South !
This bigotry is largely due to the woful ignor-
ance of the people of the South concerning Catholic
belief and practice. For the most part, their know-
ledge of the Church is derived from irresponsible,
itinerant preachers — such as the Rev. Stephenson in
Alabama, or from wiley politicians — such as the
foul-mouthed Tom Watson in Georgia, or from lying
fanatics — such as the unspeakable Catts in Florida.
One of the most potent ways of stilling the
raging storm of bigotry is the spreading of Catholic
literature. Bishop Kiely's Laymen's League is
doing great good in Georgia through its preach-by-
mail campaign. The Knights of Columbus Lecture
Bureau is meeting with unexpected success in other
Southern States. The International Truth Society
of Brooklyn will gladly send directions to any of
our readers for re-mailing Catholic literature to
those places where it is most needed.
In the Ruins Above Chinon
Edith Staniforth
gRE you ready, Anne?" asked Marjory
Thornton, coming into her cousin's room.
"The car is at the door."
"Quite," answered Anne Trelawney.
She picked up a warm cloak, for though the
sun was hot it was only May and the evenings were
apt to be chilly, and throwing it over her arm she
followed her cousin downstairs. Two young men
advanced to meet them as they came out of the
hotel. Devlin, the owner of the car, was a dark,
handsome Celt with blue eyes and black hair which
yet had red tints in it. His friend, Charlie Mex-
borough, was a typical Englishman, tall and fair,
with a lazy manner which was rather misleading.
They were staying at Tours at the same hotel as
the two pretty English girls, who excited their
curiosity and admiration, but who, they felt, were
not the kind with whom one could scrape acquain-
tance. Then one evening they met at a party given
by a charming American woman at her flat in the
Boulvart Beranger, the most fashionable part of the
town, and were formally introduced. There was still
a considerable American element in Tours, engaged
in winding up matters after the war. A large
American contingent had been quartered in
Touraine, where their command of money excited
the envy of the population but brought prosperity
to the country-side.
Acquaintance soon ripens into friendship under
such conditions, and Devlin placed his car at the
disposal of the girls who were visiting the castles
of Touraine. They could not well refuse him a seat
in his own car, and together with him and his friend
they saw all the most interesting spots in a neigh-
bourhood brimful of history and romance.
"Where are we going today, Mr. Devlin?"
Marjory asked.
It was he who planned the expeditions and
looked out the roads.
"To Chinon," he replied, "the oldest of all the
castles, a ruin but a magnificent one. We will take
Azay-le-Rideau on the way, it is the gem of the
Renaissance and you must not miss it. Will that
suit?"
"Excellent. Could not be better," Marjory
answered.
Devlin was a multi-millionaire who had made
his money by a mixture of luck and hard work.
He seized his opportunity when the chance came in
his way and it led on to fortune. He was a curious
compound of contradictory elements; a shrewd
business man, he was yet extraordinarily well read,
and there was a dreamy strain in his nature which
brought him in touch with Anne. They were both
Celts, she from Cornwall and he from Ireland, and
had the imaginative faculty strongly developed, and
they were both Catholics which was an additional
link between them. He turned to her now and his
voice took a softer key. It was an Irish voice, full
of modulations.
"Miss Trelawney," he said, "will you sit by me
in front?"
He drove his own car and was an expert and
skillful driver.
Anne coloured and looked at her cousin. She
felt shy of accepting the post of honor, for Marjory
was the leader and she was her guest. Anne was
a convert of only a month's standing. Her father,
a Protestant clergyman in Cornwall, had turned
her out of the house at the instigation of her step-
mother, and her mother's brother, a rich ironmaster
in the north, justly indignant, had taken her in.
"But now mind, Anne," he warned her, "no
proselytising. I don't want Marjory to follow your
example."
"You needn't trouble, uncle Richard," replied
Anne. "If God wants to convert Marjory He can do
so without my help. I suppose if she wanted to
become a Catholic you would not prevent her?"'
"No, I shouldn't, I think people have a right to
choose for themselves in such matters, but I don't
want her influenced."
Anne promised and the two girls set out for
France together, Anne's first trip abroad and
Marjory's first since the war. They had always been
friends and Marjory had hotly espoused her cousin's
cause. She laughed now and shook her head.
"I would rather sit behind, it is not so windy."
EROM the first Devlin had singled out Anne
for his attentions. At first sight many people
were disposed to give the palm for beauty
to Marjory, with her brilliant colouring and smart
appearance, which was natural to her and did not
depend on her clothes, but there was a haunting
charm in Anne's deep gray eyes which lingered in
the memory when her cousin's more showy charms
were forgotten. Marjory watched the growing
intimacy between Anne and Devlin with glee and
without a spark of envy: there were plenty of other
chances for the rich man's daughter. What a slap
in the face it would be to Anne's stepmother if
through her machinations and persecution the girl
made a brilliant marriage!
Anne had been that morning to the house of the
Holy Man, whose life she had just been reading.
He appealed to her strongly, a saint of her own
time who under the appearance of an ordinary good
citizen had veiled heights of heroic sanctity. She
had knelt in the chapel, which had formerly been
his sitting-room, and slipt a letter in the box in his
bedroom upstairs, begging him to reconcile her with
the father she so dearly loved in spite of all his
unkindness. She knew that he loved her still
THE t SIGN
though evil councils had set him against her and
that he too, suffered from their estrangement. The
shadow of her prayer still lingered in her eyes
when she took her seat in the car.
They stopped at Azay-le-Rideau, embosomed
in woods and gardens and almost encircled by the
river which formed the moat, but with few historic
associations since, unlike the other castles, it was
not a king's palace but the home of a private
individual.
"Much nicer," Marjory opined. "I wouldn't
mind staying here. I am sure the other places are
full of ghosts. Fancy Catherine de Medici straying
into your room in the middle of the night!"
Then they made a detour by Balzac's house
where he wrote the "Lys de la Vallee," and onto the
Forest of Chinon where they halted and lunched
under the spreading trees in one of the glades.
Devlin had provided a basket of good things from
Potin, the chief confectioner in the town, and a
couple of bottles of Vouvray, the sparkling wine of
the country, like champagne but not so heady.
"This is delightful," exclaimed Marjory. "Will
somebody tell us a story?"
For nobody felt inclined to move, it was so
pleasant in the forest, green and cool and peaceful.
Devlin had stretched himself on the grass at Anne's
feet and now and then his ardent gaze encountered
hers and caused her to colour a little and turn aside.
Yet she could not find fault with his homage, it
was perfectly respectful.
"Tell them about your experience with the
American hotel-keeper, Charlie," he said to his
friend. "It is worth hearing."
yy\EXBOROUGH complied. Though he was
\\M poor and Devlin was rich there was perfect
' ^ equality between them, no subservience on
the one side or patronage on the other.
"I had gone out to Nebraska to look for a job.
I had always been accustomed to plenty of money
and when the crash came it was difficult to realize
that there was no more forthcoming. I stayed
at the best hotel as I had always done and waited
for something to turn up. It was all right as long
as the money lasted, but when it came to an end I
still stayed on and the hotel-keeper got impatient.
At last he told me point-blank that I must either
pay up or go.
'But where am I to go to? I asked.
T don't know. You can't stay here.'
'What am I to do ?'
'Do? Work like other people, I guess.'
'But I can't hear of a job.'
'Nonsense. You haven't tried. You've just
waited for the plum to drop into your mouth.'
Then — for he was quite a good fellow, only he
wanted his money, for which I could not blame him
— he began to cross-examine me on my capabilities.
My answers were so unsatisfactory that he got dis-
couraged.
Say, son, there must be something you can
do. Isn't there some one thing you can do better
than other people?'
I thought and thought.
T am very strong,' I said at last. T carried
a donkey round the quadrangle at college for a bet.'
' No!' he exclaimed, quite struck. 'You can't
do that.'
'Yes, I can.'
'There's a donkey in the backyard. Come out
and try.'
I went : I carried the donkey. Then he put me
through two or three more trials of strength. At
the end he slapped me on the back.
'Why, boy,' he cried, 'our fortune's made.
Don't you worry, leave it all to me. I'll see to
everything. We'll get up a show and you shall be
the Strong Man. There are dollars in it, I can tell
you.'
So we did. I had no trouble, he did everything.
He disposed of his hotel and we travelled from
place to place, dividing the profits. He played quite
fair, I lived on the fat of the land and was beginning
to put money by, a thing I had never done in my
life before, when I got a wire from Jim telling me
he had made his pile and asking me to come and join
him. So I threw up my job and came : the tempta-
tion to get back to the old country was too strong
to resist. My man nearly wept when I said goodbye
to him.
T shall have to go back to hotel-keeping, I
guess,' he said. 'But I can't complain, I've done
well by you. Only if you get sick of Europe
remember there's a place for you over here.'
®
;EXBOROUGH had told his story with a
modest simplicity that yet left a great deal
to the imagination.
"Are you really as strong as that, Mr. Mex-
borough?" asked Marjory.
For there was nothing in Mexborough's appear-
ance to denote unusual physical strength. He
might have muscles of iron and nerves of steel,
but as far as looks went a casual observer would
have given the preference to Devlin, who was taller
and much more powerfully built.
"Sure. I'll show you the first chance we get."
He little guessed how soon that chance was to
come. Devlin looked at his watch.
"We must get on. It takes some time to see
Chinon and we have got to climb the hill."
They got back into the car and sped along the
valley.
"I am sure Mr. Mexborough felt his position
keenly," said Anne to her companion, "although
he spoke of it so lightly."
"He did that," answered Devlin emphatically.
"He was rolling in riches when I knew him first,
and I a poor lad over from Ireland with neither
money nor friends. He put my foot on the first
rung of the ladder which led to success and when
THE + SIGN
his father failed I made up my mind that if luck
came my way he should share it."
The speaker's face glowed with generous
enthusiasm and Anne felt her heart go out to him.
Not all successful men have such a good memory
for past kindness.
"It is the wheel of fortune," Devlin continued.
"It goes round and round, first one man's turn, then
another's; and I suppose there is justice in it. But
Charlie is not the money-making kind, though he
would make a good use of it if he had it — none
better. I have put him on to two or three things
which will bring him a decent income and make
him independent. Every creditor was satisfied when
his father died, he insisted on that, and gave up
the small fortune he in-
herited from his mother.
He only reserved enough
to take him out to the
States and keep him
there till he found a job.
A queer one it was too,
but an honest one at any
rate, which is more than
you can say for a good
many deals in business."
They entered the
little town nestling under
the shadow of its mighty
neighbour which in
former times had been
by turns its terror and
its protection, and leav-
ing the car at the hotel
they threaded their way
through the narrow
streets with their quaint
old-world charm till they
reached the foot of the
hill on which the castle
was built. It stretched
along the crest with a
magnificent view of the
valley and the river
winding like a blue rib- " " ~
bon through the pastures.
It was a steep climb and the sun was hot, and they
were glad to pause halfway and admire the scene.
Then they pushed on to the top and passed
through the archway. It was a wonderful ruin of
vast extent and no attempt had been made to restore
it, but the hand of time had touched it lovingly
and flowers grew out of the crevices, softening
the rough edges of the stone. Here Richard the
Lionhearted breathed his last, hit by a chance
arrow at the siege of Chaluz and brought hither
to die. Here Joan of Arc came to plead with the
king and picked him out amongst his courtiers in
the disguise of a simple gentleman. They wandered
through the rooms, most of them unroofed and open
to the air, and came at last to a little stone causeway
To The Sacred Heart
James W. Gibbons
Dear Sacred Heart I come to Tkee,
And Lo! I dare to pray,
A little place be held for me
That I may know some day
The glory of eternal lo^e,
A union ne'er to part,
A home with Thee in realms abo-Oe,
0 Losing Sacred Heart!
Dear Sacred Heart so kind and true,
Be merciful to me;
And grant that when this life is through
1 dwell in peace with Thee.
For me the Precious Blood was shed,
Thy side was torn apart,
That I may live though I be dead,
O tender Sacred Heart!
spanning the precipice and connecting two parts
of the building.
"Will you cross it, Miss Thornton?" asked
Devlin, but Marjory drew back shuddering.
"I couldn't. My head would go round. I shall
fall."
"We will wait for them here," said Mex-
borough re-assuringly. Children and timid people
always turned to him with confidence. Anne, more
daring, followed Devlin's lead: she had climbed the
cliffs at home by the Cornish sea and had a sure
foot and a steady head. Together they explored
the place, descended to the dungeons and mounted
to giddy heights with a coolness which would have
done credit to an Alpine climber. Devlin's hand
was ready to assist her
if she needed it, but she
very seldom availed her-
self of help. And all
the time words were
trembling on his lips
which it only needed the
slightest encouragement
on her part to utter, but
something in her manner
held him back. Anne
did not wish him to
speak just yet and break
the delightful conscious-
ness they shared between
them. She was not sure
of herself, she had
known him so short a
time, and her soul was
still sorely shaken by the
consequences involved
in her conversion, the
loss of her home and
her father's love. She
needed time to recover,
to re-adjust her life to its
new conditions. This
new hope which was
dawning upon her was
still a stranger, it was
too soon to admit it into
her heart. Once she stumbled and he caught her in
his arms, but she disengaged herself quickly and
he was baffled but not discouraged. After all, he
told himself, there was the long drive home before
him. She should not elude him, he would speak
before the day was done.
gT last they returned to the others and Anne
sat down to rest beside her cousin while
Devlin and Mexborough went off to inspect
other parts of the ruins.
"What a heavenly day!" exclaimed Anne.
"And what a glorious view!"
She got up in order to see better. They were
on a little platform protected by a low wall from
THE f SIGN
the sheer edge of the abyss, and Anne went and
leant against it.
"Anne," cried Marjory, "come away from that
wall. I am sure it is not safe. There are cracks
in it already."
As she spoke Anne to her horror felt the wall
giving way and a great mass of masonry detached
itself from the rest and fell crashing into the abyss.
She could not save herself, she had not time to step
back, but dropped — to be caught by a stone jutting
out like a buttress from the building. Her dresb
was a strong one and held, and she clung with both
hands to the stone, not daring to look down for she
knew that her head would not stand it. All sorts
of thoughts flashed through her mind as she hung
in mid-air: of her father in the Cornish parsonage
and of what his feelings would be when he heard
of the death of his only child, unreconciled and
unforgiven; of Devlin — she wished now she had let
him speak — of Marjory, poor soul! and the shock
it would be to her. Thank God she was a Catholic
at least and had no fear of the next world! It was
only the violent death that she shrank from. She
wondered how long her grasp would hold and
whether she would feel the dull thud on the stones
below. Perhaps she would be only maimed, not
killed. She shuddered at the thought. Better, far
better to be killed outright than to creep through
life on a broken wing. Still God knew best and she
resigned herself to death or life as it pleased Him.
Marjory was screaming loudly for help and
the two men came rushing back. Anne heard a
shout from above.
"Hold on, Miss Trelawney. Don't be
frightened. I'll have you up in no time."
It was Mexborough's voice, cheering and com-
forting, and the hope of rescue brought new strength
to her grasp. He laid himself on the ground, face
downwards, and instructed Devlin to sit on his legs.
"Put your hands into mine," he told her. "First
one, then the other."
It required a great effort of faith to loose her
hold, but it was her only chance and she obeyed.
She felt his hands close over hers — such strong
hands, though gentle, as strength so often is — and
the next moment she was drawn up, swung round
and landed, breathless, giddy but safe on the solid
ground. Devlin, deadly pale, was leaning against
the castle wall and Marjory was crying in a corner.
EOR the first time in her life Anne Trelawney
knew what fear meant. Never again would
she accord that kindly tolerance to others
which had hitherto been her attitude towards fearful
and timid souls. Her lips were white and her limbs
trembled under her as she held out her hand to
Mexborough and thanked him in broken words
for having saved her. Devlin made a step forward,
then drew back. It was Mexborough, not he, who
guided her down the steep path and praised her
courage.
"It is alright, Miss Trelawney," he said en-
couragingly. "You feel the reaction now, and no
wonder. It was a nasty experience, but people
run these risks every day for a movie."
"I will go and fetch the car," said Devlin and
started ahead.
He returned with it presently and they got in,
the two girls inside and the men in front. Anne
leant back and closed her eyes; her wrists ached
with the severe strain, her whole body felt bruised
and broken, but there was more than this behind.
Devlin had not spoken to her, had not even con-
gratulated her on her escape. What did it mean?
Had she made a mistake in thinking that he cared
for her? It seemed impossible when she remem-
bered his looks and words that afternoon and yet
what else could she believe? Common politeness
demanded that he should say something; he was
her host and responsible in some measure for her
safety since he had brought her to the place where
she had so nearly lost her life. Was it jealousy?
Was he vexed because she owed her safety to
Mexborough and not to him? Surely not; he knew
very well that she had no feeling for his friend
beyond esteem and liking. Marjory's hand stole
into hers and she returned the tender pressure, but
she did not speak. Her cousin respected her silence
which seemed to her only natural; she herself was
shaken and unnerved, for her fright had been very
great. What a mercy Mexborough had been there!
^^[HEY reached the hotel and Anne got out
L^J without seeming to see Devlin's hand out-
^"^ stretched to help her.
"Marjory," she said, "I want to go round to the
Holy Man's house. I shall not be long."
"But are you fit to, Anne?" asked Marjory
anxiously. "Shall I come with you?"
"No, dear, uncle Richard would not like it."
"May I, Miss Trelawney?" asked Devlin.
She looked at him. What did this mean?
Then she remembered that he was a Catholic, which
she had forgotten for the moment.
"Thank you," she said, and they set out in
silence.
"You are going to give thanks for your escape,"
he said at last.
"Yes," she answered.
"In that I at least I may join you, for if ever a
man had cause for thankfulness too deep for words
it is I. Do you know what I felt today when you
hung over the abyss and I could not reach you?
When Charlie saved your life before my eyes and
I stood by? I almost hated him; I would have
given all my money for his strength. I would have
risked my life a thousand times to save you, but I
was helpless. And you, what did you think of me?
A poor weakling who stood on one side and let
another man save the woman he loved!"
"Oh, no! no! no!" cried Anne, overborne
by the passion with which he spoke, and bursting
THE 1* SIGN
into tears. "How could you think such a thing!"
"You turned away from me. You would not
speak to me."
"It was you, I thought, who would not speak to
me," she faltered.
"Because I did not dare. Anne — what a perfect
little name it is! It is like yourself , there is nothing
to add to it and nothing to take away. Again and
again today I tried to speak to you but you would not
let me. I would have spoken though in spite of you
except for this. Love does not count by days and
months but by the striking hours, the hours which
decide our lives, and this is one. Anne, do you love
me?"
They had reached the Holy Man's house : she
turned to him, her eyes shining through her tears.
"Shall we go in and ask a blessing?" she
whispered, and, baring his head, he followed her.
Deepest Depth
Placidus M. Endler
'Then snail He say: I know you not."
Than this there is no sadder lot,
To be by Lov"e Itself forgot!
Weariness and Constancy
^T^EARINESS is accountable for much of our
\^£y inefficiency. The manner in which a man
resists weariness, whatever the cause of it,
and carries on, marks him as a man of character
before the world, and as a man of virtue before God.
Worldlings are wiser and more energetic in striving
for temporal gain and advantages than are professed
Christians in their spiritual endeavors.
Many instances are known of stupendous labors
wrought in spite of chronic infirmities and well-nigh
insurmountable obstacles. Real heroism is revealed
in a letter written by Robert Louis Stevenson a year
before his death :
"For fourteen years I have not had a day's
real health. I have awakened sick and gone to bed
weary; and I have done my work unflinchingly. I
have written in bed and out of it, written in hem-
orrhages, written in sickness, written torn by cough-
ing, written when my head swam from weakness;
and for so long, it seems to me I have won my
wager and recovered my glove. I am better now —
have been rightly speaking — since first I came to
the Pacific; and still, few are the days when I am
not in some physical distress. And the battle goes
on, — ill or well is a trifle — so it goes. I was made
for a contest, and the Powers have so willed that
my battlefield should be this dingy, inglorious one
of the bed and the physic bottle. At least I have
not failed, but I would have preferred a place of
trumpetings and the open air over my head."
The cure for weariness is not to be found in
any quack medicine, or in any physical culture
regime, or in any New Thought vagary. It is to be
found in keeping constantly before us a high ideal
of life. The world would regard as a fanatic one
who would do for his soul half as much as Stevenson
did to gain a literary crown.
Standardization in the Moral World
Mark Moeslein, C. P-
STANDARDIZATION is the obsession of
the twentieth century. Over the South
is a far-reaching movement to standardize
the staple of cotton. Elsewhere the same
is being done for other products of the soil. Labor
is being standardized, and so is business. So much
is being written and spoken about standardization
that even children grasp more or less definitely
what the big word means ; that it denotes something
better than has been hitherto attained.
Standardization is not a new vision of life and
its opportunities. It is as old as the human family;
for the great tempter used it to the wretched harm
of the race: "Ye shall be as gods." Thus he pro-
voked Eve to long for what appealed to her as
better than what she had. The abject submission to
the exactions of fashion is an ever-present mani-
festation of the imperious lure for conforming to
what has been set as a standard. Fashion enforces
conditions of slavery from which few men and fewer
women have the courage to break away. Hence,
standardization may be either for the ruin or for
the uplift of mankind. The accepted standard
determines whether or not the vision is for woe or
weal.
Standardization is a natural impulse. From
the wild boy whose aim is to make his gang the
toughest in town to the model citizen or saint, every
one strives to standardize himself, his conduct and
his accomplishments. Though we glory in liberty,
every one of us is a slave to a master of his own
choosing. This master is the elected standard or
purpose of life. No master's rule is so despotic as
our subconscious impulse to live according to stand-
ards. One may have a variety of aims; but among
them will be one which dominates all others. This
is the actual standard. The others are only means
to its attainment. "No man can serve two masters."
What is written of life generally, is in an
especial manner true of its moral, spiritual and
religious phases. Men will be moral or immoral,
spiritual or animal, religious or materialistic, as is
their dominating standard. One's needs and modes
of life are so changeable that one may be dominated
successively by divers standards in a comparatively
short time. Such is the sad experience of many.
Few are uniformly moral, spiritual and religious
for long periods. The majority walk the easy road
of repeated moral lapses.
y^^HE chief standards are two : one spiritual and
I) the other carnal; one heavenly and the other
^*^ earthly; one divine and the other materi-
alistic. God inspires the first term of each of these
couplets; but the second, is the work of Satan.
One lifts men up to God, making them akin to the
angels; the other lowers men, making them akin
to the beasts. The Bible differentiates the followers
of these two standards as "the sons of God," and
the offspring "of the daughters of men." The Savior
classifies them as the servants of God, and the
servants of Mammon.
The very soul of the divine standard is the
acceptance and carrying out of God's plans for the
betterment of mankind. The nature of Satan's
standard is self-gratification.
Hence, the divine standard of living is one
for all men; yet by reason of its sublimity, it is
suitable for the endless variety of abilities and
conditions of men in all walks of society and in all
ages. The march of those who follow it, is always
heavenward, to higher levels of moral, spiritual and
religious excellence, even unto God Himself, trans-
forming them into the children of God.
Not so with the Tempter's standards. They
are as manifold as the classes of men. Every one
fashions standards to suit his fancy. All of which
lead away from God and debase the individual and
the race. Our age, so remarkable for standard
making for the uplift of mankind, is palpable
evidence thereof. In national life, we have the
unrest which drives people into the indescribable
horrors of Sovietism. In the field of labor and
business, the selfishness and greed of industrialism,
commercialism and capitalism grind mankind be-
tween the upper and lower mill-stones of the materi-
alistic interpretation of life. In individual life, the
lust for sensuous ease and pleasure carries men
and women and children along with the irresistable
force of mountain torrents. At every stage of the
progress of the followers of earthly standards, may
be repeated the words of the Prophet Osee, speaking
of the carnal-minded Israelites: they "become
abominable, as those things were which they loved."
Since there is no escaping the impulse to live
by standards it is of vital interest to us to study
the divine standardization which is for our weal,
lest we be engulfed in the woe to which earthly
standards inevitably lead.
eOD in His mercy gave us a Standard-Bearer
Who is a visible, tangible model of the divine
standard of life in action; pointing to Jesus
of Nazareth, He calls on us to live as the lowly
Nazarene, every one according to his ability and the
conditions of his life.
In Jesus Christ we have the union of the human
and the divine; for He is both God and Man. In
all things, only sin and human personality excepted,
a man such as we are. It was most fitting that He
should unite in Himself the human and the divine
and thus be the living link uniting God and the
human race. A mere man could hardly hold us
any more than other great and good men do. God
THE 1* SIGN
alone is so far above us that it is difficult for us to
keep in close touch with Him. But the Son of God,
incarnate in our nature, brings God close to us.
That we might see Him and, as it were, 'handle'
Him, it is marvellous how Jesus took to Himself
the lowliness of our lot. From Bethlehem to Cal-
vary, He submitted to the galling hardships of our
life, not even temptation excepted. Frequently
flashes of His divinity revealed that He is immense-
ly more than man; but the normal course of His life
is that of poverty, hardships and persecution
unto death. It was a
most fitting arrangement.
Whilst faith goads us on
to yearn and strive for
the spiritual grandeur of
character which associa-
tion with God produces,
hardships of all kinds
make it most difficult to
reach Him Who alone
can make us truly great.
Our Standard - Bearer
showed forth in Himself,
the pattern which we
must copy; but He did
it in the midst of the
most human trials.
Hence, it is not at
all startling to witness
how much the remem-
brance and veneration of
the lowliness of Jesus
are interwoven into the
religious life of Catho-
lics. Wherever one turns
in our churches there are
reminders of His humili-
ty. The Stations on the
walls tell the sad story
of His painful journey
to Calvary. The Crucifix
on the altars is a constant memorial of His death.
His real Presence in the Eucharist is a permanent
exhibition of His abasement. All these bring home
to devout believers that His debasement elevates
us, His wounds heal us, His death is our entrance
into life.
[0 too is the worship of Catholics most intim-
ately associated with the remembrance of
the self-sacrificing life of Jesus. There
are weeks of preparation for honoring the recur-
rence of His birthday. The Christmas festivities
are celebrated about a miniature stable with its
manger-cradle. The weeks that follow are spent
with Him in the obscurity of His hidden life at
Nazareth. Then His forty days of fast and tempta-
tion in the wilderness are brought home to earnest
souls by the devotional and penitential exercises
of Lent. The mournful services of Holy Week
Salve Regina
Bernard D. Ward
Thou art my Queen !
I dare to call Thee so,
Lo\>e conquers my* timidity,
I'd have Thee knov?,
OK Mother Mar>), Virgin blest.
My soul can find no peace, no rest,
Unless it be that Thou shalt deign
To make my heart Thy throne and reig
For then I know that come xtfhat may\
Naught can harm me on my way
Thro' Life, until, its mission done,
Thou vCilt lead me to Thy* Son,
The King of Kings, and then I \\>een,
Truly Thou wilt be my Queen.
recall the details of His Passion. During the forty
days following the Resurrection, there is an air of
surpressed triumphant joy. The Summer and
Autumn months, between Pentecost and Advent,
are rich in remembrance of His wanderings, His
association with the poor, the ignorant, the afflicted
— benefitting all, teaching all the sublime doctrines
and ennobling precepts of the new life of the
children of God.
The same remembrance and veneration of the
lowliness of Jesus are in evidence in the homes
of Catholics and in the
personal life of even
careless members of the
Church. Pictures of
Him adorn the walls.
The crucifix is promin-
ently placed. Many men,
women and children
carry about with them
pocket crucifixes. From
childhood until death,
they never tire of making
the Sign of the Cross.
But throughout His
life, frequent lightning
flashes reveal His
divinity. At Bethlehem,
angel choirs proclaim the
glad tidings of His birth.
The mysterious star
guides the Magi. As a
mere boy of twelve, He
astounds the wise and
learned by the astuteness
of His questions and
answers. On the banks
of the Jordan, the Holy
Spirit rests on Him in
visible form and the
Eternal God proclaims
Him to be His well-
beloved Son. In the desert, angels minister to Him.
At Cana, a word changes water into wine. A mere
touch gives sight to the blind, hearing to the deaf,
health to the sick, and life to the dead. On Thabor,
the splendors of His transfiguration bespeak His
Godhead. At His death, the sun is darkened, the
earth quakes, the dead arise. Then, His Resur-
rection. Forty days later, He fulfills His prophecy
and ascends into heaven.
XT was most fitting that the lowliness of His
humanity should be thus relieved by the
majesty of His divinity. It is also most
fitting that in our remembrance and worship of Him,
Jesus should stand forth as one who truly bore our
infirmities, but bearing them as one sustained by
the power of the indwelling divinity. It was most
fitting that the divinely-appointed model of the new
life, should come down to the level of our life;
26
THE + SIGN
and that His life should be intensely more lowly,
more difficult, more self-sacrificing and more
permeated by hardships of all kinds than ours; for
example is inexpressibly more forceful than
preaching. But His humbling Himself under the
mighty hand of God must also bear the stamp of
the divinity, so that His stooping to our level might
have in it the power to lift us to the level of the
God-Man.
This wonderful and inspiring combination of
human lowliness with the majesty of the divinity
in Jesus Christ, is the only standard of living which
truly ennobles men. The range of His humility
was and is so vast that every one can truly say: "He
bore my infirmities; He left me an example how
to bear my burdens and how to conquer; He
strengthens me to strive for the realization of the
greatest Christian ambition to which the Apostle of
the Gentiles gave expression when he wrote : "With
Christ I am nailed to the cross. And I live, now
not I; but Christ liveth in me."
This is Christ's standardization of the life of
God's adopted children. Meeting all the conditions
of life in His fashion is the pledge which binds
every sincere believer. Fidelity to this pledge
explains why the life of Catholics is different from
that of other men. The imitation of the meekness
of Jesus accounts for the vast armies of saintly
Catholic men, women and children. Their remem-
brance and worship of the divinity of Jesus in the
midst of abjection convinces them that they are
following in His footsteps.
iir^HERE life is thus standardized, the emissaries
Tl 1 of Bolshevism rant in vain, because the fol-
v*^ lowers of Jesus are swayed by other ideals.
Their longing is to be like unto the God-Man and
most unlike animal men whose heaven is altogether
in the good things of earth. The appeals of indus-
trialists, commercialists and capitalists are no more
effective, because the imitators of Jesus remember
His word and example: "Seek ye therefore first the
kingdom of God and His justice, and all these
things shall be added unto you." When wordly
wisdom urges retaliation for insult, calumny, in-
justice and persecution, remembrance of how He
fared and what He enjoined, nerves them not only
to forgive but even to pray for the offenders:
"Blessed are ye when they shall revile you, and
persecute you, and speak all that is evil against you,
untruly, for My sake : be glad and rejoice, for your
reward is very great in heaven
Life thus standardized accounts for the multi-
tudes of Catholic Sisters who left all in order to
devote themselves to the service of the poor and
aged, of the sick and diseased, of the orphan and
the abandoned, yes, and of social outcasts. The
example of the God-Man inspires them. In the
midst of the upheavals of the ancient civilization
of paganism, the much despised monks retired to
dense wildernesses and took possession of swamp
lands, to transform them into fertile fields and
establish new centres of a higher and better civili-
zation to be places of refuge for the poor and
oppressed. What allured them was the example
of Jesus. Everywhere throughout the world, civilized
and uncivilized, we are confronted by the spectacle
of the most cultured class of men, the Catholic
priesthood, consecrated to the service of those
most in need of moral and spiritual aid. They
forego the advantages their scholarship places
within their reach, to labor among all classes, but
more' so among the lowly. The word and example
of the Master: "The gospel is preached to the poor,"
are a compelling call to go and do likewise.
^tt^HAT is thus briefly stated of the three more
r J J conspicuous classes of Catholics who strive
^*^ to standardize their life according to the
heavenly standard is no less true of that more vast
army of Catholic saints, both hidden and known.
They can be met by the thousands and ten thous-
ands the world over, when they assemble to worship
the glorified Jesus in the Holy Eucharist. In the
Holy Sacrifice of the Mass He continues in an
unbloody manner the offering of His body and
blood for the good of mankind. In Holy Communion
He debases Himself to the condition of food —
spiritual food, it is true, but food all the same — to
nourish those who receive Him and strengthen them
to live of His life. Their modes of life show the
results of spiritual contact with Jesus. Whilst they
shun the "better than thou" air, they are different
from other men. Their ideals are different, their
life is standardized along different lines. Parents
glory in the number of their children, at great cost
providing for their little ones a Catholic education
which is vastly more than mere schooling. They
remember Jesus' word and blessing for children.
Employers and business managers gladly accept
the services of practical Catholic men and women,
because they realize that the standard of Catholic
honest and faithful service is higher. Among Catho-
lic working classes there is none of the riotous world
unrest, so much in evidence elsewhere; for they
worship as the God-Man the Carpenter's Son and
Himself a carpenter.
In the study of Catholic life, evidences accumu-
late that it is standardized along lines distinctively
its own. They worship both in theory and daily
practice the majesty of God in the lowliness of
Jesus. Their remembrance and veneration of both
gives tone to their mentality and motive. Hence,
they are in a normal position to use the varied
forms of individual life as so many stepping stones
in their closer and closer approach unto God, striving
ever more for their transformation from sons of the
daughters of men into sons of God: "You are gods
and all of you sons of the Most High." It is of the
very sap of Catholic mentality, to realize that only
close contact with Jesus can save men individually
and collectively: "For there is no other name under
heaven given to men, whereby we must be saved."
Maria Desolata
(The Broken-Hearted Mother)
Grace V. Christmas
^^^^HE wailing melody of the Miserere, sung
m C\ at Tenebrae in the great Basilicas in Rome,
■L ) has died away into silence, and the sun has
^^^ set in a blaze of scarlet and gold. So far
as the tourists and the majority of the residents are
concerned, the functions of Good Friday are at an
Cross. And it is only in Italy that her children do
her reverence with a special devotion on Good
Friday.
Holy Church seems to realize that all the
devotions of Holy Week should be centered directly
on Jesus Crucified, and hence to make up, as it were,
AT THK FOOT OF THE CROSS
end, but, here and there, in a few isolated churches
and convent chapels, there is being held a short
service in honor of Maria Desolata. This is the
sweet names given by the Italians to the Blessed
(Virgin standing broken-hearted at the foot of the
for any apparent neglect of His Sorrowful Mother
she sets aside the third Sunday of September as the
feast of the Seven Sorrows. It is this feast that
brings before us the Blessed Virgin's desolation.
Let us think of that desolation. Let us try for a
THE 1* SIGN
moment to see with Mary's eyes, to feel with her
heart, to realize, even faintly, what the evening of
Good Friday must have been like to her. She, who
was fashioned by God for one particular purpose,
must surely have been endowed with a nature keenly
attuned to joy and grief; and as her purity exceeded
that of any other human being, it is certain that her
capacity for intense suffering out-measured that of
others. There are thousands of desolate mothers
throughout the world at the present time, but not
one of them has ever fathomed, as Mary has, the
very depths of human suffering.
After the strain of those awful hours on Mt.
Calvary there fell on the soul of that stricken Mother
an aching sense of desolation, and in her heart there
rang the echo of her dying Son's utter dereliction:
"My God, why hast Thou forsaken me." To lose
one we love by death, or by the still more cruel
separation of misunderstanding, seems to us the
acme of human woe ; but our feelings in this respect
are but as a breeze rippling upon the waters of a
shallow stream compared with the storm of grief
which overwhelmed our Mother when her tortured
Son died before her very eyes.
QND yet, when all was over, we may be sure
that in the midst of her anguish it was she
who consoled and comforted the less intense
grief of the disciples and holy women who had
witnessed the great tragedy. St. John, he who of
all the twelve most closely resembled His Divine
Master, has summed up the attitude of Mary during
the Sacred Passion in one significant word : "There
stood by the Cross of Jesus His Mother." Not with
the prone abandonment of St. Mary Magdalen, but
with the calm and dignity that befitted the Mother
of the King.
Mary stood beside the Cross, an example and
object lesson to all generations, teaching them how
to endure. That is how she would have us take our
trials — standing. We are to battle with the ever
encroaching waves as they rise to engulf us; we are
to struggle unceasingly to carry our cross in resigna-
tion and in a spirit worthy of reward.
There are many different ways of bearing
sorrow. Sometimes it hardens and embitters the
entire nature, so much so that with some resentful
idea of "hitting back," we rebel against Him Who
has imposed the cross upon our shoulders, and deli-
berately neglect the service of Him Who has
afflicted us. Sometimes we may lie down beneath
cross and render life a burden to ourselves and
others either by constant complaints or the morose-
ness of our silence. Again, we may, if we wish,
follow, as far as our sinful limitations will permit,
in Mary's footsteps. We thus submit to our trials
because it is the will of God that we should patiently
bear them. We refuse to be beaten by them. We
strain our eyes for that gleam of silver that lines
the darkest cloud. We are thus purified and
strengthened through sufferings. We thus stand
with the Broken-hearted Mother at the foot of the
Cross.
A Quaint Sermon
HOR many non-Catholics there is a remarkable
attraction in stories from the lives of St.
Francis of Assisi and his lovable companions.
Under the title "A Quaint Sermon" The Youth's
Coaipanion tells its large Puritan audience that in
one of the great Italian cathedrals a noted Friar of
the Order of Franciscans, then newly founded, was
preaching. A great concourse of people filled the
building, and twilight deepened the heavy shadows
of the dimly lit and heavily arched chancel and
nave. The friar preached almost in darkness.
His theme was God's Love to Men and Their
Response. With the passionate eloquence of the
period, he pictured God's mighty act of creation,
the wonder of His gift of life to men and the beauty
of the earth. But more especially he dwelt upon
the gift of the Only-Begotten Son — the matchless
beauty of Christ's life among men — the glorious
redemption offered in Him to all who would repent
and believe. The friar's earnestness deeply im-
pressed the people, and a solemn stillness hung
over the vast assembly. The darkness by this time
had deepened still further, and the congregation
could only just perceive the outline of the friar's
dark-robed figure.
"Now," he continued, "let us consider how man-
kind has responded to the divine goodness and
mercy."
With those words he left the pulpit and passed
slowly to the altar. From among its many candles
he chose one and lighted it. The one gleam of pure
light shone upon a great crucifix hung above the
altar. Slowly and solemnly and without a word, in
the breathless stillness of that vast throng, the
friar raised the candle until it lit up first one wound,
then another, in the feet, the hands, the side, and
finally the sacred head of the Crucified.
There the light lingered a moment, and the hush
deepened upon the awe-struck congregation. Then
he blew out the light and sat down. The sermon
was over. The stillness was broken only by audible
sobs.
Archconfraternit)) of
CONDITIONS for membership in the Arch-
confraternity of the Passion are as simple
as they are few. Everyone can do some-
thing in the apostleship of the Cross, and
by uniting their efforts to this society may receive
the many rich blessings, which the Church has grant-
ed to its members. How often a beautiful flower
escapes attention, but when placed with others in a
bouquet or to form a design, it seems to attract the
notice at once and to win some praise from all
beholders.
Thus it is in the Archconfraternity, where "two
or three are gathered together in the name of Jesus
Crucified," their prayers and works are more pleas-
ing to God and greater favors are obtained for souls.
This society grows in numbers day by day. Its
members are convinced it is worth while, and
acknowledge that the conditions for membership are
neither numerous nor difficult.
Are not some preliminary steps necessary and
advantageous ? Every society has a definite purpose
and a determined means of accomplishing it. A
particular service then is expected from the mem-
I bers, who must first qualify, or prove they are able
to render it. Hence, some conditions are placed
by every society before anyone can be admitted to
membership.
Again, the success of an organization depends
on its members. Their interest obliges them to
uphold its standard, to accept its rules, to set forth
its excellence and advantages, to profit by its privi-
leges and benefits, that working together they may
easily and successfully attain the end of the society.
Certain requirements therefore are demanded of
those seeking admission, in order to protect the
organization from unsuitable or unworthy members;
and as much as such conditions for membership are
insisted upon and observed, the society will stand
in high esteem and will succeed in the fulfillment of
its purpose.
The Archconfraternity of the Passion admits
only practical Catholics. They may claim all the
rights and blessings of membership on the following
conditions: 1, if their names are recorded on the
register of the Archconfraternity; 2, if they have
been approved and accepted by the Director; 3, if
they have been invested in the Black Scapular of the
Passion.
/^fNROLLMENT then is the first and an essential
\^j[ condition for membership in the Archcon-
: ^-^ fraternity of the Passion. To join this society,
one should give or send one's name to the Director,
the Sacred P
assion
emberskip
at the same time expressing the desire to belong to
the Archconfraternity. The Director may know
some very good people, and would like to extend to
them the advantages of the Archconfraternity, but
he is obliged to wait until they have given their
names for admission to membership. Some also
may have received the Black Scapular of the
Passion, but they do not enjoy the privileges of the
Archconfraternity until their names are recorded on
its register. So this first condition of enrollment is
really the most important.
This condition however places the Archcon-
fraternity within the reach of many, who could not
otherwise share in it. The people, who are doing
so much for God's honor and glory and the salvation
of souls by their fervent prayers and patient suffer-
ing, who have to labor all the day long and at the
same time perhaps bear some heavy cross of sorrow,
the poor, the afflicted, the invalid, the aged, those
unable to leave their homes or who live at some
distance, all should welcome this opportunity of
honoring Jesus Crucified and spreading devotion to
His Sufferings by sending their names to the Direc-
tor of the Archconfraternity to be accepted and
enrolled as members.
There are many also, who practice some
devotion to the Passion every day or frequently.
They should hasten to add their names to the Arch-
confraternity, that the devout remembrance of Our
Lord's Passion may not only bring life and grace
to themselves, but may also be an effective means
of saving and sanctifying many souls. All who can
therefore should be enrolled in the Archconfraternity
of the Passion. For what consolation, happiness,
reward, must await the departing soul, who during
life has been numbered among the missionaries of
Christ Crucified!
Application for membership in the Archcon-
fraternity means in the first place to give one's name
to the Director to be registered. The second con-
dition implies the approval and acceptance of the
member by the Director. In the past years this
approbation was granted only after a month, or a
year, or some period of time had elapsed, but now
it is usually given as soon as the name is received.
^^^HE well being and success of the Archconfra-
\) ternity depends on the Director. While it is
^^^ his duty to secure as many good members as
possible, he may be obliged at times to refuse
membership to the unworthy, or those unable to
partake of the benefits of the society. He must
exclude Catholics who are negligent in attending
3°
THE + SIGN
Mass on Sundays and very seldom approach the
Holy Sacraments, or give scandal by evil example.
Non-Catholics, of course, are not eligible for mem-
bership. But the Director will gladly accept the
names of all, who desire the knowledge ancMove of
Jesus Christ Crucified and hope to obtain eternal
life through the merits of His Passion and Death.
When the Director records a name on the
register of the Archconfraternity, a certificate of
membership is issued as a token of his approval
and acceptance. In some places, a manual contain-
ing information about the Archconfraternity and
devotions in honor of the Passion of Our Lord is
given to new members. If any member should
unfortunately prove undeserving of the honors and
graces of the Archconfraternity, the Director may
erase his name from the register, thus depriving
that person of membership. This happens very
rarely, if at all, because the thought of Christ's
sufferings keeps one safely in the right way and
more frequently than any other motive inspires
generous self sacrifice and every virtue. For mem-
bers of the Archconfraternity especially, the Passion
of Our Lord is their guide, their protection, their
strength, and their daily reward.
Now as nearly all societies have a formal
initiation of new members, so the Archconfraternity
of the Passion regards the reception of the scapular
as the final step to full membership in the society.
This scapular is a small piece of black cloth, with
the badge fastened to it, as seen in the religious
habit of the Passionists. It denotes affiliation to
the missionary Order founded by St. Paul of the
Cross to preach Christ Crucified and promote devo-
tion to the Passion. Many blessings and indulgences
have been granted by the Church for wearing this
scapular. St. Paul of the Cross calls it "the sign of
salvation;" and in truth it brings salvation to those
who strive to be worthy of it.
QEW members usually receive the Black Scapu-
lar of the Passion at a regular meeting of the
Archconfraternity. Kneeling before the
Director, or the priest who is blessing the Scapular,
the solemn prayer is read, which recalls the principal
sufferings of our Divine Savior. The Scapulars are
blessed, and then as the priest places it on the
shoulder of each one, he says: "May the Lord
clothe thee with the New Man, that through this
mournful and sacred sign of penance, thou mayest
always look upon Jesus, Whom the hands of impious
men have crucified, and mourn for Him, as one
mourneth for an only son. Amen."
When all the new members have been invested
with the Scapular, the priest adds : "And I, by the
faculty granted to me, receive you to a participation
of all the spiritual advantages, which by virtue of
Apostolic privilege, are enjoyed by the Congregation
of the Most Holy Cross and Passion of Our Lord
Jesus Christ. In the name of the Father, and of the
Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Amen." The ceremony
is finished with the words: "May the Passion of
Our Lord Jesus Christ be always in our hearts.
Amen."
Such are the few conditions required for admis-
sion to the Archconfraternity of the Passion : enroll-
ment on the register, acceptance by the Director, and
reception of the Black Scapular. No admission fees
have to be paid; no promises have to be made; no
rules are imposed, which if omitted, imply any
penalty or loss of any privileges. There are no
degrees among the members, except what they
themselves establish by their fidelity in practicing
some devotion in honor of the Passion and their zeal
in persuading others by word and example to remem-
ber the Sufferings and Death of Christ.
Our Holy Father, Pope Benedict XV. endowed
the Archconfraternity of the Passion with extra-
ordinary graces and indulgences, and expressed the
wish that it would bring home the lessons of Calvary
to the whole world. To bring the whole world home,
therefore, to the foot of the Cross, the advantages
of the Archconfraternity have been made exception-
ally great, while the conditions for membership are
simple and few and within the power of all, who
yearn to know and love Him, Who gave His life for
them.
y^E^HOSE who wish to join the Archconfraternity
L^J of the Passion may apply in person or by
^*"^ letter to the Father Rector of any Passionist
Monastery where the Archconfraternity is canoni-
cally established. Apply to the monastery nearest
your residence.
St. Michael's Monastery
West Hoboken, New Jersey
St. Joseph's Monastery
3800 Frederick Ave.
Baltimore, Maryland
St. Gab-riel's Monastery
159 Washington St.
Brighton, Mass.
St. Ann's Monastery
Scranton, Pa.
St. Paul's Monastery
Carson Station
Pittsburgh, Pa.
St. Mary's Monastery
Dunkirk, N. Y.
Sacred Heart Retreat
Newburg Road
Louisville, Ky.
Passionist Preparatory College
Normandy, Mo.
••■:iisyi^L^I>«ii}syt)«/.':-r
In Hoc Signo!
J. Corson Miller
Men say we're dust of dreams, — no more, no less,
Have kinship \tfith the rose, — the blade of grass;
And, like the sunset-breeze, we rise and pass
Into the dark; that -tie do onward press,
Blindly, against the goal to — Nothingness:
Each man a bit of that atomic mass
That Science calls the Cosmos, — flame and gas —
Which is our chemic prototype and dress.
But I have felt the whirr of love's warm wings,
And heard a child's wnite prayer at twilight's hou
I've known the song the shriven spirit sings,
Newly released from sin's debasing power.
Pi.-tia.-yl with men's despair and sickening dross !
I see Christ's face upon His cruel cross.
FSfiraraftu; \7, «£ ;7, r*7 ;,7, u7 ;7, ;,1 »7 u7, ;7. ;7, ;,?, ;7, u7 £7*7 *7 ;.".: >7, ;7m7-, u7 -„7 *7 *7 u7 *7 ii7 :7. ,7. ;.7 r.7 >-7 ;7. *7 *7 *7 IS
Giosue Borsi: Poet, Soldier, Convert
Pasquale Maltese
HE World War was the occasion of reveal-
ing many and varied extraordinary types
CO
^^^V of character who already have had their
day and vogue. Few of those who loomed
large in the public eye during the long period of
strife are destined to survive the immediate after-
math of the war. Among the small minority who will
outlive the memory of this tempestuous generation
is to be numbered, I think,
the youthful Italian Lieu-
tenant, Giosue Borsi.
Though distinguished
among his contemporaries
for his valor, his lasting
appeal will rest, not upon
his record as a soldier, but
upon his attainments in
letters which made him a
conspicuous figure in pres-
ent day Italian intellectual
and social circles, and
upon his rare qualities of
soul expressed in his
mystic writings which so
wonderfully portray the
intimate communings of a
man with his Maker, and
which have already taken
a unique place in the
devotional literature of
the Church.
I shall always regard
it as an exceptional privi-
lege to have been instru-
mental in placing within
the reach of the English-reading public some of
these writings. If I may be permitted to confess
a thing so personal, I once said to my dear friend,
the lamented Henrico Caruso, that I had thought his
voice the most beautiful in all the world, but that I
had discovered another voice wider in range and
sweeter in melody — the voice of Giosue Borsi.
At the request of the Editors of The Sign I
gladly give an outline of the life of this brilliant
youth which will be helpful, I trust, in making him
better known and enhance his writings for those who
are already familiar with their charm.
61
a'TFNAXT G
IOSUE BORSI was born in Leghorn, Italy,
June 10, 1888. His parents were Averardo
Borsi and Verdiana Fabbri. He was one of
three children. His sister Laura was two years
older and his brother Gino some years younger.
From his earliest years he manifested remarka-
ble literary ability. At the age of 13 he wrote a
poem to his mother which the distinguished Pro-
fessor Romagnolo does
not hesitate to term a
classic. At 15 he wrote
and published a volume of
poems entitled Primus
Fons; and at 17 another
volume, Scruta Obsoleta.
At 20 he was recognized
as a foremost commenta-
tor on Dante. I have be-
fore me a much-prized
gold medal, given me by
Giosue's mother, which
was presented to him by
the Dantean Society of
Italy on the occasion of
his delivering a masterly
oration on the greatest of
Christian poets. He suc-
ceeded his father as editor
of // Nuovo Giornale of
Florence at the age of 22.
Unfortunately, Giosue
was raised in an irreligi-
ous atmosphere. His
osue borsj father was the owner and
general editor of a chain
of strongly anti-clerical newspapers. He was not
an atheist, as some have said. Probably he would
call himself a Catholic, and he was one after a
fashion. It was owing largely to his writings that
the crucifix was retained in the Italian courtrooms
when its removal was urgently insisted upon by his
anti-clerical associates. Madame Borsi could hardly
be called a practical Catholic. Whatever religion
there was in the family she had. If to-day she is
an exemplary Catholic her conversion is due to her
son.
Giosue received his first Holy Communion in
THE +SIGN
his fourteenth year. The ceremony took place
privately in a village church and probably without
the consent or knowledge of his father. This is the
only external act of religion recorded in his life
until his conversion some twelve years later.
He made his higher studies in the University
of Leghorn where he received his degree in lav/.
He had no particular liking for the bar, and on
quitting the university he
adopted journalism as a
profession. His first work
was on // Nuovo Giomale,
owned and edited by his
father.
The elder Borsi died
Dec. 10, 1910. His death
was due chiefly to grief
over a family tragedy
which involved the honor
of his daughter. Not
quite two years later
Laura herself died, July
18, 1912. Both died with-
out the sacra-
ments and were
denied Chris-
ian burial.
They were
buried together
in the cemetery
of Porte Sante
in the section
reserved for
non - Catholics.
Their tomb is
simply inscrib-
ed — Averardo
Borsi 1858-
1910. Laura
Borsi 1886-
1912.
Giosue's sensitive nature was deeply touched by
the early and unhappy demise of his father and
sister. In company with his mother he frequently
visited the cemetery, seeking solace in nearness to
the remains of those whom he had so passionately
loved. In the course of these visits he became ac-
quainted with some of the local Franciscan Fathers.
Between him and Father Biagio Cinaldino, O. F. M.
there grew up a warm friendship. The good friar
could not fail to be impressed by the many beautiful
k
■ ^^^^
1 nfl
mA
m \
traits of the young Borsi and strove to impress him
with the sheer vanity of earthly ambitions and
accomplishments. At his suggestion Giosue com-
menced the serious reading of the Bible, the Little
Flowers of St. Francis and the Confessions of St.
Augustine.
Up to this time he had lived and written as a
cultured pagan. If he had any definite plan in life
it was to be, after the
manner of St. Augustine
"a peddler of rhetoric;"
and, like Augustine again,
he was carried away, with
all the torrential exuber-
ance of his warm southern
temperament, into a very
vortex of dissipation. His
immorality was none the
less gross for all his polish
and refinement.
There is one striking
witness to an innate spirit-
uality in him which was
never quite
e x t i nguished.
This was his
pure love for
a sweet Catho-
lic girl. He has
idealized her in
a series of
love letters
published un-
der the title
Letters to Julia.
He had such an
exalted regard
for her charac-
ter that he
could not ex-
press orally his
intense affection and admiration. He wrote these
letters to her but never had the courage to send
them.
It seems that the first definite step towards
his conversion was taken in connection with his
editorial work. In the interests of his newspaper
he had frequently consulted with Father Guido
Alfani, P. M., Director of the Florentine Observatory
and famous as a seismologist. He was largely
responsible for discrediting Guilio Ulivi, the man
THE + SIGN
who had all the European military authorities
actively interested in his manipulation of ultra-red
rays whereby, he claimed, bombs might be exploded
at a distance without the use of wires or other
contact apparatus. Giosue was an enthusiastic
admirer of Ulivi and energetically championed his
claims in the columns of his newspaper.
Though keenly disappointed with Father
Alfani's unmasking of Ulivi's pretensions, Giosue
continued to visit the priest who proved himself as
thorough a guide of souls as he was a scientist. It
was he who satisfied Giosue's religious difficulties
and received him
back into the
Church. To him
the new convert
could justly say:
"I owe you more
than my life."
ON July 18,
1914, the
second an-
niversary of his
s i s t e r's death,
during the Mass
offered for the re-
pose of her soul,
young Borsi re-
ceived Holy Com-
munion for the
second time in his
life. On this oc-
casion he received
not with the per-
functoriness of a careless school-boy but with the
solid fervor of a convinced Catholic. He had pre-
pared himself by repeated confessions and long
hours of prayer and meditation. After Communion
he exclaimed: "Now begins the new life."
What that new life was may be best judged
from his Spiritual Soliloquies. He began the writing
on them May 4, 1915, and finished October 16, 1915.
There are fifty-four in number, and are replete with
salient points and suggestions on all phases of the
spiritual life. They seem to have been written under
the influence of a marvellous infusion of the Holy
Spirit. By some they are regarded as a twentieth-
century version of the Confessions of St. Augustine.
Cardinal Maffi, who confirmed Giosue, has expressed
the opinion that they will stand with the Confessions
BORSI'S BLOOD-STAINED COPY OF DA?
as amongst the greatest ascetical literature produced
by the Church.
^y^HEN Italy entered the European war Borsi
\\y enlisted at once. From the very first he had
a presentiment that he was to die in battle.
That feeling became very real to him and colored
everything he did. He proved himself to those
under his command to be the kind of soldier he
desired to be: "I truly hope that the Lord God has
given me the grace of a fairly brave heart that
nothing can shake. I hope that if I shall fall I
shall fall like a
good strong
soldier, with calm,
serene and fear-
less courage; I
hope that I shall
show myself in-
trepid before my
soldiers; I hope
that the death so
many times de-
sired and invoked
will not succeed
in overcoming me
with cowardly,
childish fright,
but that I shall
welcome it smil-
ing, like a good
friend, and accept
it with honor."
His men have
testified how vali-
antly he led them in action, and what an inspiration
to courage and steadfastness his own example gave
them.
One of the few loves his conversion did not
compel him to sacrifice was his love for Dante. He
always carried a copy of the beloved author in his
coat pocket. His new life had given a fresh in-
terpretation to the words of the great poet.
On November 10, 1915, Giosue Borsi fell
mortally wounded while gallantly leading his pla-
toon to the attack on the Isonzo front. When his
comrades reached him they saw him press to his
heart his copy of Dante which was stained with his
blood. Before he died he handed them the book
and said: "Give that to my mother. May my sacri-
fice and her sacrifice be acceptable to God."
THE 1
'HORTLY after his death his last letter was
found. It had been written on October 21.
It was addressed to his mother and was to
be delivered to her only in the event of his death.
It is a singularly human document glorified with
the beautiful Christian spirit of filial piety. Trans-
lated into many languages it has made the rounds
of the world. Thus the deep love for his mother
which impelled him to write his first poem in her
honor was with him in the moment of death and is
witnessed to after his passing.
The whole-hearted conversion of Giosue Borsi
came as a shock to the anti-clericals who had hoped
that this talented young man would prove an able
successor to his father in the ranks of anti-Catholic
journalists. He has become instead a very apostle
of Catholicism. His writings are an inspiration for
many to seek the higher things, and a proof that
the Church, through her teachings and sacraments,
can still take our human clay, however weak and
tainted, and build it up into a breathing saint.
Borsi is the patron saint of the intellectuals.
He in the twentieth century, as Dante in the thir-
teenth, illustrates the age-old truth that the human
SIGN
soul is by nature Christian, and that the highest
gifts of genius have their fullest play in the expres-
sion of those dogmatic, eternal truths which the
Church formulates in clearest terms and voices in the
unhesitating accents of divine authority.
^^^HE influence of Borsi in Italy, practicularly,
%/J is a palpable force. The anti-clericals claim
him as their own, and regard his conversion
to Catholicism as the weakness of a great mind
under the stress of intense sorrow and morbid
brooding.
That the Catholic view of Borsi is the correct
one is proved beyond doubt by his spiritual writings
which abundantly show that it is only a deep love
for God that can beget expansive and genuine
sympathy for men.
The Catholic view is further established by the
large number of young men, mostly university
students, upon whom Borsi's example is exercising
a most healthful influence. His cult grows daily. I
may sum up the results of his active influence in
words which some time since I wrote his mother:
"You have lost one son. God has given you a
thousand."
X
The Holy Rosary
'N his encyclical letter on the centenary of
St. Dominic the Holy Father takes occa-
sion to encourage the devotion of the
Rosary. The Rosary is the dearest devo-
tion to the Mother of God. Ever Catholic knows that
intimacy with Mary preserves him from indifference
and tepidity and that the Rosary is the simplest
means of maintaining that intimacy. Thus, too,
it becomes a daily source of grace and spiritual
stimulation and very nearly a guarantee of final
perseverance.
Recommendations
1. Esteem the Rosary for its antiquity and the
prodigies wrought through it for peoples and indi-
viduals in desperate need. Esteem it for its origin :
the prayers composing it and their peculiar sequence
were composed and approved in heaven. No more
precious words and sentiments could we repeat.
Direct approval of this repetition of prayers we have
from our Lord : "Knock, and it shall be opened unto
you," and by His own example : "Jesus prayed the
third time saying the self same word."
2. Recite the Rosary once a day : preferably
early in the day if you find that at bed time you are
generally too weary for mental effort. Carry your
beads about with you so that on busy days you may
seize any opportunity which offers to say your
Rosary even while abroad.
3. Recite your Rosary always slowly and
fervently. Said thus it will take up only ten minutes.
Said with distraction and feverish haste it will in-
variably seem an onerous and tedious exercise.
Time never drags wearily when we bring close at-
tention and interest to what we are doing.
4. See that all the proper indulgences are
applied to your beads, especially that you may share
these indulgences with the departed.
Whereon The}) Crucified Him
Hubert Cunningham, C. P.
XN the article published in the preceding
issue of The Sign I attempted to show that
devotion to the holy Passion of Our Lord
reaches back to the beginnings of Chris-
tianity; that all other devotions, compared with it
are recent — that love for Christ Crucified is the
fountain source and the motive of every other
Christian devotion.
This is thought — provoking. It is solidly true
that the more we study it the more convincing it
becomes and the more attractive. For that reason
I feel induced to follow it up.
The preceding paper treated the subject only
in a general way but it would be an unfortunate
mistake to suppose that devotion to Christ Crucified
in the lives of His children was ever, even in the
earliest days of the Church, a vague generality, a
sporadic whim or an elusive sentiment. No; it was
a ruling factor in the lives and conduct of the people
and showed itself in substantial realities, as all
solid devotion must, by vigorous, definite, particular
and public facts and in many and bold and beautiful
ways. One of these ways was the devotion of Chris-
tians to the holy Cross of Christ. We can trace this
all the way back to Calvary as an uninterrupted
practice.
Devotion to the holy Cross of Christ is a subject
that is full of edification but it is vast — so far stretch-
ing that I cannot attempt to cover it. This article
will contain just a few matters of instructive and
edifying interest on early devotion to the holy Cross
just to show our Catholic people in some better way
how fundamentally set in the history and texture
of the holy faith is this beautiful devotion and so to
supply their minds with more solid food for fervor.
Devotion to the Cross of Christ goes right back
to the very infancy of the Church. It is gratifying
to recall that there have been painted in these later
years and that in spite of the vulgar and commercial
trend of art, many very excellent Calvary pictures.
One of these occurs to me just now as appropriate
to my thought. The subject is an aftermath of the
Great Tragedy and is painted by P. R. Morris and
he entitles the work "Whereon They Crucified Him."
The artist shows a bare cross staked upright; a
rope left dangling over the two sides of the cross-
beam, reaches to the ground and hanging awry from
one of the arms of the cross is the title which had
been placed over the Savior's head. Standing there
in front of the cross, gazing intently, sadly, is a
sandal-shod mother eagerly lifting up her babe that
he might the better see the solemn sight. With the
inerrancy of Christian instinct the artist has caught
the truth and in this simple and direct way he tells
the story of early Christian devotion to the Cross
of Christ. It would stamp that Cross upon the
heart from very babyhood! That picture defines
my thought.
^^^HE bitter Passion of our Blessed Savior ended
^^ with the crucifixion and His sacred death
upon that Cross. This we know was horrible
in the extreme. That is the reason why it was a
punishment fit for and inflicted upon only the most
brutal and degraded class of criminals. It is what
Tacitus calls supplicium servile, the slave's punish-
ment. For that reason in Rome itself it was
forbidden by law to condemn to this form of death
any but the slave. The unfortunate so condemned
was striped naked and nailed to two cross tree
trunks or stout branches and lifted up for mockery
to the view of the public. The nails which paled
him to those two beams were the only support of
the wretched man's weight. There he hung fixed,
conscious, suffering, watching himself die, and there
he hung for hours, some times for days of this
excruciating agony while people passed him by or
heartlessly gazed or, worse still, jeered at his
miserable condition — at his pains, his tears, his
groans and his cries. It was a death of human
cruelty and lingering misery, it was long-drawn-out
and salted with open and public disgrace.
This unspeakable punishment was the acme of
all those sufferings which poor Jesus Christ had
been now bearing for the previous fifteen hours and
the mystified, discredited and heart-broken lovers
of our Blessed Savior felt the bitterness of it to the
quick. Yes, they knew the acid meaning of utter
defeat and its complete anguish.
But when the climax of that horrible tragedy
came with sudden mid-day darkness and cracking
THE 1* SIGN
rocks and the spectral forms of dead men flitting
through the gloom, and when scared and skulking
crowds groped their stumbling way down that hill-
side moaning that they had murdered the Living
God, the vision of the holy Cross as the majestic
center of all the universal
forces wrecked, drawn and
swirling about it as helpless
as chaff in the cyclonic
winds shot down into their
bosoms with a vividness
never to be forgotten and
into their hearts as the
embodiment of the Sacred
Passion of Christ and the
symbol of His unconquera-
ble power. From that day
and in these impressive
surroundings when Jesus
consecrated its precious
wood by His wounds, by
His sufferings, by His
blood and by His death,
and when by its weakness
and its shame He overcame
the powers of the world,
the holy Cross became an
object of Christian love and
veneration. Christian de-
votion to the Cross began
on Mount Calvary.
In the thought thus
expressed there is sublime
Christian inspiration. It
surely makes a man feel
proud of his faith and of
his fathers. But the state-
ment is not the product of
fertile imagination or of
perfervid pietism; no, it is
the fruit of calm and accu-
rate research. Following
the lines of ordinary in- whereon they
vestigation we can trace Christian devotion to the
holy Cross back and back further through the
mists and the mazes of all the past centuries with a
clearness that is unmistakable and by arguments
of every kind, from friend and from enemy.
Wherever we search in every age and every country
the children of the Church have left the Cross
traceable upon everything with which their lives
came in contact.
nERE is a very simple illustration of it. A
young man named Orestis and a splendid
type of the all-round athlete, was entered as
an attraction for the games. At throwing the
discus he was a star, and while executing this feat
his cross fell out of his
clothing on to the field.
Such an accident as this
is touching; to us Catholics
it is living and very human.
The like of it might happen
and is happening today.
Wherever our Catholic
young men gather they
carry with them the eviden-
ces of their faith and de-
votion— on to track and dia-
mond, as we saw them
carry their crucifix with
courage and confidence into
the camps and on to the
battlefields of Europe. But
this incident did not happen
here or among the athletes
of to-day; it happened
away off in Cappadocia
and away back in the fourth
century. That fallen cross
there on the field showed
that this star discus-thrower
was a Christian. The
pagans murdered him for
that and so we have St.
Orestis, the Martyr, giving
us an example of devotion
to the holy Cross as it was
practised fifteen hundred
years ago.
This is interesting and
convincing. Can we find
such evidences as this any
further back than this? —
for the further back we
go the more interesting this matter becomes. Yes,
we can go back, a hundred, even two hundred years
further and find the same evidences of this beautiful
practice. In my search of his subject I have not
been satisfied to accept at face value the quotations
and citations which I have met. Wherever it has
been possible I have gone to the source myself and
with the result, namely: that I have seen the holy
Cross appearing in the writings of the third and the
CRUCIFIED
THE 1* SIGN
second century as variously, spontaneously and in
as matter-of-course a way as it might appear in the
works of any Catholic writer of our own times. It
comes up in all phases and on all occasions.
aT this point I am naturally impelled to give
some passages from these ancient writers
but my quotations would have to be few
and short and so the argument which they would
form would be weak and misleading. It would not
even suggest the immense weight behind it for the
evidence is indeed a veritable mass. As well might
I expect to convince a blind man of the vastness of
an ocean scene by allowing a drop of water to fall
upon his eager, outstretched hand as by a few
sentences from these writers to demonstrate the
sweeping testimony which they give to the universal
presence of the holy Cross in the religious lives of
their contemporaries.
Here I would ask the reader to stop for a while
and think and allow the full force of these state-
ments to sink into the mind for it is all very wonder-
ful. We must particularly remember that we are
not here talking about the decayed remnants of
some past glory, of the hazy lines of a great historic
feat nor the discovered evidences of quaint, fantastic
and faded national customs; there is no question of
a valuable but dead relic of the vanished ages such
as a moss-covered ruin, an ancient mummy or a
crumpled papyrus. This article is not talking of
anything dead but of a living thing of the present
day, of something that is a real fact and a mighty
factor among the men and women of our own time —
an actual constituent of our own lives. We are
studying Catholic devotion to the holy Cross of
Jesus Christ, that same which we know so well as a
part of the daily and hourly religious life of our own
Catholic people, in our churches and in our homes
and in our own conduct ; we are looking at this same
as it appears in history and we are able to trace
it — clear, distinct, vigorous — in spite of all the
wreckage and the rubbish of devastating time back
and back for nigh to eighteen hundred years. Could
it possibly, by any authentic evidences, be brought
nearer than this to its source ? This we shall see in
our next paper.
The Greater Love
OUR Lord's Passion, like a wonderful melody,
never grows old. As often as it is heard,
the human heart is stirred with unwonted
emotion and glows more ardently with an
answering love. Love always exercises a powerful
influence over the human heart, and the greater the
love the more absolute its sway. The Sacred
Passion is the story of love, infinite and eternal —
hence, the everlasting vigor of its reign.
Of Cyrus, King of Persia, it is told that, having
conquered Arabia, he brought with him as captive
on his triumphal return a queen noted for her dignity
and beauty. Her husband at once made his way
to Persia to liberate her. When he appeared before
Cyrus, he was asked what he would give for her
ransom. He answered: "I will give myself, my
very life." Cyrus was so deeply impressed by this
manifestation of true and unselfish devotion, that
he not only gave her back to her husband but on
their departure, enriched them with most precious
gifts. This is an example of a love that knows no
limit : such love sacrifices itself, its very existence,
for the one beloved.
How insignificant does not even the deepest
human love appear when compared with God's love
for man! That love must be great enough to
disarm the infinite wrath of the Eternal Father
bent upon the destruction of sinful men. Behold the
Son of the Most High, the King of Kings, steps
between the uplifted avenging hand of God the
Father and rebellious man. The Eternal Father
demands justice, the Eternal Son pleads for mercy,
offering Himself, His very life, as the price of
Eternal Justice. The Eternal Father accepts the offer.
When in the fulness of time the Son of God dies
on the gibbet of the Cross we have a proof of a
love that is stronger than death. "Greater love
than this no man hath, than that a man lay down
his life for his friend."
What Will the Sterling -Towner Bill do for Education?
John McGuinness
V^HAT will the Sterling-Towner Bill do for
j ■ J education? What effect will Federaliza-
\M/ tion have on the schools? These and
similar questions we hear asked in many
quarters.
The Sterling-Towner Bill will not improve our
educational system. Federalization will destroy it.
We can picture Sterling-Townerites throwing up
their hands in horror at these words. But let me
repeat them so that every reader may get their full
import. The Sterling-Towner Bill will not improve
our educational system. Federalization will destroy
it.
It has been pointed
out by eminent students
of government, that one of
the defects in our form of
government is that the
frequent changes in poli-
tics give rise to the spoils
system. Patronage is the
compensatory rewarder of
the party workers. So we
always find the "outs"
fighting to overthrow the
"ins" that they may capt-
ure the spoils. Right here
lies the great danger to the schools — politics. Those
who have been connected with Boards of Education
know how detrimental politics are to education and
that there is nothing which disrupts a school system
so quickly. Every community has to contend with
politics, and few, if any, are ever entirely successful
in keeping them out of the schools.
The Sterling-Towner Bill opens wide the
avenue for politics to enter the school system on a
scale never dreamt of by the States or towns. With
every change in national politics, which can happen
every four years, a new Secretary of Education and
sub-ordinates will be appointed from the party
coming into power. President Harding, immediately
upon assuming office, appointed a new Commissioner
of Education.
A Federal Department of Education, because
of the very nature of its work and effect upon the
people, will be a far bigger issue in the national
election than the other Federal Departments have
/CONGRESS must be made to feel that
v_> the country does not want what the
Sterling-Towner bill provides. Here
are set down in succinct form some objec-
tions to the bill based on the interests you
have in common with all Americans. As to
your children's interests — you are left to
infer how far-reaching the pernicious in-
fluence of such an enactment may be upon
Christian education. — The Editors.
been heretofore. One party will stand to increase the
appropriation for education and to extend the acti-
vities of the Department. This would tax the people
heavily. High taxation always meets with opposi-
tion and invariably defeats the party responsible
for it. Of course, the party seeking to get in power
would stand for the opposite, a reduced appropria-
tion, curtailment of the Department's activities and
a corresponding reduction in taxes. As first one and
then the other of the two large parties will be
entrusted with power, it is obvious that the baro-
meter of education is sure to go up and down.
Congressional elections come every two years.
It is not unusual for the
party which carried the
national election to lose
control of at least one
branch of the Congress
in the Congressional elec-
tion following. In fact,
this very frequently hap-
pens. Politics then come
into play. If the victori-
ous party found it to their
political advantage to cut
an educational appropria-
tion bill to the bone or
kill it entirely, this would be done.
aNDER a Federal system of education there
can be no assurance beyond two years as to
plans and scope of education. The advocates
of the Sterling-Towner Bill are notoriously silent on
this. They well know that a Federal Department
of Education, because of political changes, can not
function differently from any other Federal Depart-
ment. Bear in mind this fact, and never for a
moment lose sight of it, that what one Congress does
another Congress can undo.
If future Congresses should prove as impotent
as the last few, any small group of organized
fanatics could shape the educational standards of
the country. And the great danger is that the strong-
hold of these fanatics lies in the non-industrial parts
of the country. Working together they can control
Congress and fix the educational standard and mould
the minds of the youth of the nation.
THE 1* SIGN
Subject education to the bickerings and tradings
and manipulations of Congress, and you open wide
the way whereby not only the high educational
standard of the individual nothern States can be
lowered, but that of the whole country.
The Sterling-Towner Bill will politicalize the
schools. Appointments and regulations made by the
Secretary of Education, himself a political ap-
pointee, will be with an eye to political expediency
rather than as a benefit to education. It is a great
many moons since a scheme has been proposed
which opens such a rich harvest for the politician,
grafter and theorist. As a beginning, $100,000,000
is appropriated, 80% of which will go for adminis-
tration and salaries. Every state, county and muni-
cipality will have its Federal Supervisors, appointed
by the politicians through the political head of the
Department, to see that the Federal rules are
complied with.
The States, not to be outdone by the Federal
authorities, will, of course, have their horde of
supervisors chosen from among the faithful sup-
porters of the party in power. In a few years we
might even have more supervisors than teachers.
Indeed there may be times when, through lack of
appropriations, we would have supervisors, but no
teachers.
EEDERALIZED education will destroy all
civic and local pride, local self-interest we
will call it, something which every community
more or less displays in its schools. The Sterling-
Towner Bill destroyes all initiative on the part of
the people to correct or improve the school system
because it takes the control of the government of
the schools out of their hands and gives it over to a
bureaucratic autocrat in Washington, who is neither
responsible to the sovereignty of the States nor to
the will of the parents therein. The further govern-
ment is removed from the people the less it responds
to their views and the opportunity for small organized
minorities to control it becomes greater.
Remember this, what the Federal Government
subsidizes the Federal Government controls. Make
no mistake about that. Education under Federal
control will cause dissatisfaction among the people
just as the other undertakings of the government
do. What one section of the country will approve
another will disapprove, but the States will be ab-
solutely powerless to enforce their views as the
Federal power will be supreme. The effects of
contentions and bickerings in educational matters
often experienced by States and municipalities,
under the Sterlirg-Towner Bill will be extended to
the whole country with disastrous results to educa-
tion.
OUR Fathers in framing the Constitution,
indeed, planned well when they left the
control of education with the States and the
parents. In their wisdom the Fathers were far-
seeing, very much more so than the Sterling-
Townerites of today. Well versed in history and
the system of governments, the framers of the Con-
stitution knew the great danger of centralization
of power and paternalism in government. They
studied its result in Rome and Athens. They had
seen the effects of too much governmental control
in many parts of modern Europe. An oligarchical
power, controlling the educational system of the
country and shaping the opinion of its youth, was
abhorent to the Fathers. They wished to see
maintained in educational matters the same spirit
of independence and self-dependency, — the right
to shape their own destinies — which the States had
so successfully contended for in the Constitutional
Convention.
That they did not err is evidenced by the
splendid type of men produced by the system of
education maintained in the States prior to the early
forties when they then began to depart from the old
system known to the Fathers, a system which gave
a moral training; a system which developed
character; a system which created the spirit of self-
sacrifice and service, a system which cultivated
culture and produced leadership.
COMPETENT critics of our educational system
deplore the commercial spirit which it creates.
The "blight of commercialism" permeates
the classroom. The spirit of self-sacrifice and
service is not fostered. The distaste for hard work
and the effort to get something for nothing are
prevalent everywhere. The Sterling-Towner Bill
instead of correcting this spirit fosters it.
Far-seeing statesmen are sounding a warning
against the spirit of commercialism and paternalism
now pervading the body politic. Vice President
Coolidge in a recent address uttered these words
of wisdom :
"Unless Americans shall continue to live
in something more than the present, to
10
THE 1* SIGl
be moved by something more than material
gains, they will not be able to respond to
the requirements of great sacrifices, and
they will go down as other people have
gone down before some nation possessed
of a greater moral force."
No! It is not Federal appropriations we want
for education, nor an increase in the now too
numerous supervisory officials and research workers
which will come with the Sterling-Towner Bill, but
a return to old fashioned principles, to old fashioned
American ideals and simplicity which fashioned
strong-minded men.
Away then with this centralization of power
and paternalism which would care for our moral
and mental requirements by placing a policeman
and a school teacher in the home. Away with this
oligarch whom the Sterling-Townerites would place
over education and who would Prussianize the minds
of our youth. Away, I say, with these faddists and
theorists whose innovations have wrought such
havoc with our school system.
If America is to endure as a free country it
will not be through the theories advanced by the
Sterling-Townerites or their large appropriations
for education. If America is to remain the America
the Fathers founded she must soon return to the old
fashioned curriculum which fostered the spirit of
self-dependency, of self-sacrifice, of service — a
system which paid attention to both the moral and
mental development of the child; a system which
developed a capacity for leadership; a system which
developed men of sterling character and indepen-
dence; men who did not shirk responsibility; men
whose yard-stick was not money; men who did not
run to the Federal Government for legislation to
correct every ill that affected society.
Such were the qualities that the builders of the
nation possessed, such are the qualities that our
schools must produce in future Americans, else, as
Vice President Coolidge says: "We will go down
as other people have gone down before some nation
possessed of a greater moral force."
Little Pitchers Have Big Ears
^^^•>HE Church presumes that at the age of
■ Cj seven the child distinguishes between good
^^^^^ and evil — its conscience begins to function.
Accordingly provision is made at that age
for training the child in the exercise of free-will.
At that age also it is bound by all the regulations
of the Church.
All who have opportunity of observing the child
at close range will agree that the Church has accu-
rately timed the development of the child mind.
Many a humorous incident proves this.
Tommy — "Ma, you said that I shouldn't eat
that piece of cake in the pantry, that it would make
me sick."
Mother — "Yes, Tommy."
Tommy — "But, Ma, it didn't make me sick."
Philip who had gone on an outing trip with
the choir boys in a brand new suit, returned with
the entire seat of his trousers gone. His mother
greeted him: "Oh, Philip, you didn't walk up from
the rectory with your trousers like that!" The lad
answers: "It's alright, Ma, no one saw me; I
walked backwards."
As soon as children begin to indicate that their
reason is in operation parents should concern them-
selves with the motives and principles upon which
they would have their children act. Not only this,
but parents should keep a sharp eye on their own
behavior in the presence of their children.
^^\ARENTS have no keener critics nor sharper
i^/ judges than these very children. To children
everything is real, and their minds are in-
tensely curious, and they are quick to draw con-
clusions. They have implicit confidence in their
parents and instinctively look to them for informa-
tion and example. New words are picked up by
minds ever on the alert and turned over and over in
the attempt to get at their true meaning. Not only
do these children sit in judgment upon their parents
when the parents give way to violent outbursts but
also upon the private chats of their elders, and they
boldly act upon what they have overheard. Great
reverence is due children, as the pagan proverb
says. Parents, take no chances with your children:
never forget their listening ears and guileless souls.
Do not shock the tender conscience of one in whom
God has implanted a natural esteem for you.
"And all the better life that I would lead,
Writ small in this, one childish face, I read."
Oder the Hills by Auto Stage
Mary Hai
&
EADSBORO, Vermont?"
"You can go by train if you want to,
but the best way is to go by the auto-
stage. The scenery is wonderful all along
the line."
So of course we go by the stage.
Whether the one thing or the other should be
done, we are in the same necessity of arising before
the daylight and driving down to the town three
miles away at the foot of the mountain, to make
connections for the next lap of the journey. This,
too, however is a part of the joys of the road.
There is something eerie and mysterious about
stealing from a dusky room to look out upon a
world that is not yet fully awake and which seems
to be still dreaming its own dreams.
You come softly down the old wooden stairs,
into the shadowy kitchen, and already the house
mother is busy there in the twilight. Unconsciously
you think back upon the line of the poet describing
the woman of long ago who "rekindles in the gray
dawn the fires which she had covered overnight."
You take a look from the window, and outside the
stable barn the son too is silently active "hitching
up" to go to town, but the hush and the stillness
are as holy things not to be broken lightly.
Then we go out ourselves and see how the
opalescent day is beginning. The great ampitheatre
of the hills is against a sky of flushing rose ; the dew
lies thick upon the grass; all around about is one
immense symphony of widening hope, and promise
and joy. As we drive down the steep, winding
road, only the sharp hoof-rhythm of the pony
punctuates the earth's solemn matins of praise.
The auto-stage leaves from the hotel door at
7 A. M. But at six forty the hotel lobby is still
deserted: a drowsy page, a window washer, the
night clerk alone represents its activities. Two
exceedingly upright ladies, of the New England
spinster type, wait in stiff expectancy upon the
hall settee for the arrival of the stage. They, as
yet, are our only fellow travellers; but as the
moments flit, other travellers, men chiefly, gather
upon the sidewalk outside the entrance, farmers,
commercial agents, and two, evidently on pleasure
bent, with fishing rods and baskets.
Punctually at seven, the stage appears; a for-
midable vehicle, roofed over and painted grey like
an inland battleship. On each of the four cross-
seats it will accommodate four — sixteen in all; not
to mention two seats beside the driver which seem
to us the most desirable. With extreme politeness
we enquire if these have been retained, and, as
they have not, we immediately proceed to swing up
our suit-cases and take possession of them ourselves.
This brings us into personal relation with Robbie.
Robbie is the stage driver, and no sooner do you
come in contact with him than you recognize a
personality.
Perhaps it would be hard to define just what a
personality is, especially in the case of a rather quiet
person, like Robbie, but he is known thoughout the
length and breath of his section of the country.
To look at him, you would say he was a college
student, a slender youth, slightly stoop-shouldered,
with a smooth face and large eye-glasses. But he
pleads guilty to twenty-six years of age and nine
years of driving. What is notable about his expres-
sion is the glance of his clear light-green eyes, he
is always looking for something to do for the
passer gers, besides merely driving them to their
destination; he is interested, he wishes to render
service. And this air of attention is modified by his
smile: a wide smile, and shrewd at the same time.
He gets a lot of amusement out of the people to
whom he is always generously doing good turns.
While the passengers are embarking, Robbie
supervises the operation and renders assistance. —
"Are you all right, sir?... Your satchel, I think.
There's more room in front, ma'am, if you don't
mind changing. Come on up here, little girl; now
that's better". . . and so forth until they are all
settled. Then he mounts his box and away we go.
It is only a morning's ride from a point in Mas-
sachusetts to another given point in Vermont, but
the road winds by hill and dale, through the most
superb country, with scenery that holds you spell-
bound, mile after mile, and you receive as many
and as varied impressions of travel as if you were
under way for a week.
*■ — |"UST before we leave the town, toward the
ff Y- outskirts, the car comes to a halt and Robbie
drops lightly from his perch. Very quickly
THE 1* SIGN
he lifts a large sack, dripping water and saw-dust
and throws it into the back of the stage; then on
again at high speed. Our curiosity is aroused.
Robbie's slow smile makes answer. "It's for some
of them folks summering at Locust Farms. They
don't get no ice out there, so I carry it for them
three times a week." Imagine the value in a com-
munity of a stage driver who will render such
services as this! On the mountain it had been
impossible, even in extreme cases, to get ice for
either love or money.
We have been running smoothly for a couple
of miles when we come to a little house, buried in
its own luxuriant garden, at the gate of which a lady
stands, evidently waiting, and making a signal-flag
out of her parasol. The stage stops exactly in front
of her. — "Mornin 'Mis' Lowther" . . . but this time
the driver sticks to his wheel, only observing over
his shoulder until the new passenger is settled. She
immediately finds an acquaintance, to whom she
conveys, (as well as to the gallery at large), that
she is going "Up to Grandma Williams to visit."
A necessary explanation, perhaps, in a farming
country, where a silk dress and bronze slippers at
seven thirty A. M. might excite suspicion!
©
EFORE us now the road lies open and inviting,
between green fields and acres of cultivated
land, with the hills bounding the horizon on
one side, and on the other neat farm-buildings or
country houses painted white, with green shutters,
standing in the midst of old-fashioned gardens.
Robbie evidently feels that the time is propitious for
an increase of speed, for he sits gathered up over his
steering-gear and the car flies, there is no other word
for it, so that the very landscape is blurred before
our eyes.
In the body of the vehicle is a pleasant murmur
of conversation, somewhat drowned by the whirr of
the machine, but many of the passengers are known
to one another, and all meet and exchange remarks
in a happy, easy spirit, bred no doubt by the com-
mon interest in travel and the joy of the cool, lovely
morning. By scraps we gather that famous story,
repeated once more by the wag of the occasion, of
that house which is half in Massachusetts and half
in Vermont, so that the children born in it are never
quite sure which is their native state. — "And every
time it comes to voting at elections, there's a shindy
in the house!" It was pointed out to us, a long
building of red brick, with modern additions that are
stuccoed, as though the residents had decided to
whitewash the portion that is Vermont!
A little after eight o'clock, we come to the first
village, clusters of dwellings shaded by fine elm-
trees and boasting one store where jam-pots, whips,
and canned vegetables meet amicably in the window,
and a sign proclaims that this is the Post Office
of Willamote. A man in shirt sleeves, pipe in
mouth, is waiting upon the steps. — "Say, Robbie,
was you going to take a parcel for me over to my
sister's in Jerryville?" Robbie's good-natured grin
responds: "Sure I was." "I could send it by mail
but it would take five days and it's something she
needs right away." — "That's all right, Mr. Pomfret."
A voice in the back of the stage sings out. "And
him the postmaster of Willamote!"
But this cannot shake Mr. Pomfret's be-slip-
pered, coatless, pipe-in-mouth dignity. He goes back
into the store for the parcel and as Robbie bends to
start the machine again, lifts a detaining hand —
"Hold on now, boy, hold on! There's a man inside
getting ready to go with you!" — "Tell him to hurry,
please; I'm late now." The car keeps chug-chugging
impatiently, the passengers are getting restless,
and still no traveller apears. "Ho, Mr. Pomfret,"
calls one, "bring out your man, we can't wait here
all day." "Some of us is going fishing," this
brings laughter. "Ay, and the missus needs the
catch before the Friday of next week."
A travelling salesman, bag in hand dashes
forth at last, and jumps upon the running board.
"All right, Cap, let her go". . . but as we start a
woman comes running from the house. "Mr. Joe,
Mr. Joe, your umbrella" ... It is too late. Robbie
does not hear and we are tearing along the high
road in the effort to retrieve lost time. It is as if
the car were lifted by some unseen power and not
touching the ground in the swift and powerful
momentum of its advance. Speed laws must be
suffering, but the sensation of being almost on the
wing is delightful.
Q
'ND now, gradually, there is a change in the
scenery. The highway grows more narrow,
plunging between banks, or skirting groves
of evergreens; the whole country looks broken and
hilly, only patches of ground here and there are
planted, and magnificent trees, the sentinels of
mountain areas: fir, pine, spruce and hemlock,
tower singly or in groups. As we pass, the incense-
like sweetness of balsam-firs is wafted to us. The
THE 1* SIGN
character of the places of habitation changes too;
no more trim farms, no more white country houses,
but shanties of unpainted wood, and pathetic,
weather-stained shacks, drooping forlornly to the
side upon which they settle. Yet there is something
wild and inspiring about the view that stirs and
charms you.
From just such a rude cabin as these Lincoln
once stepped, and what great peace and silence
must be in them, beneath the pines! From their
high places — they always seem to be set high —
what vast horizons they must command! For us,
guessing at the stories they represent, we fly past
them and are nothing to them. The breeze of
incipient autumn is in our faces, and the gold of the
perfect day shines upon
scenes that are so fair
already.
Presently we come
once more to an oasis of
culture, stock-breading
and summer visitors.
"Locust Farms," is an-
swered to our enquiries,
and Robbie hops lightly
down, digs out his sack
of ice and drops it upon
the grass below the
porch, then quickly re-
sumes his seat. The
shutters are still closed,
and bottles of milk stand
full beside the entrance.
Tn the silence of the
pause, an elderly fem-
inine voice is lifted
dolorously behind us.
"Well, now, did you
ever! Half past eight
and sleeping! Some
folks is so lazy that if". .
in the long groan of the starting engine.
Bang! And we are off.
For a little while we are in the farming region
again, the road smooth and the land undulous with-
out sharp accidents. Quiet, laborious forms of men
and women are bending over their several tasks in
the fields. We flash past a group of young men
working upon the telegraph wires, and note how the
stalwart, sun-bronzed figures still wear army
breeches and leggins, and one strongly-moulded
face, superb as sculpture under the army hat, turns
to gaze as we pass. Shouts of greeting are exchang-
ed, and one of us at least thanks heaven that these
lads should be back at their peaceful occupations
in the good New England back-country, far from
the devastations of war.
o
The Rainbow
Placidus M.
Endler
The summer wind through Nazareth —
O it was sip! —
Paused for a moment
as it passed
A Baby- by";
And from the ruddy1
ruby* bow —
It did espy —
Of Babe's lips where
sorted sweets
In rows did lie,
Most stealthily it stole
a kiss.
Then up on higl
t
It hung this candy -colored kiss,
Still wet, to dry4.
the rest of it is drowned
Whirr!
perceive an aged man standing in the road
and holding up his hand. Robbie seems
accustomed to signs and watches for them. We
draw up, and two young ladies, evidently summer
boarders, are taking leave of a kindly white haired
woman of many years. "Good-bye, good-bye, we
have had a lovely time and will surely come again."
Innumerable boxes, bags,
flowers and apples are
stowed all over the car,
more farewells spoken
and we drive on, leaving
those two ancient people
standing in the sun.
They seem, somehow
struck and desolate, with
their old, old heads, their
withered hands, their
stooping forms. And
the old man, under his
thick white hair is mak-
ing a brave attempt to
smile, with some pain, as
of a sorrow of long ago,
piercing the cheerful-
ness. Have they no
children of their own?
Where are their chil-
dren? The girls are
talking of railroad tickets
and trains to town, the
stage leaps forward on
its way to Vermont, but those two pitiful figures
at the gate, in the sunshine, so old, so feeble, hurt
the memory like remorse.
We stop in the centre of the village, before
the rustic hotel, and here a good number of passen-
gers alight. It is a local nucleus of some importance.
While his passengers collect their baggage, Robbie
from the box superintends their operations and does
not observe a small barefoot boy who comes and
stands at the curb waving a letter silently above
his head. At last the wag takes notice. "Hey,
THE + SIGN
Robbie, somebody's sendin' you a love-letter!" —
"Ah, shaw, it's only an order for the grocer." — "He
wants a pound of maccaroni for his girl." The
boy continues imperturably to wave his missive as
high above his tousled head as his little brown hand
will let him reach. A woman's imperious voice
recalls the long-suffering chauffeur to his duty.
"Robbie, Robbie! Will you turn round! Here's
a child trying five minutes to deliver a letter to you."
Robbie turns with philosophical calmness. "Hello,
George! Does mother want me to take that for
her?" The head nods a little, but the lips are closed.
The soiled envelope passes into Robbie's deep
pocket, and away we go again.
Now, there seems to be a change of temperature,
falling to cooler. Perhaps it is only imaginary, or
perhaps in reality as we are almost continually
running through the deep shade of thickets, the
atmosphere registers the change. To our left,
between gaps in the branches we detect a white
flashing and gleaming of foam; at one point, break-
ing through foliage and underbrush, are two lads
with clean eager, roseate faces, lifted smilingly
as the stage passes; their outing shirts and long
rubber wading boots show clearly in what sport they
are engaged.
Almost immediately after this, we come to the
most spectacular portion of the trip. The road, of
an earthy tan color, becomes quite narrow and begins
to take short, irregular turns which wind in serpen-
tine fashion. The stage is obliged to lower speed,
and fast — faster than we go — the trout-stream which
has become a torrent, tears along beside us at the
edge of the road. It is a magnificent sight: here
it dashes impetuously forward picking its way
between massy rocks, there the rocks stand strewn
in opposition, and the headlong waters hurl onward
over them, in waves, in snowy fringes, in eddies,
and on again with unimpeded rush. In recesses, the
deep green pools that the current does not seem to
touch, are formed; and everywhere the long ferns
leaning over, the jewel-weed and nameless, beauti-
ful, frail sprays of foliage, are sprinkled and hang
trembling over the brawling, roaring thunder of the
water-course. Now a bit of forest cuts us off from
the stream, and we are again in deep shadow, with
high earth banks on either side of us, dark, cool
places full of the scent of loam and of moss and
fungi, as in the sequestered, rich spots that human
foot scarce ever treads.
The company has grown silent, and the fact is
certainly psychological. We are in no danger, but
nature here is primeval, untouched, almost awesome
in its splendor. We emerge once more into the sun-
light, and the stream now acts like a sportive child :
it runs deliberately across our track, forms a deep
loop, and on again, racing as before, but this time
at our right hand. The stage slowly makes the
awkward turn, crosses the short bridge where for a
moment we are above the battling, pelting, boulder-
strewn water on both sides of us, and runs on again,
smoothly, by a better road. There had been
moments when we prayed that no other vehicle
should be coming from the opposite direction.
^#^\OBBIE looks at his watch, for he prides him-
l^f self upon punctuality, whatever may be the
delays and accidental stops of the way.
Toward ten o'clock we enter on the main village
street with its clean little houses, and flowers in the
window boxes; happy women look out from neat,
old-fashioned doorways, and rosy children come
running to greet friends among the travellers. We
catch a glimpse in passing of the unusual pictures-
queness of the situation. Hills are all about us,
and the white cottages climb and lodge themselves
in all the nooks, so that every green space is studded
with them.
The town is parted by the broad, stony bed of
a river, with water that only threads it in summer,
but a long, oscillating iron bridge unites the two
sections. Just below the bridge, the torrent — which
has followed us — hurls itself impetuously into the
shallow, slow course of the river and together they
pour away through the lower portion of the village,
past gardens and mills, and especially past the little
church on the slope with its slender spire and the
gold Cross uplifted to the West.
Robbie comes to a halt before the principal
store of the town; and now he alights briskly and
his wide, good-natured smile rejoices with the tra-
vellers that he has been able to bring them safely
to their destination. He renders assistance generous-
ly with suitcases, bags and baskets. More than one
passenger pauses to shake hands with him, showing
the peculiarly ^personal relationship that has been
established between them and calls as they part.
"I'm going back with you, Robbie, when I go!"
This is our own word to the lad. And he answers
back pleasantly: "Glad to have you! Just let me
know anytime. Mondays, Wednesdays and Satur-
days, until the snow shuts us off."
Wkat Do You Know About:
Tke Church's Attitude Towards Divorce?
XT can hardly be denied that the closest of all
unions is to be found in the holy bond of
matrimony. For the sake of entering into
such a union, men and women will break every other
tie, no matter how close or how sacred, even the
tie that binds the child to the parent. The union of
husband and wife is the closest and most unifying
that it is possible to conceive, for they become two
in one flesh. Nay, more; as our Blessed Lord said,
they are "no longer two but one flesh."
The inclination to enter such a union is deeply
seated in human nature since it was placed there in
the beginning by the Creator, and in spite of the
difficulties and hardships attendant on married
life, the impulse to enter that state persists. Divorce
is, then, by its nature opposed to the well-being of
the individual and of society, it did not enter into
the designs of God, it was condemned by Our Lord
and has found no place among the nations that have
the true Christian Faith.
When holy matrimony was blessed by God
in the earthly paradise of Eden He stamped upon it
the character of indissolubility and willed it to be a
life-long union between one man and one woman.
When our Divine Savior restored marriage to
its original purity, He gave it a new creation of
grace, by elevating it to the dignity of a Sacrament
of the Catholic Church and stamped upon it the
character of indissolubility making Christian marri-
age a sign and symbol of the union which exists
between Himself and His spotless Spouse, the
Church.
1. We should distinguish two kinds of sepa-
ration between husband and wife.
A. Absolute divorce which implies the dis-
solution of the marriage Bond carrying with it the
right to contract a new marriage.
B. A mere separation of the parties, implying
a permission to live apart from each other, but
leaving the marriage bond intact, and giving no
permission to contract a new marriage.
2. Absolute divorce is forbidden by the law
of God in the case of a Christian marriage, at least
after its consummation. Such a marriage can not
be dissolved by any power on earth. Neither
Church nor State has the power to break the
marriage Bond.
3. This is the law of God. Our Lord said:
"Therefore now they are not two but one flesh.
What GOD HATH JOINED TOGETHER LET
NO MAN PUT ASUNDER." Math. 19, 6. "Who-
soever shall put away his wife and marry another,
committeth adultery against her. And if the wife
shall put away her husband, and be married to
another, she committeth adultery." Luke 16/18.
"Everyone that putteth away his wife and marrieth
another, committeth adultery and he that marrieth
her that is put away committeth adultery." Mark
X. 11, 12.
4. This is the teaching of the Apostles. St.
Paul said — "A woman is bound by the law as long
as her husband liveth; but if her husband die she is
at liberty; let her marry whom she will." 1 Cor. VII.
"For the woman that hath a husband, whilst her
husband liveth is bound to the law. But if her
husband is dead, she is loosed from the law of
her husband. Therefore whilst her husband liveth,
she shall be called an adulteress, if she be with
another man; but if her husband be dead, she is
delivered from the law of her husband, so that she
is not an adulteress if she be with another man."
Rom. VII. 2, 3.
5. This was the law of the whole Christian
world for fifteen centuries, and it is still in force
throughout the Catholic Church and is sanctioned
by nations and states of the old and the new world.
6. Christ abrogated the Jewish law of divorce,
and thereby prohibited its use among Christians.
The Pharisees asked our Lord "Why then did Moses
command to give a bill of divorce and to put away?
He saith to them; Moses, because of the hardness
of your hearts, permitted you to put away your
wives BUT FROM THE BEGINNING IT WAS
NOT SO. And I say unto you, whosoever shall put
away his wife except it be for fornication, and
shall marry another, committeth adultery, and he
that shall marry her that is put away, committeth
adultery." Matthew 19.
7. The principal causes for permitting a
"separation from bed and board" are (a) Adultery
(b) Danger to one's salvation (c) Cruelty (d) Lapse
of one party into infidelity. From this it is seen that
the Church is not tyrannical, for while she can not
THE t SIGN
break the bond of marriage, she does allow married
persons to live apart for grave reasons.
8. They sin grievously who have recourse to
the civil courts to obtain an absolute divorce when
their marriage is valid. But Catholics may apply
to the secular courts for a merely civil divorce, not
as though they recognized any power on the part of
the State to dissolve a marriage validly contracted by
them but merely for the purpose of protecting them-
selves against unjust vexations and legal penalties.
9. Any Catholic attempting to marry again
after having obtained a civil divorce falls under the
censure of the Church.
10. Divorce is contrary not only to the law
of Christ but also to the law of Nature. This is
easily seen in the terrible effects that flow from
divorce, which Leo XIII summaries; "Truly it is
hardly possible to describe how great are the evils
that flow from divorce. Matrimonial contracts are
by it made variable, mutual kindness is weakened,
deplorable inducements to unfaithfulness are sup-
plied, harm is done to the education and training of
children, occasion is afforded for the breaking up of
homes; the seeds of dissension are sown among
families, the dignity of woman is lessened and
brought low, and women run the risk of being
deserted after having ministered to the pleasures of
men. Since, then, nothing has such power to lay
waste families and destroy the mainstay of kingdoms
as the corruption of morals, it is easily seen that
divorces are in the highest degree hostile to the pros-
perity of families and States, springing as they do
from the depraved morals of the people, and as
experience shows us, opening out a way to every
kind of evil-doing in public and private life. . . So
soon as the road to divorce began to be made smooth
by law, at once quarrels, jealousies, and judicial
separations largely increased and such shameless-
ness of life followed that men who had previously
been in favor of these divorces repented of what
they had done, and feared that, if they did not seek a
remedy by repealing the law, the State itself might
come to ruin."
11. All this has been verified in the history
of the world since the time of the Protestant revolt
against the authority of the Vicar of Christ. Divorce
led Henry VIII, King of England, to adultery,
sacrilege, the plunder of his realm and the brutal
murder of his wives. Divorce has brought upon our
own generation the curse of race-suicide, thereby
robbing the State of future useful citizens, depriv-
ing the Church of many saints and apostolic souls,
and preventing the birth of countless creatures who
should have been born "to know, love and serve God
in this life and be happy with Him in the never-
ending ages of eternity." It is the strict duty of
Catholics who are united in the holy bonds of
marriage, and who are face to face with difficulties
in the home, to flee from all thought of separation
or of a divorce even as they would "flee from the
face of a serpeant."
12. Not divorce but the grace of God and a
lively faith in the promises of the Gospel are the
means to bear the difficulties of domestic life. The
home may, indeed, be for some a veritable Garden
of Agony, with a Bleeding Heart and a Thorn
crowned head, but if suffered in union with the
Man of Sorrows and the Queen of Martyrs, it will
infallibly lead to the beatific vision of God. The
Cross may be found in the home but it leads to the
Crown; divorce is but the highroad to HELL.
aNDER date of September 8, the Topeka
Capital says : That divorce courts are fill-
ing the state reformatories to overflowing
with boys whose tendency to commit crime
is directly traceable to the separation of their
parents, is shown conclusively by the record of boys
applying for paroles at the next session of the
parole board to be held Tuesday, at Hutchinson.
Seventy-six boys have applied for paroles.
Records following the case of each boy from child-
hood to young manhood have been placed before
the board.
Thirty-three of the fifty boys whose records
are analyzed have no home in which their own
father and mother together can help the boy to
better manhood. In thirty-three cases, the parents
have separated. In twenty-one of the thirty-three
cases, the separation occurred in the formative
period of the boy's development and the parents
subsequently married again.
In eighteen of the twenty-one cases in which
parents separated and remarried, one or both parents
later divorced and married again and again: in two
cases as many as four times.
In twelve of the thirty-three cases where
parents separated they did not both remarry ; in five
neither of the parents later married, but in these
cases the boys were shuffled back and forth from the
custody of one parent to the other until they were
bereft of any home influences and of the proper
guidance of either parent.
Current Fact and Comment
WHERE BIGOTRY SPAWNS
^T^E can all take comfort in the fact that in the
\l/ Catholic body we have no counterpart of the
infamous Tom Watson, fanatic, hedger and
liar. How often do you hear of Protestants being
forced to organize and protest against gross mis-
representation and open persecution by Catholics?
Never! Truth, to which Tom and his brood are
strangers, begets a sence of security and contentment,
and a consequent willingness to let the other fellow
go his way. The bigot with a bad temper can never
see straight. If he did he would see that hatred is
a poor weapon always defeating its own purpose.
THE TWENTIETH AMENDMENT
^^^HE twentieth amendment to the Constitution
L J is on the way and should meet with general
approval. It empowers the President to veto
separate items in an appropriation bill. Measures
that never should or could have been approved on
their own merits have shared, as riders, the approval
of commendable and necessary measures. We can
all breathe more freely when we are assured that no
legislation prejudicial to our lawful interests will
have a chance merely because it puts the President
in the embarassing position of approving all items
or none.
CAUSE OF THE
*" — |"UST as soon as bonding and surety companies
ff Y. assumed risks against losses from criminal
causes we began to be supplied with accurate
data regarding the cause of crime. The president
of the largest of the largest of these companies gives
eleven reasons for the present crime wave. Of these
he ranks disrespect for law as the greatest. Thous-
ands who formerly unquestionally obeyed the law
CRIME WAVE
with instinctive loyalty and reverence now utterly
contemn all law. This charge has been largely
brought about through disgust for the open trickery
which has been used to put over and enforce the
un-American Volstead Act. Common-sense men
know that the mutiplication of laws is dangerous
and the making of odious and unnecessary laws is
certain to engender contempt for all law.
'SPIRIT OF HEALTH OR GOBLIN DAMN'D!'
^^<"WO of our biggest metropolitan dailies have
L J been featuring an expose of the devious ways
and stupid antics of The Invisible Empire,
popularly known as the Ku Klux Klan. This expose
has been devoured by a ravenous public with more
interest and amusement than the Comic Supplement.
On reading it we are lead to make some observa-
tions.
First: The Ku Klux Klan (Imperial Palace and
Home Office, Atlanta, Georgia) is nothing if not
American. It rests solidly on the great American
principle of a square deal and equal rights for all.
Wherefore, it very locically and conscientiously pro-
ceeds to persecute every Catholic, Jew, Black, and
Foreigner in these United States.
Second: With this noble purpose it has rapidly
developed from a handful of charter members to an
organization verging on the million. Verily "the
number of fools is infinite."
Third: Its financial success has been propor-
tionate to its membership. For the small sum of
$16.80 the members are allowed to buy the required
outfit, to wit, one hooded night-gown of purest
"Georgette" cotton. "The fool and his money are
soon parted."
Fourth: Implicit faith have these super-
Americans in the common brotherhood of man.
No crested head must appear above the dead line
of social equality. Hence we have the nicely grad-
uated scale of Imperial Wizard, Supreme Kleagle,
Grand Goblin, and lesser Goblins.
Fifth: Wizard, Kleagle, Goblins stand by
"Open covenants openly arrived at." Therefore
they lure their awe-struck dupes into the blackness
of the night and then with hideous rites initate them
into the innermost secrets of — bigotry and fanatic-
ism.
Pity the poor Catholic Church! She has
weathered the persecutions of nineteen centuries,
but, alas, her day has come! The Invisible Empire
with one fell swoop will efface the Kingdom of God !
The Gates of Hell are now to triumph!
THE + SIGN
CATHOLIC WOMEN AND THE VOTE
\^-/HE question of women suffrage is no longer
KJ'J a debatable issue. The right of the American
woman to vote has been written into the Con-
stitution and is now the Nineteenth Amendment.
Whatever may have been the attitude of our Catho-
lic women on this point prior to their enfranchise-
ment, there can be no doubt as to their duty to-day
at the ballot box. The first part of this duty is to
inform themselves about measures to be voted upon,
the next part is to go to the ballot box, and the
third part is to vote for the right measure.
Many of our Catholic men have been derelict
in their civic obligation either by not voting at all
or by not voting conscientiously. If our Catholic
women are to follow the example of these, their right
to vote will be a blow to the interests of both
Church and State. We can be assured that, as a
rule, the women who will be most ready to insist
upon their right to vote will be the very ones who
are least worthy to vote. We need the consistent
vote of good women to off-set the strength of the
others. Our Catholic women should remember that
their vote is not intended to drag religion into
politics but to keep irreligion out.
THE NATION'S
(TARTLING figures are presented in the effort
to reconcile the soldiers to the withholding
of the bonus. The Government asks that it
be allowed to attend first to the rehabilitation of
the disabled. There was testimony that 400 ex-
service men had committed suicide in New York
State, and that 1725 had applied for mental treat-
ment in New York City alone. Admittedly the
Government has failed to provide for many who
are entitled to relief on the strongest titles of justice
DEBT OF HONOR
and gratitude. Simultaneously hospitals in Pennsyl-
vania are beginning to announce that charitable
service must be curtailed in the face of deficits due
to the withdrawal of State aid. Surely those who
on a sectarian plea clamored for that withdrawal,
never came in contact with the damage done by war
to the minds and bodies of men. How shameless
and heartless the bigotry that could so inopportunely
insist upon what must notably reduce the soldiers'
chances for relief and healing!
IRELAND'S SOVEREIGNITY PREPOSTEROUS?
y^^HERE is immortal literature in the represen-
V/J tations and replies of President De Valera
to the British Premier. Of all the statesmen
who have had to plea for a people's dearest interest
none has employed greater courage, candor, force
and logic. There is no suspicion of subtlety or
evasion as Ireland's President pleads for her especi-
ally as a free and sovereign race and nation.
It must be admitted that a great many fair-
minded people look upon the Irish claim for inde-
pendence as preposterous. They congratulated
other races when these were relieved of the rule
and oppression of the Central and Eastern powers.
America fought for an ideal and here it was realized.
Little was known of the complicated political ref-
lations or of the economic and historic grounds of
the claims for freedom, there was only applause
when the Supreme Council severed the political ties
and set those peoples back within their historic
confines. But the "fair-minded people" were more
conversant with Anglo-Hibernian relations — at least
so familiar with them as to be convinced that what
might be called ancient prescription should not be
disturbed.
Those other races have had two years experi-
ence of independence. In few cases has their vision
of material happiness and prosperity been realized.
They are finding it exceedingly difficult to adjust
themselves to strictly state conditions. There is
little promise of relief. Either they are an agricult-
ural people without the resources of industry or an
industrial people without the necessary resources of
agriculture. It is a hard choice: national pride
with freedom as against national unity with ease and
comfort.
All this brings into sharp relief the distinctive
reasonableness of Ireland's claim for independence
both as a race and a nation. And a little patient
reflection will help the "fair-minded people" to ap-
preciate the disappointment of Irishmen over what
they hold to be the utter delinquency of the Supreme
Council.
Ireland is ready with every material resource
to live her own life and to prosper.
THE + SIGN
DANTE— A WITNESS TO LIGHT
ON September 14, 1321, there died in the city of
Ravenna, Italy, Dante Alighieri. He is the
greatest amongst the religious poets and one
of the three transcendent poets of all time. He is
pre-eminently a Catholic poet. The work upon
which his reputation chiefly rests — a work which is,
perhaps, the noblest single accomplishment of
Christian Europe, and the one most likely destined
to outlive all others — is concerned with an elaborate,
detailed treatment of the three great unchanging
truths, Heaven, Hell and Purgatory.
The out-standing feature of the sixth centenary
of his death is the absolute unanimity with which
the educated world, Catholic, Protestant and Un-
believing, unite in acknowledging the sublime genius
of this immortal embodiment of the culture, the
aspiration and the faith of the Middle Ages.
Our Holy Father, Pope Benedict XV himself
has honored the work and memory of Dante in a
manner unparalleled by publishing an encyclical
letter to the Christian world in which he pays tribute
to the living influence of this remarkable exponent
of Catholicism. The Pope insists that Dante is our
own, that he has received his inspiration from the
dogmas of the Church, and is the conclusive proof
that submission to the teachings of the Church does
not clip the wings of genius.
There has been deliberately foisted on the
Protestant public the unfounded persuasion that the
historical period known as the Middle Ages was a
period devoid of anything like intellectual develop-
ment, culture and refinement. Thinking persons
should know that the century which produced a
Dante could not be called 'dark', and Shakespeare
no more attests the intellectual glories of his day
than Dante, three hundred years earlier, proclaims
the high civilization of the Thirteenth Century —
the heyday of the Ages of Faith.
SUCCESS AT A COST
OCCASIONALLY, Catholics are shocked by
disclosures involving the honor of Catholic
professional men. In notorious cases recently
before the courts of Massachusetts, certain Catholic
lawyers laid themselves open to just criticism for
having consented to accept what were obviously
seamy cases. Success was dependent, not upon
legal ability, but upon agility in manipulating the
subtilties of the law. It seems also that these
lawyers extorted large sums of money from clients
whom they intimidated with the thinly veiled threat
of exposure.
These occurrences furnish another proof that a
truer standard of morality and higher ideals are
needed among some Catholic professional men.
Catholics, in certain cities, have little reason to be
proud of their representatives in public life. Gifted
with versatile talents, many have proven sad disap-
pointments; given a trust, they have betrayed it.
Strange it is, but true, that the public looks for purer
service from the Catholic than from the non-Catholic
man of affairs.
Catholic men and women in the professions
brush shoulders with adherents of many creeds.
Thrown into such surroundings, they more than ever
need the sustaining influence of their Catholic faith,
for the literature in vogue and the views expressed
are generally hostile to the Church. The desire to
appear broad-minded prompts many such Catholics
to sacrifice truth to falsehood. To curry favor with
unscruplous associates, they spinelessly consent
to things that become barbs in conscience, and that
bring both themselves and their religion into ill-
repute.
Even such as have been educated in Catholic
schools and colleges do not blush to throw over-
board the principles of morality therein learned,
and to accept a more convenient standard of pro-
fessional practice. If asked for the reason why
they have thus discarded their first ideals, they will
tell you that they found them impractical. Success
did not come to them at once, and money did not
find its way to them. So, perforce, they adopted
new ways of thinking and of living. Once they
served Christ; now they serve Caesar. The front
door has been thrown wide open to Mammon, but,
alas, peace has fled the house.
When will these men and women come :c
realize the imperative need of standing by the solid
principles they have been taught? — the interests of
God, first, last and always. The life of the late
Chief Justice White is a rebuke to the cowardly
and a potent witness to the fact that even for
advancement and universal recognition in a profes-
sion no Catholic need compromise the teachings of
his Church.
By the Hill of Slane
ElLl£HN 1
H1GHT! Light! Light!"
The woman rose rather wearily from
her bed and flung an armful of wood on
the smouldering fire which blazed up again
showing the interior of a bare room. The covering
of the bed on which the child who had called lay
was soft and warm, as was also the long dark cloak
his mother wore fastened at the neck with a gold
brooch.
The child, apparently satisfied by her action,
turned on his side and in a moment was slumbering
peacefully.
Clothra however did not return to her bed at
once, but going to the door flung it open and looked
out into the night. It was early Spring, and, though
within all became dark as the fire died down, out-
of-doors there was still light enough for her to see
the dim shapes of the trees near at hand, and a little
way off the sloping outline of the Hill of Slane
almost at the foot of which her home lay. Her
attitude showed that she was expecting someone,
but whoever it was did not appear, and presently
she went in again and sat down beside the child.
She was drowsy but she did not lie down at once
for she did not want to go to sleep until she was
quite sure that the child's slumber was sound.
As she watched beside him her dark gray eyes
over which the heavy lids drooped filled with tears,
and she muttered: "Surely it is as though he were
bewitched."
It seemed indeed as if there was some truth in
her words so great was the change in the child who
but a short season back had been strong and brave
and handsome, and so healthy that he slept from
sunset to sunrise without waking.
Earc had gone one day with his father to seek
for some strayed cattle in the tombs of the Kings
at New Grange which were at no great distance
from Slane. He was curious to see this place and
finding an opening he ventured inside, but when,
startled by the eerie darkness, he turned almost at
once to come out again, he found the opening closed
behind him. His father had in his service a man
whom on one occasion he had punished with over-
severity for some offence, and this man either by
way of a rough joke or in revenge for his punishment
had followed the boy and shut him in.
Earc was traced and rescued, but not until
some hours had elapsed. It was only after some
days had passed that it was discovered that though
he had sustained no bodily injury he was yet sorely
altered. He was become strangely timorous, and
especially a dread of darkness had come upon him
so that if he awoke in the night, as he often did now,
he would cry out with terror; also his bodily health
waned by degrees until at last he grew so weak that
he lay all day on his bed almost without moving.
GLOTHRA was a heavy sleeper, and the dawn
had already broken when she once more
came to the door of the hut and looked
southwards. When a tall figure wrapped in a cloak
which reached nearly to his tight-fitting trews
stepped out from the shadow of the ash wood she
drew a long sigh of relief; this was partly due to the
fact that it was Nial, not Cormac, who was striding
towards her. Yet she loved Cormac, her husband,
in much the same fervid manner as she loved her
child, while she cared but little for her step-son
Nial.
Both Cormac and Nial had been absent at Tara,
where was being held a Convention of the Druids
and Princes of Leinster; but whereas Cormac had
gone thither because he was a man of some import-
ance in his sept, Nial's errand had been a private
one of his own suggestion. He had gone to try to
persuade a certain Druid who was connected with
their sept, to use his magic power to take the spell
off the sick child.
Nial was not beautiful like Earc, and would
indeed have been downright ugly were it not for
the colour of his eyes which were dark blue and
had moreover at all times an intelligent and kindly
look in them. Now as he came forward, though
his face was haggard and weary, they shone with a
light that made Clothra augur the best.
"T'is well!" she exclaimed, "surely the wise
man has removed the spell." But as Nial shook his
head, her face fell.
THE t SIGN
"But at least he will aid us to vengeance!"
she cried.
"No," said Nial, "but what matter is that?"
"Not to you, mayhap!" was the angry retort,
for Clothra never forgot, though Nial often did,
that he was only Earc's half-brother.
" Tis you that have not done your errand at
all."
"Ah but I have, Clothra. Between this and
Tara I met with a man wiser than all the Druids,
and he bade me tell you to have no fear of spells,
which are but a delusion of evil."
"And the High Druid, has he not forbid him to
speak?"
"He would not obey; I tell you the holy
Patrick — as men begin to call him — fears neither
the many gods of this land, nor the Druids, nor
spells, for he serves One to Whom all these are
nothing."
Clothra's dark eyes grew round; she had no
great love for the Druids, only a fear that amounted
to dread, and as for the gods she had no great faith
in them seeing that she tried a different one every
day. It might be this stranger could lift the spell
off her boy, so she questioned Nial eagerly.
"Is he of our race?"
"Ay, but not of our country. He was brought as
a slave to Erin and suffered much, but he escaped
at last, and — "
But Clothra would hear no more, and wrung
her hands in bitter disappointment. A slave ! What
could such a one do to help? It was no use for
Nial to try to tell her how Patrick was no slave but
noble by birth, and how he had come to bring glad
tidings of the one true God and the Saviour of the
world. Still less use would it have been to attempt
to tell her of the wonderful light that had dawned
on his own soul.
" 'Tis myself I blame!" wailed Clothra, "to be
trusting a good-for-naught." She despised Nial
both for his plainness, and for the humbleness of
mind that made him slow to take offence when
unjustly reproached.
Nail turned away now and went to Earc's bed-
side, the child greeting him with a cry of delight, for
a deep affection existed between the two. But now
as Nial looked at the sick child's wasted form and
fevered eyes and heard him, who had once been
so brave and high-spirited, scream with terror be-
cause a spider dropped upon his hand, it took all his
faith in the holy Patrick and his teaching to believe
that the child was not under the influence of some
spell too strong to conquer.
e
"VERY moment he had to spare Nial spent by
the sick child's side. At night he was always
on the watch to replenish the fire so that it
was but rarely such a cry as had roused Clothra
was heard, for by his care he was able to save
Earc from the darkness he dreaded. But he had
tasks to perform out-of-doors since his father
exacted much service from him. One day on his
return home he found an evil-looking old woman
crouching by Earc's bed. There was no one else
about for his mother was helping a servant to grind
corn in the big quorn at the other end of the
enclosure.
Nial recognized the old woman at once as a
reputed witch and when he saw the terror on Earc's
face he was so angry that without a word he took
her by the shoulder and almost flung her out of the
room. She dared not resist but outside she paused
and cursed horribly, calling down the vengeance of
all the gods she knew and of the Druids on his head.
"I fear none of them!" he cried. "Begone!"
Then as she crawled away she turned and
screamed loud enough for the sick child to hear:
"I tell you all your care of yonder weakling is of
no avail, for on the night that all the lights must
go out, he will go out too."
Nial went back into the house seeking as best
he might to comfort the terrified child. But his
heart was sick within him. The dread of that one
night of the year on which according to Druid law
every light but theirs must be extinguished was on
himself as well as Earc, even though Patrick had
told him to have no fear for the terror of that night
was about to pass for ever.
As the dreaded night drew near Nial made up
his mind that at all risks — and these were not light
since disobedience meant death if discovered — he
would kindle a fire as usual on it. There was every
chance, however, that he might do so without dis-
covery for the house was divided into two chambers
by a thick oaken door, on the other side of which
was the sleeping-place of Cormac and Clothra.
Cheaply as the latter held him, she knew there was
no need for her to trouble to wake when Nial was
at hand. The only window in the room where Nial
was wont to watch by Earc was so tiny that he could
easily darken it by means of a board and a piece of
cloth.
THE 1* SIGN
Yet as Nial sat by his brother's side and the
hour for extinguishing all lights drew near he could
not shake off a sense of dread. The old woman's
threat kept ringing in his ears and though as yet
the child slept quietly it seemed to him that the
hand grew colder and clammier in his grasp as the
shadows deepened round them. The daylight
lingered yet outside but within the dusk gathered
thickly. The room was almost dark when, rising
with a yawn, Cormac kicked out the last remnants
of the fire and followed by Clothra went to bed.
XT was not until a sound resembling distant
thunder told Nial that Cormac was asleep
that he ventured to move and close every
chink of the window, and as soon as that was done,
by feeling rather than seeing, he set to work to re-
kindle the fire as noiselessly as he could. The ashes
were fortunately still warm and a faint red glow
illumined the room as he bent down to pile on three
dry birch logs.
As he did so the outer door was burst violently
open and a man rushing in struck him a violent
blow on the head, while another hastily scattered
the fire Nial had kindled. A mocking laugh out-
side told Nial who it was had guessed that he might
disobey the Druids. He struggled to rise that he
might at least reach Earc's side but as he did so
another blow stretched him senseless.
The men satisfied with their work, and fearing
that Cormac who had ceased snoring might avenge
his son, fled hastily, leaving the door wide open
behind them.
Then someone moved in the darkness and there
was a pitiful cry of "My brother! oh my brother!"
Earc's great love for his brother had over-powered
even his terror of the darkness and forgetful of all
else he bent over him now and tried to raise his
head. Then he remembered that an earthenware
jar stood in a far corner of the room and he
tried to feel his way to it. But now the darkness
seemed to wrap him around and blind and stiffle
him and he could not reach it. In spite of him-
self the old cry of "Light! Light!" rose to his
lips though Nial could not rise to give it to
him.
Yet did it seem as though his cry was answered
for suddenly a brilliant light illumined the place
and showed him, to his great joy, Nial leaning on
his elbow and looking at him, while Cormac and
Clothra stood in the doorway of the inner room
with scared faces. It seemed as though the Hill
of Slane was on fire, so glorious was the bonfire
that blazed to heaven on it.
"What is it?" they asked. But Nial, whose
senses had now returned, rose to his feet and catch-
ing Earc in his arms carried him out to see the
wonderful sight. He knew that there was but one
man in Ireland who would dare to light a fire this
night on the hill of Slane, the highest hill in
Meath.
Earc laughed and clapped his hands as the
flames leaped up; and cried "I shall never be afraid
any more, Nial." Whilst his brother with a
strangely uplifted look upon his face murmured,
"He told me all would be well on Easter Eve; I did
not understand then, but now I know. The darkness
is past and the day dawns."
An E%)er9-Da;y Prayer
Today, })es every day, I ask
Of Thee, dear Lord, but one request;
I do not long for pomp or power,
Or With great Wealth, would I be blessed
I ask not of y*ou glory", gold
Or friends, to count them by the score;
I simply ask, Thy1 blessing Lord,
And grace to love Thee more and more.
James W. Gibbons
Tke days ro
into weeks and months,
And time rolls on in endless years,
And yet I knoW tke time must come
When I must leave this vale of tears.
In that last hour, I only ask
Thy mercy, Lord, extend to me,
Forgiveness, a happy death,
And then eternal rest With Thee.
The White Rose of Lucca
Tke Stor$ of Gemma Galgani
MATTHEW KUEBEL
3 — The Coming of St. Gabriel
©
Y the time that Gemma reached her
eighteenth year, she had scaled the heights
of spiritual perfection. All the virtues had
taken deep root in her soul. She was com-
pletely detached from the world: her soul being,
no doubt, in the eyes of God, as white as Alpine
snows and all aglow with the fire of Divine Love.
She had been the recipient of sublime spiritual
gifts without prejudice to lowliness of heart; and
while she was most charitable, most prayerful,
full of faith, and completely possessed by spiritual
aspirations, still she seemed convinced that she was
far, far away from her high spiritual goal.
She knew how to draw inspiration from every-
thing for renewed fervor in the service of God.
Thus in the changes of the seasons, in the beauties
of nature, which seemed to her the reflection of the
loving smiles of heaven, in the solemnities of the
Church, even in her little successes and triumphs,
she felt the close presence of a Kind Providence
directing her sanctification. Thus she continued
always to spur herself on in the divine service. To
draw nearer to the Divine Lover of her soul, to be
more closely united with Him was her one pre-
occupation, her all-absorbing desire. And so at the
approach of the New Year, 1897, she wrote in her
book of memoranda the following note :
"In this New Year I purpose to begin
a new life. I know not what is going to
happen to me during this year. I abandon
myself to Thee, O my God! All my hopes
and my affections shall be for Thee. I feel
my weakness, O Jesus! but I rely on Thy
assistance, and I resolve to live differently,
that is, nearer to Thee."
The visions, the apparitions, the heavenly
voices with which she was favored at this time,
made her despise the things of earth and ardently
long for the happiness of Heaven. Therefore, she
greatly rejoiced whenever she fell sick, thinking
that God was about to take her to Heaven; and
when she would recover, she felt grieved and dis-
appointed. But little by little God revealed to her
that, before this ardent desire would be fulfilled
she must travel the way of the cross, after the
manner of her Blessed Redeemer. So on one
occasion when her desire for Heaven was particu-
larly strong, she asked our Lord at Holy Communior
why He did not take her to Paradise. "Because
my child," He answered, "I will give thee man>
occasions of greater merit in this life through th>
increased longing for Heaven, while bearing patient-
ly the pains of earth."
These words of our Divine Lord fired her young
heart with a great yearning for suffering, — thai
bread of the strong which was to bring her to the
summit of sacrifice, there to be immolated in £
blissful union with the Crucified. No greater prooi
of the genuineness of her sanctity could be desired
than the fact that ordinary trials did not satisfy
her. The love that burned in her noble heart was
great and strong to an extrordinary degree, and
therefore, its channel, its sustenance, its test oJ
strength must be equally great. The year 1896 i<
the time at which, she records, that an over-whelm'
ing desire to suffer with Christ possessed her soul
"I began to feel an insatiable longing for suffering,'
she tells us, "and to be able to share my Savior':
pains. In the midst of my countless sins, I ever)
day besought Jesus to let me suffer much. 'Yes mj
Jesus,' I used to pray, T wish to suffer, and to suffei
greatly for Thee.'
EIRST, an ailment of the foot, an affectioi
which she disregarded but which shortl}
developed gangrene, forced the physician:
to use drastic measures to avoid amputation. Th<
deep probing of the wound and a vigorous scraping
of the bone, operations that made those who wit
nessed them shudder with horror, were but a portioi
of the excruciating remedies employed. Th<
courageous girl refused to take an anaesthetic, anc
bore the terrible pain almost without a murmur
It was thus, she afterwards said, that in response
THE + SIGN
to her earnest entreaty to send her some suffering
that Jesus consoled her.
Then Signor Galgani, through the machinations
of certain unscrupulous persons, little by little lost
his comfortable estate, a loss that reduced him and
his family to privation and want. Close upon the
heels of this misfortune, Signor Galgani contracted
cancer of the throat, and soon after, on the 11th
of November, 1897, he died. There upon his home
was besieged by
lawyers and creditors,
who stripped the
house of almost every-
thing that could be
carried away. And
so Signor Galgani's
seven children and
two maiden sisters,
being left without any
means of support,
often lacked the very
necessaries of life.
Gemma deeply real-
ized the greatness of
the sacrifice that God
was demanding of her
in common with the
rest of the family; she
felt these misfortunes
most keenly, and be-
cause of the hardships
they brought upon the
rest of the family, she
wept bitter tears.
This distressing
burden of misfortune
was afterwards much
relieved through the help rendered by relatives.
Gemma was invited to stay with her Aunt Carolina
Lencioni, who was rich and quite able to support her
comfortably. As before hardship revealed her
fortitude, so now her detachment became apparent,
for, work in the house, prayer, and solitude were
her only joy.
But new circumstances did not remove the cross,
for, spiritual difficulties now took the place of
temporal privations. At her new home Gemma was
expected to conform to the ways of fashionable
society, and her efforts to do so caused her great
remorse. Yet she did not wish to offend her rela-
tives by seeming to reprehend in them what she
The Crucifix of Limpias
Francis Kean MacMurrough
In distant Limpias, remote in Spain,
And yet from Santander not really far,
By boat or diligence or farmer's vCain,
Something has happened wondrous, singular
felt was not good for herself. The disappointment
that she caused them by her reluctance, or rather
inability, to follow their manner of life gave her
real pain. She was, therefore, much perplexed, and
there was no one whom she could consult to find out
what to do. Even the Divine Master was silent and
seemed unwilling to help. But Gemma only sought
the Master with all the greater ardor; she continued
to pray with her usual fervor; increased her efforts
to strengthen the
union of her soul with
God, she made fre-
quent visits to our
Lady's shrine to pray
for the repose of her
father's soul.
I speak, as 'twere, as one not of the Faith —
Of Fra Anselmo and associate —
WKo in the tillage church savJ, not a vCraith
But God's dear Son and Her's, Immaculate-
In this drear world, now riven so tvy" strife,
The Prince of Peace again His quest fulfills
A wooden Crucifix has come to life
At this Shrine in the Cantabrian hills.
And soon again the voice of God will speak
To men, so say's Anselmo, saintly" seer,
And this time, all men, Jeu>, Gentile and Greek
Will know their Lord and give attentive ear
HE attracted a
great deal of
favorable at-
tention while she lived
at Camaiore, and it
was this that was des-
tined to bring her stay
there to an abrupt
end. Her conspicu-
o u s modesty, the
austere simplicity of
her manner of dress,
could not hide the
grace and beauty of
her face and person;
instead, both these
qualities became more
strikingly apparent.
A young man of the
place, of good family,
having seen Gemma, fell in love with her, and with-
out further preliminaries made overtures to Signor
Lencioni for the favor of his niece's hand. The pro-
position was very favorably received. Here seem-
ingly was a Providential interposition to relieve the
distress of the late Signor Galgani's dependents.
When the subject was broached to Gemma, she not
only would not listen to the proposal, but resolved to
leave Camaiore at once. She, therefore, cast about
for some pretext to carry out her purpose. The
desired opportunity was not long in coming, for,
soon after she was afflicted with severe pains in her
head and back. Thereupon Gemma besought her
aunt and uncle to send her back to Lucca. They
■
THE 1* SIGN
were very loathe to let her go; but Gemma was so
insistent that she could not be denied.
On her return home, her illness did not, by any
means, pass away as quickly as it came. Rather
it hourly grew worse, with developments rapid and
serious — curvature of the spine, a severe attack
of meningitis followed by total loss of hearing, large
abscesses on her head, then paralysis. The saintly
girl tried to keep her illness a secret, but as one
symptom after another appeared, she had to give in.
What she feared most was the medical examination,
but when the physicians were called, she resigned
herself to obedience and made a sacrifice of her will
to God. The malady was diagnosed as spine disease,
and was so treated, but without avail, for Gemma
grew worse.
Thus a whole year passed, during which Gemma
hovered between life and death. It was a veritable
crucifixion, for, being unable to move hand or foot,
she had to remain day and night in the same posi-
tion, unless when moved by some kind hand. Grad-
ually the delicate frame of the young girl wasted
away, her strength becoming less and less, until she
was a mere shadow of her former self. To save the
dying girl the doctors had recourse from time to
time to severe operations, for which as usual she
refused the anaesthetic, when the spasms of pain
well-nigh snuffed out the flickering flame of life
that remained.
she had not even heard of the saintly Passionist,
and at first did not take to him, although many of
her friends were praying to him for her cure. When,
therefore, a certain lady offered her the saint's life
to read, she accepted the offer more for courtesy's
sake than for any interest she had in the saintly
subject.
But is was God's will that Gemma should
become specially devoted to St. Gabriel. On one
occasion, soon after she received the saint's life,
she became deeply immersed in a black melancholy
accompanied by an unwonted agitation of her soul.
The many heavy crosses that she had borne and
that were then weighing upon her, were represented
to her mind in their darkest hue, as if all were the
direct result of her faithful service of God. Con-
trasted with this was the picture of the joys, the
pleasures, the general well-being of mind and body
that might have been hers, had she not chosen to
devote herself so completely to God's service.
Although unaccustomed to such attacks, Gemma
knew that these suggestions did not come from
Heaven, but originated with the enemy of her soul.
Instinctively she turned in prayer to Saint Gabriel
and at once her heart regained its peace. The
malignant suggestions were repeated again and
again, and as often she made appeal to St. Gabriel
with the same instant success, until the attacks
altogether ceased.
^^^HE misery of the family meanwhile increased,
y J because of the additional expense they were
under for medicines and doctors fees for the
relief, if not the cure, of the invalid laboring under
a malady that apparently must be fatal. They could
not bring themselves to undergo the embarrassment
of declaring their need to Gemma's many sympa-
thetic friends, who undoubtedly would have given
them assistance. The result was that things came
to such a pass that they were unable to provide for
the poor invalid the commonest household remedies.
During all these sufferings Gemma was not left
without consolation. God sent her good angel to
comfort her. "If Jesus afflicts thee corporally," said
the angel, "He does so in order to purify thee more
and more."
Through one of her kind visitors, Gemma be-
came acquainted, so to say, with St. Gabriel of
Our Lady of Sorrows, and this acquaintance-ship
afterwards proved the silver lining to the dark
clouds of affliction lowering over her. Until then
(HE was deeply grateful to her heavenly bene-
factor, and' was inspired with immense con-
fidence in him after this proof of his power
with God. She remembered the life that she had
laid aside, and taking it up, read it again and again
with increasing interest and affection. From that
time on St. Gabriel was a special patron. At night
before going to sleep she would place his picture
under her pillow; at all times the thought of him
was in her mind; in some mysterious way she saw
him standing always near her. When the lady came
back for her book, it was with great regret that
Gemma returned it, and she could not restrain her
tears.
Nevertheless, the soul of the afflicted girl was
filled with spiritual joy, the harbinger, no doubt, of
the great privilege that she was about to receive.
That night while she was asleep she clearly saw
someone bright as an angel, standing near her bed.
She did not recognize him at first, though she knew
that he was no ordinary person but, in truth, a
THE + SIGN
heavenly guest. When she saw the Passionist habit,
she quickly recognized him as St. Gabriel, but could
not utter a word. St. Gabriel did not stay long; this
visit was merely his introduction to the saintly girl.
He merely asked her why she had cried when
returning the story of his life; bade her to be faith-
ful ; assured her that he would return to her
and then was gone. That this was a genuine
apparition and no mere dream, was proved by what
followed.
During her protracted and painful illness,
Gemma came to long more and more for the religious
life. She was convinced that this was an inspiration
from Heaven, and, consequently, had a great desire
to promise the Blessed Virgin, that if she were cured,
she would enter religion. Her confessor, approving
of this resolution, gave her permission to make a
vow to this effect.
The soul of the angelic girl was filled with
consolation; eagerly she awaited her communion
of the morrow, when she would promise her heaven-
ly Mother to enter religion, and would make the vow
of virginity — a permission the confessor at last
granted her, after having denied it for a long time.
With these thoughts in her mind, Gemma fell to
sleep, when she received another visit from her
beloved patron, St. Gabriel. "Gemma," he said,
"make your vow to be a religious freely and with a
good heart, but add nothing to it." He meant that
God had in store for her a mystic immolation far
more sublime than that of the religious life. But
the simple girl, not understanding this, asked him
why she was not to add anything to her vow. The
Saint's only reply was: "My sister!" Then he took
the heart such as the Passionists are accustomed to
wear, and giving it to her to kiss, and placing it on
her breast, he repeated the salutation and disap-
peared. Thus the year's martyrdom that Gemma
suffered was checkered by alternations of pain and
consolation.
When Gemma suddenly took a turn for the
worse at this time it was generally thought that this
must be the beginning of the end of her suffering.
This anticipation proved correct, but in a different
way from that in which it was expected. On
February 2, her whole frame was racked by
convulsions of pain as the result of new tumors
that appeared on her head and back. The phy-
sicians thought of operating again, but the weakened
state of the invalid did not permit. The doctors,
unable to do anything more for her, pronounced
her case hopeless, and by their advice the last
sacraments were administered, as Gemma was not
expected to outlive the night.
(f^"\UT it was not God's will that Gemma should
v|L»J die. Only a miracle could save her, and God
wrought this miracle in reward for her heroic
patience. When it became known that Gemma's
death was momentarily expected, one of her old
teachers came to see her, to say good-bye until they
should meet in heaven. She advised Gemma to
make a novena to St. Margaret Mary Alacoque,
assuring her that the saint would obtain her cure.
To please the good sister, Gemma began the novena.
Near midnight of the first day of the novena,
February 23, 1899. she became aware of the rat-
tling of a rosary, felt the touch of a gentle hand on
her head, and heard a sweet voice repeating nine
times in succession, the 'Our Father,' the, 'Hail
Mary,' and the 'Gloria.' The devout girl was too
weak to answer. When the prayers were finished,
the same voice asked her whether she wished to
recover, and without waiting for a reply, advised
her to pray every evening to the Sacred Heart, and
promised to come every evening to pray with her.
No need to declare this time who he was. Gemma
knew all the time that it was St. Gabriel of Our
Lady of Sorrows. He kept his promise faithfully;
each time resting a kindly hand upon the saintly
girl's forehead, while they recited the novena prayers
together: always the nine 'Our Fathers,' 'Hail
Marys' and 'Glorias,' and at the end three extra
'Glorias,' to St. Margaret Mary. The last day of
the novena, which was the first Friday of March.
Gemma received Holy Communion amid a torrent
of heavenly delights. Then Jesus Himself asked
her whether she wished to be cured. She was so
overcome by emotion that she could not reply, but
her thought was: "Jesus, whatever Thou wiliest."
Our Divine Lord willed her cure, and she knew at
once that the grace was granted her. "Gemma's
cure was as perfect as it was instantaneous — the
Sacred Heart being its author; St. Margaret Mary,
the intercessor; and St. Gabriel of the Dolors, the
instrument."
It was only a little after two o'clock when
Gemma arose, those around her weeping with joy.
She, too, was happy, as she beautifully says, not
because of her recovery, but because Jesus had
chosen her for his child.
(To be continued)
The La^-Retreat Movement Necessary in America
George Philson
it?
"This sacred shade and solitude, what
Tis the felt presence of the Deity,
Few are the faults we flatter, when alone."
Young — Night Thoughts.
" f^. BURNING back the pages of history, we read
/ Cj of a golden age, a silver age, an iron age;
^^^^ later we come to an age of chivalry, an
age of reform, an age of adventure; and
if we may give a name to our own age we shall not
be far wrong if we call it the age of industrial
enterprise. Industry has taken possession of the
land; and no man can stand by idle and live.
That we American people are industrious is
our pride. But the danger arising from our constant
and close contact with material things and their
interests, is, that they absorb us so much, leaving
neither time nor energy, and, too often, not even
will, to look to higher things. Man is so busy about
"much serving," about his material well being, that
it blots from his view, "the one thing necessary,"
the knowledge and service of his God. In other
words, constant attention to business life tends to
confine a man's thoughts, desires and aims in a
material groove. Entrenched in this environment
he is constantly exposed to the danger of losing
hold on the great truths of revelation and the
practice of what revelation teaches. This constant
devotion to industry and public business life, unless
carefully and wisely ordered will beget a certain
lax spirit of "living, and a hardness and unscrupu-
losity which blunt the edge of honor, habituate the
mind to compromise and over-reach, and to forget
distant ends and interests in the short-lived triumphs
of this present life.
Yet, the mere distractions of our daily life are
not our most dangerous enemies. There are greater
dangers, more insidious enemies; false theories of
religion and morals which almost without our
knowing it, poison our thoughts, pervert our ideals,
and weaken the divine health and vigor of the faith
within us : indifference in matters of belief, a
tolerance of false ideals of family life, loose morals,
vile and anti-Christian literature, false standards
of honesty in business, a defiance of authority —
Socialism and a host of other errors.
Now, it is next to impossible to live in a defiled
atmosphere without being contaminated. Hence
the necessity at times to climb to clearer and holier
heights and fill one's lungs with soul-saving draughts
of unpolluted air.
"O sacred solitude! divine retreat!
Choice of the prudent! envy of the great,
By thy pure stream, or in the waving shade
We court fair wisdom, that celestial maid."
— Young.
X
'T is necessary to dwell on the pure truths and
unselfish principles of our holy faith, which
are a medicine and an antidote against these
evils.
It is this opportunity which Retreats for laymen
offer. We must all admit the fact that the struggle of
modern life tells on the body as well as on the mind;
but do we ever stop to think that it is also wearing
and trying on the strength and purity of the immortal
soul ? When the body craves for rest we give it
repose. But the soul, the nobler element of our
being, should also have its time of calm in which it
can be strengthened and fortified in the principles
of right living.
Many lack interest in the Retreat Movement,
because they have never come in contact with the
benefical results obtained through it. They seem
to cling to the principle "What sanctified our fore-
fathers is sufficient to sanctify us;" and they ask,
are not missions doing the same good work ?
Granted, and only the apostle who has worked
in the missionary field can appraise the results
obtained and the harvest of souls that is saved
at every mission. The idea of a mission is familiar
to us all. We must not, however, confound a mission
with a retreat. Good and helpful as a mission is,
the retreats for the individual man mean something
more. The very word suggests the difference for
"Mission" means a sending. God's messengers are
sent to us to exhort and to arouse us. We come
together for awhile each day to hear their instruc-
tions and to pray, and then we go home or to our
business and soon forget the message of God which
we have heard. But in retreat we ourselves retire
T
HE t SIGN
from the bustle of our daily lives to give ourselves
entirely without distraction to intimate converse with
our Creator. We arise from our daily tasks and go
apart to God.
Some men will ask, why should I make a
retreat? The answer to this question is well given
by a writer in the Canadian Messenger for August
1910.
"No doubt the means already in vogue are
sufficient, if they are rightly applied, and profited
by to the full. But here is just the difficulty. The
weakness of poor human nature is such that even
the most potent remedies gradually lose their
efficacy and fail of their effect. We quickly lose
the spirit and fall into routine. Even the holiest
states, the
s a c e r d o tal
and the religi-
ous are not
immune from
this weakness,
but need an
o c c a s i onal
awake ning.
Now if the
means of
?race so liber-
ally scattered
along the path
of the priest
or the religi-
ous, if the
daily offering
of the Holy
Sacrifice, the recitation of the breviary, and the
continual dealing in holy things; if daily Mass and
Communion, and meditation, and frequent spiritual
readings, and multiplied prayers, and examinations
of conscience, and exhortations, are found so insuf-
ficient for men and women cut off from the world and
living in an atmosphere of the supernatural, that
a yearly retreat of a week is prescribed by bishops
and by every religious rule, who will say that the
man-in-the-street who lacks all these aids to sal-
vation, who is flung into the midst of temptation and
thrown into daily contact with sin, stands in no
need of an occasional spiritual rousing, and should
not be given the opportunity of making a bare three
days' retreat?
" 'Let the layman be satisfied with the ordinary
means, forsooth!' Abolish retreats of religious and
clergy, and you will have the condition of things
such as it was before the Council of Trent. 'Let
him be satisfied with the means of grace that sancti-
fied his fathers before him!' Yes, on condition that
you roll back the world's history and place him
in the same circumstances in which his fathers
lived."
®
BOSTON CITY HALL'S EMPLOYEES' RETREAT
ETREATS for the laity have been greatly
encouraged by the Catholic Church. Pontiffs
again and again have given their special
blessings to the movement, conscious of the immense
agency for good that such retreats are.
Pope Pius X in 1904 wrote of the retreats :
"One cannot conceive a better method for saving the
working men
exposed, a t
the present
time, to so
manydangers.
Since our ele-
vation to the
Papal Throne
we see still
more the im-
portance o f
these retreats
for the end
we have in
view, 'to re-
st o r e all
things in
Christ.' "
And on
one occasion he said with great feeling: "I wish
to be the Pope of Retreats."
Pope Leo, his illustrious predecessor wrote in
1900 about retreat work: "There is no doubt that
these retreats, penetrated with meditation upon the
celestial truths, procure not only the sanctification
of individuals, but the general utility of society.
We have learned with the most lively joy of the
creation of this new work, and of its fruits, already
so abundant. We desire to see this work, so happily
begun in France and Belgium, spread with equal
success among other nations."
These words certainly make clear that the mind
and heart of the Church is in this movement, and
no one .having the progress of religion at heart,
can be indifferent to it, or stand aloof, branding it
as a novel or an unnecessary institution.
THE f SIGN
His Holiness, Pope Benedict XV, on July 15,
1920, sent an autographed blessing, giving "His
Apostolic Benediction on the work of Retreats to the
faithful laity in the Passionist Monastery of Saint
Gabriel, Brighton, Mass., and a special Blessing
to all those who go through the spiritual exercises
in the aforesaid Monastery."
©
HE thought of making a spiritual retreat ought
not to be rare or distasteful to our Catholic
men of
M-tA :m
i Pk'A 11' ***" *f
■fTf*tt|
America.
They are in
as much need
of it as their
European
brethren
among whom
it has become
an annual
custom. T o
leave the
active life of
the world, its
gaities and its
pleasures re-
quires some
courage in
him who has
never done it.
The best of
Tien, however,
have found
pleasure i n
occasional re-
tirement, and
i t betokens
some moral
defect when one has no desire to be sometimes alone.
"Converse wth men makes shape the glit-
tering wit,
But God to man doth speak in solitude."
The need of the spiritual retreat movement in
our industrial age is admitted by all who thoroughly
understand and have come to appreciate its value.
His Eminence, William Cardinal O'Connell in
his eloquent address at the dedication of Saint
Gabriel's Monastery, Brighton, Mass., said: "In
the fever and agitation of modern life the need of
meditation and spiritual repose impresses itself
on the Christian mind. Men will grow hard-hearted
and selfish and semi-barbarous unless above their
eyes a higher standard is erected. The modern
world needs to learn the great secret of repose, quiet,
thoughtfulness and peaceful retirement. In the
middle ages, when the older civilization of paganism
had run its course and failed, the monastery was
a beacon light that blazed from the hilltops of
Europe and summoned men to lay down their arms
for a while and soften their hearts to the sentiments
which created
Christian
c i v i lization.
Within t h e
quiet walls of
these spiritual
fortresses an-
other and a
far greater
battle was
fought out —
the conquest
of man by
himself — and
a new knight-
hood, a Chris-
t i a n knight-
hood, arose,
not to give
battle, but to
give peace."
In con-
cluding h i s
address,
Cardinal
O'C o n n e 1 1
said: "The
dedication of
this Monastery sets aside another institute destined
for the welfare of the whole community in which
we live. Up here on the heights is set a beacon light
which will guide thousands in the way of true living
and real happiness. Lift up your eyes to it often.
Climb the steep hillsides every now and then.
Knock at the portal of this citadel of God, enter
and rest."
Thousands have already heeded the invitation.
Most Rev. Archbishop Regis J. Canevin ad-
dressing the Retreat workers at Pittsburgh, Pa.
April 29, 1918, said: "From the very earliest days,
not only of Christianity, but of history, men have
^U
OFFICERS OF THE LAYMEN'S RETREAT GUILD
THE t SIGN
prepared themselves for great things by retirement,
by living in solitude and in meditation and prayer
for a time. We find this in the history of the Old
Testament, and we find it in the New. Even outside
of revealed religion great minds have gathered
strength by retirement and prayer. It seems to me
that men at certain times of their lives should with-
draw themselves from their worldly occupations
and spend their time in prayer, in order that as men
and Christians they may better fulfill the work
before them."
His Eminence Cardinal Farley of New York
speaking of retreats and missions said: "The
mission is not
a retreat. A
mission is fil-
led with many
d i s tractions,
and its work
is scattered.
The truths
men hear in a
mission are
not so deeply
etched on
their souls as
if they were
entirely seclu-
ded. In a re-
treat you are
free from dis-
traCtl0n ° f BOSTON BUSINES:
your facul-
ties; you have a whole series of instructions and
exercises knitted together in logical sequence; you
are made to think and to judge things at their true
value."
^^=^HE retreat movement, of rather recent date
V^y in this country, has attained a gratifying
growth. In fact one of the consoling signs
of the times, amidst the present upheaval of things,
is the interest manifested by the Catholic laity in the
retreat movement for men. Those who have the
progress of religion at heart are particularly gratified
in seeing numbers of men from all walks in life
entering zealously into a work which means so much
for their spiritual welfare.
It should be made clear that retreats offer the
same advantages to the laity as to the clergy, and
that all, whether living in the cloister or in the
world, can reap immense spiritual fruit from a
regular course of spiritual exercises.
Spirituality did ever choose retirement. That is
why it is so unattractive to the worldly-minded.
They love the shout and bustle of the crowd. Their
happiness is found amid the excitement of public
assemblies, little dreaming at what cost of vitality
and nerve power, what lowering of ideals, what
wallowing in shallow mediocrity. "Quiet is the
element of wisdom; the calmest man is the wisest;
for the mind is of coral stone, around which thoughts
cluster silently in stillness, but are scared away by
tumult." Need we wonder that life at times becomes
such a burden
to them? Oh,
if they but
knew the
blessings of
a retreat!
How they
would seek its
stillness a s
the very balm
of their souls!
Its attractions
would be ir-
resistible.
The most
pressing need
of the Church
i n America
MEN'S RETREAT t0day Is men
well - instruct-
ed, well trained in Catholic truth and discipline —
"Wanted! Men!
Not wealth in mountain piles,
Not pawn with gracious smiles,
Not even the potent pen :
Wanted! Men!"
— Men with consciences as steady as the needle
to the pole; men who will stand for the right if the
heavens totter and the earth reels; men in whom
the courage of everlasting life still runs deep and
strong; men who know their duty and attend to it;
men who are honest, sound from centre to circum-
ference, and men who are not ashamed to say "No"
with emphasis; and lastly, trained men, imbued
with love and devotion to Holy Mother Church, who
will reflect the beauty of the Christian character
and defend her in the arena of the world.
Childhood Echoes of Nazareth
Valerian Didymus
^w^E have often seen children at play. Dur-
j ■ j mS these cool, bracing days of autumn,
V M J we see them frolicking in the fields and
along the byways. How they do enjoy
a game of "Hide-and-seek". What fun they have
following one another through the piles of crisp,
dry leaves that lie in the roadside or along the
rugged path!
And yet as we watched the children at play,
did the thought of the Child Jesus ever enter the
mind? Did we ever try to picture to ourselves
the Holy Child in the fields of Nazareth, playing
with other little children? We need not strain the
imagination, nor force the fancy. We need only
realize the truth that the Savior willed not only to
appear, but also actually to be, a Child. However
it may have been with His' interior life, outwardly,
at least, there was nothing to distinguish Him from
the children among whom He lived. He obeyed
the laws of childhood, which are as universal as
childhood itself. With this truth before our mind,
we can easily imagine the Child associating with
the neighboring children and joining them in their
childish pastimes; now it is a game of "Follow-the-
Leader"; or perhaps, tired of that, they play "Hide-
and-seek." Sometimes the Child Jesus gently, and
silently, steps behind a playmate unawares, and
placing His hands over His companion's eyes, asks,
"Guess! Who it is?"
In the cool, quiet hour of the morning, the Child
often gathers the few crumbs left after breakfast
and scatters them along the garden walk for the
birds of the air that nestle in the trees above Him.
And silently, thoughtfully, He watches these little
winged creatures eat of the bread He gives
them.
And can we not see the Child, in the soft,
mellow light of evening, seated on the doorstep
of the cottage, gazing pensively towards the distant
hills? See, He is watching the flaming sun poise
for a moment above the high hill and suffuse its
summit with crimson hue. His countenance
brightens with a light divine, for He is thinking of
the Hill of Calvary. Softly, He sighs: "How long,
O Father, how long!"
When the years of manhood came, and Jesus
walked among men, we catch, now and then, echoes
of these, His childhood days. Once, while walking
along the shores of the Sea of Galilee, He saw
certain fishermen, and He called to them : "Follow
Me!" As little children, they promptly followed
the Leader. Another time, He uttered the invita-
tion: "Seek and you shall find!" And we know
how His disciples would seek Him, how even the
little children sought Him, and how Mary Magdalen
went in search of Him, — and found Him! How
often too, did He approach a blind man, and gently
placing His hand across the poor man's eyes, ask:
"Whom do you say I am?" Immediately came the
answer in tones of surprise and child-like faith:
"Thou art the Son of God."
How beautifully He pictured the Kingdom of
Heaven as a great sheltering tree! To its spreading
branches, the souls of men shall wing their way,
like the birds of the air, and nestle there, in peace
and rest, — those souls whom He loves so much and
whom He has so often fed with the Bread of
Angels.
He spoke of the birds of the air, of the flowers
of the fields, and even of the downy chicks that
snuggle under the maternal wing. All these were
the friends of His childhood days.
And behold! the last dying echo lingers on the
Hill of Calvary in all its winning charms of child-
hood. For, look up and see the gentle Savior, dying
on the Cross. Wide are His arms outstretched, and
we seem to hear him say : "I love you — this
much."
To the children of God is it given to continue
the sweet echoes of the Savior's childhood, not only
in this life, but even for all eternity in Heaven.
Christ has said: "Unless you become as little
children, you shall not enter the Kingdom of God."
Hence, as little children, the Blessed in Heaven
gather around the Throne of God, and looking up
into His Holy Face, they cry: "My Father!"; and
turning towards Mary Immaculate, they exclaim:
"My Mother!" These are the sweetest, the
everlasting echoes of the childhood days at
Nazareth.
Archconfraternit)) of
Advantages
^-— -^HY should one become a member of the
j I j Archconfraternity of the Passion? Is it
\M/ worth while? Assuredly it is. The
numerous benefits bestowed amply com-
pensate for the conditions of admission and for
whatever efforts may be made to increase true
devotion to Christ's Passion. In truth, the many
advantages of membership in the Archconfraternity
of the Passion should appeal to every man and
woman, who sincerely desires heavenly riches, the
happiness of others, and personal contentment and
peace.
First, there are indulgences and privileges
which have been granted to individual members by
the apostolic letters of different Popes, and especial-
ly by our Holy Father Pope Benedict XV. Next,
there are benefits springing from the companionship
offered by the Archconfraternity, such as good
example, encouragement, and assistance. Finally,
there are to be numbered the blessings given by God
to parishes, schools, and families, wherever the
Archconfraternity is established and where it suc-
cessfully accomplishes its great mission of preaching
Christ Crucified.
Consideration of these favors will show the
value of membership, and at the same time make
this society better known and appreciated.
The innumerable graces received by members
of the Archconfraternity certainly bring home the
familiar saying that God will never be outdone in
generosity. For as the Popes from time to time
lavishly adorned this society with the gifts of the
Church, so God with infinite liberality rewards the
members for their faithful remembrance of the
Sacred Passion, and for persuading people to think
of it.
^XEFERRING to the excellence of this society,
I^T the Sovereign Pontiffs point out the principal
divine gifts offered to members. First among
them is knowledge. That the apostle St. Paul truly
esteemed this grace may be seen from his claim:
"I know nothing among you but Jesus Christ and
Him Crucified." The Angelic Doctor, St. Thomas
the Sacred P
assion
embership
Acquinas, attributed all his learning to the Crucifix.
It was the Science of the Cross which inspired the
martyrs in their heroism, which enlightened the
Fathers and Doctors of the Church, which lured
apostles and missionaries from home, friends, and
country, into strange uncivilized, and hostile lands,
to make known the love and power of the Crucified.
This science it was which brought the saints safely
through the temptations and struggles of this life
to everlasting joy and heavenly glory. By often
thinking of Our Lord's sufferings, by reading leaf-
lets and books treating of the Sacred Passion, by
attending the sermon and devotions at Archconfra-
ternity meetings, members advance in this science
and imbibe more and more the knowledge of the
Cross and Passion of Our Lord Jesus Christ.
The virtue of fortitude is likewise mentioned as
a special grace of the Archconfraternity of the
Passion. The saints kept the Crucifix before their
eyes that so they might be strengthened to practice
self-denial and to suffer all things with humility and
obedience. The members of this society are "armed
with the same thought," and willingly "choose the
cross, despising the shame." They blend their
voices with the chorus of the militant Church,
exclaiming "If we suffer with Christ, we shall also
be glorified with Him."
In times of worry and doubt, of trouble and
discouragement, of disappointment and failure, of
humiliation and ingratitude, of sorrow and death,
of bodily suffering and affliction, members of the
Archconfraternity should look up into the Face of
the dying Christ, Who will remember them, comfort
them, strengthen them, and give them patience,
resignation, and peace. In a word, the grace of
fortitude enables us to practice the lessons of
Calvary, and to unite our sufferings with those of
Christ.
Piety is another grace given in a special manner
to members of the Archconfraternity. It is the gift,
which prompts them to remember devoutly the
Passon of Our Lord, and to imitate Him according
to their strength. Listen to St. Paul the Apostle,
who possessed this grace : "Christ loved me, and
THE 1" SIGN
delivered Himself up for me." "Far be it from me
to glory, save in the Cross of Our Lord Jesus
Christ." St. Peter also reminds us that "Christ
endured the Cross, leaving you an example that
you should follow in His footsteps." Such words
should constitute the motto of every member of the
Archconfraternity. The more interest they take in
the society, the better they understand every motive
for detesting sin and loving meekness, charity,
modesty, gratitude, cheerfulness, self sacrifice, and
every virtue that makes this life happy and secures
an eternal reward.
y^^HE Archconfraternity then is a fruitful source
^SJ of divine blessings, whereby the members
learn more of Our Lord's Passion, and how to
suffer with Him and to walk in His footsteps.
To obtain these graces, it is certainly worth while
joining the Archconfraternity of the Passion.
Our enumeration of the advantages of this
society would be very long if all the indulgences
were enumerated, which the members may secure
for themselves and for the souls in purgatory. In
the month of February, 1918, our Holy Father Pope
Benedict XV. confirmed the list of indulgences
granted by his predecessors and added a great
many others. As may be seen in the manual of the
Archconfraternity, it is possible for the members
to gain a plenary indulgence frequently every month
on the usual conditions of confession, communion,
and some prayer for the Pope's intentions. They
may gain a plenary indulgence every time they
piously recite the Litany of the Passion, or as it is
also called the Steps of the Passion. When a visit
to a church is prescribed as one of the conditions
for gaining the plenary indulgence, the members
may substitute five Our Fathers and five Hail Marys
in place of it. Among the partial indulgences, the
most noteworthy is that of ninety nine years for
saying the Litany of the Passion. On certain days
in the year, when the Stations or particular Churches
in Rome are venerated, all who belong to the Arch-
confraternity receive the indulgence of thirty years
and as many quarantines. Seven years and seven
times forty days are granted to members each time
they are present at the monthly meeting. The fact
of their membership entitles them to forty days
indulgence for every prayer, for every act of piety,
for every act of charity towards the neighbor, and
especially for every effort made by word or example
to promote devotion to the Sacred Passion. Surely,
in view of all this, it is worth while becoming a
member of the Archconfraternity.
The privileges conceded to the members are
exceptionally great. Admission to the Archcon-
fraternity entitles members to share in Passionist
missions, retreats, and other works of apostolic zeal.
Think of the numerous acts of worship and virtue
performed during a mission or retreat, the number
of careless Catholics brought back to the feet of
Jesus Crucified and given a new start, the many
non-Catholics received into the true fold of Christ,
the sacrifices of both missionaries and people — to
share in the merit of all these works is the privilege
of members of the Archconfraternity. Moreover,
members participate in the Masses, prayers, and
good works of Passionist Religious throughout the
world. They are likewise beneficiaries of the prayers,
penances, and works of piety and zeal of Passionist
Nuns, and of the other branches of the Archconfra-
ternity. The members are privileged to wear the
"Sign" or Scapular of the Passion. At the hour of
death, a member may receive the Papal Blessing
with a plenary indulgence from the Director of the
Archconfraternity. In South America, the Archcon-
fraternity has its own cemetery. In Ireland, Scot-
land, England, Spain, France, Italy, Belgium, Hol-
land, and Australia, there are privileges enjoyed by
members, which, on account of local circumstances,
render the Archconfraternity one of the most desir-
able of all societies. The rich favors granted to
members in these United States should convince
every American Catholic that it means much to
belong to the Archconfraternity of the Passion.
Though many appreciate the advantages of
membership in the Archconfraternity, the impell-
ing motive ought to be gratitude to Jesus Crucified.
His Sacred Passion and Death means the redemp-
tion of every soul, reparation for the sins of man-
kind, and reward of eternal life. God has granted
innumerable favors to His creatures, but the my-
steries of the Passion proclaim more than anything
else His infinite love and generosity to them. Apart
then from the advantages one may gain as a member
of the Archconfraternity, let gratitude be the reason
for the most active interest in this society.
Index to Worthwhile Reading
SUPERNATURAL MYSTICISM. By Rev.
Benedict Williamson. St. Louis: B. Herder Co.
Price $2.75.
The title given to this book describes only a
part of it; the greater portion deals with the ascetical
life. The author is thoroughly acquainted with
spirituality. He is very practical, and enriches his
teaching with the most impressive word or deed he
may chance to find in the experience of favored
souls. He brings into service every illustration that
will render clearer and more appreciable the science
of the saints. Religious communities will be glad
to include this book among those dealing with the
obligations of their state. The part treating of
mysticism reveals the mind of one who has had
considerable experience with souls devoted to
mystical prayer. The Call to Contemplation, given
as an introduction by the Bishop of Plymouth, is a
gem of religious literature.
THE WORD OF GOD. By Monsignor F.
Borgongini Duca, S. T. D. Secretary of the Congre-
gation for Extraordinary Ecclesiastical Affairs,
Rome. Translated by Rev. Francis J. Spellman.
Introduction by Most Rev. John Bonzano, D. D.,
Apostolic Delegate at Washington, D. C. New
York: The Macmillan Co. Price $2.00.
These explanations of the Holy Gospel were
first published weekly in pamphlet form by the
Society of St. Jerome in Rome. The author's high
reputation for scholarship would lead the reader
to expect something exceptionally good in this
most recent work, and we are in no sense disappoint-
ed. The simplicity, the directness, the inspiring tone
of these treatises exhibit anew the great attainments
of the writer. The apposite quotations from the
Saints and Doctors of the Church as well as the
author's own erudition make this book a very help-
ful commentary on the Gospels of the Sundays. At
the conclusion of each chapter, we find an appro-
priate example from the lives of the Saints. For
the sick at home or such as are unable to be present
in church for the sermon on Sundays, this book, the
publishers well say, will prove to be a great blessing.
The translation has been exceptionally well done.
We think that a lower price would have contributed
largely to a more extensive distribution of the
book.
PSYCHOLOGY AND MYSTICAL EXPERI-
ENCE. By Professor John Hawley, M. A. St.
Louis: B. Herder Book Co. Price $2.50.
This is a critical study of mysticism, or rather
of the psychic phenomena of the religious life. As
a philosophy of religious experience, we venture to
say it is one of the best books on the subject. Who-
ever is acquainted with the philosophy of the
Schools, will appreciate and carefully study this
work. Certainly he will be rewarded with a new
and better understanding of the meaning and im-
portance of psychology. The author never wanders
from his purpose, and while serving it gives the
reader clear-cut, penetrating views of the separate
workings of sense, and mind, and will. He is forced
to deal with the theories of agnostics. For instance
we find a critical examination of the subliminal self
of Meyers, and the field of the subconscious of
James, which disposes easily of the findings of the
new psychology. Clearness never fails the author,
even when dealing with the most difficult topics.
He brings illustrations to his aid — parables, he calls
them, — which prove him a master in his art. As
with a searchlight he illumines the path leading to
a complete understanding of his subject, but again
and again he draws into the same light a number of
cognate subjects. The genesis of faith is masterful.
A philosophy of ascerticism is admirably set forth
between the covers of this book. And we would note
especially his cameo reference to the Rosary. This
is a book that will attain its place as a classic,
and should be found sooner or later in the library
of every thoughtful man and woman.
A MOTHER'S LETTERS.. A Book for Young
Women. By Father Alexander, C. F. M. New
York: P. J. Kenedy & Sons, $1.10.
In this little book of about 100 pages we have
thirteen letters of a mother to her daughter, in which
she imparts needful information and sage counsel
on matters of sex. There is no dearth of books
under such captions as "What a Young Girl should
Know" professing to give sound instructions to
adolescent women. Many of these go too far and
set forth data in a repulsive manner; others fall short
and are obscure and insinuating. Certain authors
are not above the suspicion of pandering to morbid
curiosity, thus bidding for an extensive sale. The
THE + SIGN
question of sex is a difficult one to broach. It
demands tact, wide experience, and the purest of mo-
tives. All these requirements Father Alexander
possesses in an eminent degree. In the treatment
of this most delicate of questions he strikes a happy
medium. We would have no hesitation in putting
his book into the hands of any young woman in the
advanced classes of college or convent. In his
preface the author quotes from a personal letter of
commendation from the Most Rev. Thomas White-
side, late Archbishop of Liverpool : "I have care-
fully read your booklet, and parts of it I have read
and re-read. . . As far as my opinion is of any value,
I think you have said neither too little nor two
much . . . You have given a young woman what was
necessary to avoid obscurity and further question-
ing. You have done that well. . . .In a word, I think
you have been most successful in treating of the
whole sex question." We would especially recom-
mend the two chapters "A 'Real' Woman" and "A
Girl's Future" as peculiarly timely and helpful.
CHILDREN OF GOD. By Mark Moeslein,
C. P. New York : The C. Wildermann Co. Price :
cloth, $1.25; paper, 50c.
Few books of the present day will be more
welcome to the general reader than this "summary
of Catholic Doctrine for busy people" by Father
Moeslein. A glance over the contents might lead
one to suppose it was an enlargement of the cate-
chism; but as the different chapters are read, one is
agreeably surprised by the way the author presents
the subjects with which we thought ourselves
familiar, and when reluctantly the book is closed,
it is with a resolution to take it up again on the
first opportunity. There are many books which
explain and defend the teaching of the Church, but
this work of Father Moeslein stands out among
them as the latest proof that these ancient doctrines
are ever new. Certainly it will be welcome not only
to priests and the laity, but will interest many a
non-Catholic, who desires to learn what Catholics
believe and do.
Throughout the book, Father Moeslein keeps
faithfully and interestingly to the theme that all
men are the "Children of God." He treats in the
opening chapters of the relationship between God
and men, and briefly tells us what religion is, the
infinite greatness of God, the mystery of the Most
Blessed Trinity. In natural order, the author
describes in a few words the creation of the angels,
the rebellion of the devils, and then the world and
man. He writes of man, first as a creature of God
and then as an adopted child of God. In successive
chapters, the author continues his fascinating story
of man's trial, his sin and its punishment. The
Redeemer is pictured as the Savior of mankind, as
Man's most loving brother, and his greatest friend
and benefactor. We read in detail of the fruits of
Christ's love for men, especially the establishment
of the Church and the institution of the Sacraments.
The author brings his admirable work to an end
with short chapters on the Holy Ghost, the com-
munion of saints, and life after death. The con-
clusion offers a rule of life for the children of
God.
In these pages, controversy seems to have been
carefully avoided. We find nothing in the work that
would in any sense antagonize the reader; on toe
contrary, Catholic doctrine is explained in a simple
attractive manner that appeals directly to those
already familiar with it, and persuasively to such as
know little about it. It is a book that we believe
will accomplish much good. As a drop of dew on a
blade of grass glistens like a diamond in the morn-
ing sun-light, we may say this work will appear to
many as a clear brilliant reflection of the sun of
truth. Moreover, its convenient size, its brevity,
its suggestiveness, its completeness makes it a book
that can be read and read again with pleasure and
profit.
Many "not of the one fold" are anxiously look-
ing for a book of this kind. They know something
about Catholicism, but their knowledge is far from
complete: sometimes, at least, it is more mis-
understanding than ignorance that keeps them from
becoming loyal children of the true Church. They
hesitate to ask questions of their Catholic neighbors;
and often Catholics neglect seasonable opportunities
to make the Church's teaching better known. Father
Mark Moeslein's book will help the Catholic to give
information to those who desire it, and Non-Catho-
lics will be delighted to get such knowledge in this
easy practical way. If you secure one copy of this
book, it is safe to say you will obtain more for your
friends and neighbors.
To-night the sun spills blood upon the trees, —
On oak and cedar and on the olives, too;
On shrubs that shrank for pain, as He did pass,
On xOillow-lea-Oes that w"eep to-night anew.
Here, haply, His faint Feet pressed throbbing earth,
And here, beside this rock, He knelt Him dovJn,
Whose Eyes saw death before Him from His birth,
Here, haply, grew" the flower that kissed His gown.
A timid wind of dusk steals through the trees. —
O winds of all the w"orld, ye know His Name!
O Breeze of Olivet, what memories
You wear, of agony and death and shame!
Here blows a crimson berry, — lo, His Eyes,
Perhaps, grew tender here, — He loved all things;
So berries blush, and ^)et from Paradise
Went forth His Father's help on angels' v?ings.
Here fell His tears — that precious flood — for Man.
To-night the birds are hushed, as if they keep
The rite of silence of an ancient clan,
Along these sacred avenues of sleep.
In all the gardens of the world no flower
Has blossomed, nor shall bloom, as on the night
The Son of God came to His passion-hour,
With burning love for men in meekest might. . . .
Nov? fades the West in deepening screens of rose.
Oak, cedar and olive-trees sink off to rest;
The flowers fold, — the day winds to its close,
Here where He prayed and bared His bleeding breast.
;u! vli X\u Xu\ un a fi Tu. x~u \'\ :• n 7-7. T'~\ :{\ ;•'?, M, ;■?. :•?. ;•"■". :"■ ■."':"■ ■-.■■.-.■ "■ ■':".:■":'
Some Pilgrim Shrines in Spain
Thomas Walsh
"^^^^HE shrines of Spain! — their story embraces
# Cj the entire history of the Spanish people
^^^^ from Isadore and Pelayo down to the
wonders of Limpias of today. In fact the
whole race may be said to be the expression of the
crusader influence, that expelled the Moors in the
name of Santiago the Apostle-Saint of Campostela,
that purified monastic life in the cloisters of Teresa
of Avila and John of the Cross, that made the guide-
books of Spain one long litany of saints, that made
the daughters of the race the servants at the shrines
of their patrons the Virgins of Esperanza, Consuelo,
Mercedes, Angustias, Regla, Dolores, Nieves, Luz,
Asumpta, Natividad, Piedal, and Rosario, — qualify-
ing in every way to make Southern Spain the "Land
of Santa Maria" and the kingdom of the Philips the
Catholic Majesty of the world.
To begin with Santiago, the earliest of the
shrines in its lofty mountains at Compostela where
they found his grave in the ninth century and
whence he issued forth in no less than thirty-eight
battles to conquer the Moors, and become the
palladium and patron-saint of the Spanish race.
Miss King in her "Way of Saint James" (Three
volumes The Hispanic Society 1921) tells the whole
story fully and leads the pilgrim along the ancient
roads once guarded by the. Knights of Santiago and
trodden by Saints like Simeon and Theobald, Domi-
nic and Francis of Assisi, Brigitta of Sweden and
Elizabeth of Portugal, and monarchs and heroes
like Ferdinand I., Alfonse VI., Richard Lion-heart,
and My Cid Ruy Diaz. It is a far shrine and dif-
ficult of approach; but between the years 1397 and
1457 nearly eight thousands pilgrims came from
England and Ireland, and in 1589 Elizabeth's free-
booter, Francis Drake, came over swearing to burn
the relics, which were hidden away so carefully
that they were not rediscovered until 1879. There
is here a whole literature and a magnificent epopee
for the student, as well as a golden opportunity for
the artist and architect.
The pilgrimage to Saragossa is another event
that will charm the pious traveller, after he has
overcome the difficulty of pronouncing the name of
the city in the Spanish manner, — Zaragoza, — and
has managed to get through the crowds that assem-
ble here for the feast of Our Lady of the Pillar
on October 12th. Saragossa is familiar to most of
us as the scene of terrible warfare in the past,
ferociously resisting Moors and French invaders
"to the knife" and "to the last ditch" as their own
expression first put it. Women bore a noble part in
all their patriotic risings, so it was no surprise to
meet in Rome during the Pontificate of Leo XIII
the large body of noblewomen from Saragossa
bringing the diamond crowns for the Pope's blessing.
Santiago or Saint James, on his mission through
Spain is said to have had a vision of the Blessed
Mother and child standing on an "immovable pillar"
of marble. Today in the ancient shrine of almost
unbelievable splendors we find the little wooden
image representing this vision, crowned with the
diamond crowns, and half hidden by the silver lamps
and grates of the altar. Below is a small aperture
where the pilgrims may place their lips against this
very holy stone. It is one of the greatest shrines
in all the world; and the proud modern city that
flourishes around it is haughty in calling itself the
"City del Pilar."
XT is the little personal happenings that, after
all, seem to signify the most to our memories,
and the accidents that occur to us take on
particular light or shadow with the flight of time.
I remember once a few years ago, in sauntering
through the narrow streets of Valencia at twilight,
that magic hour of poets and lovers, I noticed a
large number of fine equipages drawn up before a
chapel and hundreds of ladies and gentlemen enter-
ing and issuing through the doors. A soft illumi-
nation tempted me to enter in spite of the rather
private character of the gathering and I was sur-
prised to find myself standing in a circulating crowd
of black robed figures apparently engaged in soft
conversation.
It was obviously the great world of Valencia
engaged at one of its social rites and the chapel —
for so it proved — took on the character of some con-
vent parlor on a graduation day. Thousands of
candles hung high in the beautiful vaulting; some
of the visitors endeavored with difficulty to kneel on
the crowded pavement: looking up to a lofty arch,
I discovered the handsome figure of Our Lady of
THE f SIGN
Sorrows, whom they apparently regarded as their
hostess for their quaint and lovely ceremony. She
was robed in the stiff black velvets of the 17th
century and after I had come away from the scene
in a state of dreamy pleasure and confusion, I dis-
covered that I had visited the shrine of Our Lady
de les Desamparados, or "The Forsaken" which
had been founded in
1410 by their own
Pedro de Luna, the
Anti-Pope Benedict
XIII. It was all so
gentle, so human and
reverent, that the in-
fluence of it remains
with me in every esti-
mate I make of Span-
ish character and cul-
ture. The "Patroness
of the Forsaken" has
become the devotion
of the best that there
is in Valencia.
Another odd ad-
venture was our arri-
val at the city of
Burgos at three o'clock
one winter morning;
we had taken the
principal train from
Madrid the evening
before and planned
to retire for a few
hours' sleep on arriv-
ing at the hotel. We
quarrelled all along
the journey, as tired
travellers have always
been known to do, and
what was our chagrin
to find that on reach-
ing the hotel it was
necessary for us to wait while they roused the
chambermaid from bed, and sent for fresh linen.
By the time it arrived we were ready to sally forth
for the first masses in the Cathedral. One should
always get up early to appreciate an ancient
structure, to get the flavor of devotion, and self-
sacrifice, coming almost like the breath of the stone
vaults and funeral monuments. The glories of
Burgos are for other pages and volumes; we in our
THE CHRIST OF
In the Church of Sar,
little sketch upon our experiences at Spanish shrines
have only time to turn into the chapel where at
present they preserve the strange old cross known
as the "Most Holy Christ of Burgos." As early as
it was, there were two little urchins with tousled
heads wide awake to quarrel furiously over the right
to escort us through the chapels, until a very grim
old sacristan arrived,
and, with a cuff to the
right and a cuff to the
left, gave Solomon's
judgment equally to
both, and himself
carried us off as guide.
y^=^HE importance
{^J of the Most
Holy Christ of
Burgos can be gather-
ed in the fact that
from primitive times
the cathedral was
called the "Cruci-
ficio," was a famous
place of pilgrimage
and miracles that at
present seem to have
declined. The cruci-
fix seems to have suf-
fered in the course of
time, for it was once
famous for its beauty
and lifelikeness. The
tradition is that it is
formed of the real
skeleton of a man and
covered with dried
human skin and at
one time the head was
movable. We may
gather the extent of
its fame as a wonder-
working image from the three ostrich-eggs — em-
blems of immortality — the gift, it is said, of some
Negus of Abyssinia during the Middle Ages.
There are two recollections of our visits to
Seville that return with unusual clearness, one con-
cerned with "Our Lady of the Kings" and the other
with the "Christ of Great Power."
Over the altar of the Capilla Real, above the
tombs of King Alfonso the Learned (D.1284) and
GREAT POW
Lorenzo at Sev
THE t SIGN
Saint Ferdinand (D.1252) there stands one of the
holiest images of Spain, the "Virgin de los Reyes,"
a figure designed in the thirteenth century and said
to have been presented to the King Saint Ferdinand
by the King Saint Louis of France. The figure is
shown only on rare occasions, like that of November
23rd, when the troops renew their oaths of service
as they march past with lowered colors. It is richly
clothed and has removable golden hair and priceless
lace. Its feet are adorned with slippers bearing the
fleur de lis and the word
"Amer." In the shops
you have frequently
noticed little shoes of
silver: they are facsimiles
of those worn by the In-
fant-Christ and are pre-
cious gifts for any baby
in Seville. The evening
after I had seen this image
I was strolling through
the quieter streets of the
city and entering a little
square I was suddenly
confronted by an image
four times lifesize, model-
led after Our Lady of the
Kings, enthroned in front
of a renaissance church,
whose splendor seemed
quite out of keeping with
the humble quarter. The
square was entirely de-
serted: the only orna-
ments were two vases of
artificial flowers. (Here
I would note that in
countries where flowers
are so common as in Spain, the use of artificial
flowers denotes special honor, as natural flowers
have lost some of their preciousness through their
abundance). I was alone in the twilight with this
archaic, giant Madonna. Nobody came to watch
the image; all Seville was at its supper. The silver
and laces were of the highest values and only the
stars over the square of San Salvador kept guard
on the Royal Madonna and Child until the morning.
It was a perfect night and in memory I can hear the
low gurgle of the fountains and the occasional
swishing of the palm-trees, and scent the heavy
odors of the roses in the hidden patios in every
house around.
OUR LADY
Patrones
XT was on another visit to the "Pearl of Anda-
lusia," as they with great justice call their
Seville, that at the close of the processions
that had continued for three days and nights, in
utter weariness of ceremonies and gorgeousness, I
suggested to my Sevillian friends that it was time to
retire, only to be met with a violent protest, that
we had not done honor to the "Christ of Great
Power."
We made our way to the restaurants crowded
with people waiting like
ourselves for the Sodali-
ties de la Madrugada,
or Day back. The night
wears on frigidly and a
full moon struggles with
the clouds for a view of
Seville at its doleful cele-
bration. Good Friday is
dawning; at two in the
morning we must witness
the coming forth from
the Colegiaia of San
Lorenzo, of the most in-
spired work of the sculp-
tor Montanes — Our Father
Jesus of Great Power —
bearing the Cross crusted
with exquisite gold and
robed in velvets and bul-
lion beyond the dream of
kings. A hundred, or so,
people are drowsing in
the little white plaza when
at last the low doors of
the church swing silently
of sorrows open and a procession of
of Granada ,.T , , .,
Nazarenos or lay-brothers,
files forth into the gray chill of the morning. An
enormous float of silver with urns, garlands and
huge lanterns more beautiful than any that ever
floated on a lagoon of Venice, dips from under the
door-shaft and slowly approaches us. In the droop
of the beautiful figure there is something strangely
poignant; the face and head under the crown of
thorns are the very ideal of divine grief and suffer-
ing,— a characteristic that endears the "Christ of
Great Power" to the hearts of all Seville. As it
comes forth a long murmur of "Ay," Alas! runs
over the scattered groups and several voices, almost
in rivalry, break out in singing from the street and
neighboring balconies.
THE t SIGN
And so it was that followed by the lovely velvet-
robed image of "Mary Most Holy of Greater Grief
and Anguish" the doleful Christ of Seville under His
golden cross goes on His way at daybreak.
There is so much to be studied in a voyage through
such a country as Spain that after a while the mind
grows weary of details and yearns for the fresh im-
pression of the sights one is witnessing. This is
particularly the case in a city like Granada where
history has left so many marks that are important.
In fact the period of the Spanish renaissance may
point to Granada as its birthplace, on the day when
Boabdil wept his historic
tears, and left Ferdinand
and Isabella in undis-
puted possession of the
whole Peninsula. It is
curious that the great
throngs of North Ameri-
can tourists who daily
pour in and out of Gra-
nada never seem to realize
that in their abbreviated
devotion to the Moor and
his Alhambra they are
neglecting one of the most
interesting cities of Eu-
rope, the creation of the
earliest conquistadors and
the finest example of
Spanish art in its best
period. Wearied of guides
and guidebooks I had gone
to explore the crowded
residential parts of Gra-
nada, visiting churches
without asking their
names, seeing a thousand
things never recorded by the most holy
any tourist-agent. I came in this manner into a
little parish-church, richly decorated enough, but
evidently still a place of prayer avoided by the tip-
gathering tribe, not a museum, but a church of God.
It was dark and very faintly lighted only from the
clerestory, so all was mystery and charm around the
high altars. There was one other occupant of the
church besides myself, an old lady in black who
ceased her devotions for a while to watch me with
such evident curiosity that I began to think that she
either suspected me to be a sneakthief or a person
who could be watched with profit. I dodged behind
the columns only to find that she had shifted her
little hand-stool to a position from which she might
still observe me. From right to left I tried to outflank
her but in vain. The rosary ran swiftly through her
fingers, her lips muttered prayers, but her eyes fol-
lowed the tourist who without his Baedecker guide
had wandered into her parish church. Tiring at
last of diplomatic manoeuvring I turned to genu-
flect before leaving the church, whereupon the old
lady rose and with a confused gathering up of
prayerbooks, rosaries and campstool, she inter-
cepted me at the door, seized me by the elbow
and forcibly detained me
while with one hand she
gesticulated wildly, point-
ing toward the roof above
the high-altar. As I
could not understand at
that time a word that she
was saying I made up my
mind that there must be
some answer to the prob-
lem and permitted her to
lead me back to the sa-
cristy where at the open
door she hailed a young
man, a member of the
brotherhood, very much in
undress in a thread-
bare soutane, and gave me
a sign to follow him.
There upon she disap-
peared forever.
The young brother
without a word led me
up a little winding stair-
way to a platform above
the archway of the high
hrist of burgos altar and merely with a
complacent gesture folded his arms before an
exquisite tomb of bronze and marble. It was the
holy of holy places of Granada; unmentioned as I
later found, in the guidebooks, the tomb of Saint
John of God, and that dear old lady, whom I had
suspected of lunacy and all kinds of viciousness,
after having recognized me as a "northern Christian"
had resolved that I should not overlook the tomb of
her favorite saint. I bless her still in memory for
her kindness to her foreign brother and I pray that
her years may be happy in the lovely shrine in the
heart of old Granada under the relics of her great
fantastic Saint (1495-1550) the founder of the
THE + SIGN
Brothers of Charity, de los Hospitalarios, canonised
in 1690.
X
T was in the same city of Granada on another
day I turned into
a large church to
avoid the begging and
importunities of a crowd
of young men, who for a
few cents would agree to
provide me with all the
amusements of Granada
from the shrines of the
saints to the cave of the
gypsies. To my surprise
they folowed me into the
church still whispering
their propositions when
suddenly, in the midst of
the worst, they one and all
fell upon their knees, and
gazing above the altar I
saw a splendid camarin,
or dais, holding a large
image of Our Lady of
Sorrows. She is seated
beneath a lovely orna-
mented cross under a great
aureole and a heavy silver
crown; her face with the
expression of an over-
whelming grief is sur-
rounded by a ruching of
lace in the Polish manner;
her breast is built up into
the lines cultivated in the
sixteenth century and crusted with superb diamonds.
A cloak of black velvet falls over her shoulders; it
is embroidered in pure gold in a style that suggests
OUR LADY
Photograph authorized by
the design of what we call the Napoleonic era —
for the present arrangement of the image dates
from 1742. Across the knees is an ancient wooden
statue of Christ taken down from the cross, with
His shoulders covered
with some laces which I
later learned, were consi-
dered priceless. A strange
decoration was the cere-
monial walking stick of
some famous personage,
general or governor, left
in tribute to the Patroness
of Granada, Our Lady de
las Angustias. When I
saw the crowd of young
gypsies and chulos caught
thus by the presence of
their Madonna I quietly
made my escape and
reached the Alameda un-
molested. It was thus I
made my first visit to the
very holy shrine of Our
Lady of Sorrows, the most
revered spot in Granada.
One could go on for
volumes in recording the
shrines of Spain, the cha-
pels to miracle-working
crucifixes, the Madonnas
of the warriors and kings,
the holy banners of an-
cient battlefields ; but
enough is a feast, and
leaving Monserrate and
Guadalupe, and Avila and Manresa for another time,
we wish our reader a pleasant journey when he
starts out in person for the Shrines of Spain.
DEL PILAR
the Most Reverend Chap!
ragossa
A Late-Autumn Reverie
COLMAN LADD
Keen is the quiet air
In the autumn gloaming;
Southward across the sky
Wild-birds are homing;
Leafless the gnarled boughs
ThWart the Western glare,
Like arms of sinking men
Clutching the air.
Starts not a katydid
From a leafy1 bower:
Nor from a pond-tuft green
Croaks a frog the hour;
Earth has no lovliness:
Husked is vale and lea;
Freer my soul may* rise
To Thee, God, to Thee!
The Disarmament Conference and Its Obstacles
John McGuinness
"^^^^HE eyes of the world have turned from
m C] Versailles to Washington where the Dis-
^^^V armament Conference meets on Armistice
Day. This is not a conference to disarm
the world as some may take from the name, but a
conference to consider the limitation of armament
with a view to establishing universal peace.
Limitation of armament is not a new idea. It
rtas been suggested before.
It is embodied in Article
VIII of the League of
Nations wherein the re-
duction of armament to
the lowest possible point
is clearly recognized as
the one great essential
factor in preserving uni-
versal peace. With
America possessing the
bulk of the world's gold,
a greater amount of muni-
tions than the other
nations, and in a position
to exceed England's navy
in two years, it would be
futile for the members of
the League to attempt a
plan of limitation of arma-
ment so long as America
remained out.
The peoples of the
world were told by their
leaders, some of whom
will sit in the Disarma-
ment Conference, that the
late war was waged to
abolish secret diplomacy; to preserve democracy;
to guarantee the rights of small nations; and to
destroy militarism. It accomplished none of these
ideals. A review of the budgets and proposed mili-
tary and naval programs indicates that militarism
has conquered instead of being conquered. The fact
is that England, America and Japan are engaged in
a concealed rivalry in naval and air craft con-
struction.
For the year ending June 30, 1920, America
spent about ninety-two cents out of every dollar of
taxation for war purposes. The expenditure for
nnHE Disarmament Conference — a meet-
-*■ ing of representatives from the fore-
most governments of the world —
summoned by President Harding, opens in
Washington on Armistice Day.. The avowed
purpose of the Conference is the reduction
in naval and military expenditures, that so
the crushing weight of taxation may be
lifted from the already overburdened
shoulders of impoverished peoples. With
this aim all Americans are in full accord.
Mr. McGuinness briefly sets down some of
the problems to be faced and solved if the
Conference is to attain its purpose.. A
realization of these problems will help to
an appreciation of the difficulties confront-
ing our Chief Executive, will temper delus-
ive over-confidence, and will preclude a
reactive depression — The Editors.
military and naval purposes from June 1920 to June
1921 amounted to $825,337,939.
While the Borah resolution does not commit
America beyond the calling of the conference, the
object of the conference is to destroy the weapons
of war through international agreement, to remove
the causes and possibilities of war, principally
economic, and to find a plan whereby international
capital can be invested
and raw materials obtain-
ed without resorting to the
costly and destructive
method of war. In this,
America should assume
the lead.
But the obstacles to
be overcome are so com-
plex and far reaching as
to make achieved results
almost impossible. Con-
sider, for instance, the
conflicting interests in the
Pacific and Far East,
where the nations must
turn for trade.
w
APAN enters the
conference suspici-
ous that England
and America, the domi-
nating white nations, may
be allied. Both have in-
terests in the Pacific.
Japan came out of the
war stronger and richer
than before she entered. Will she willingly give
up the Island of Yap? Will she forego her hold
on Shantung? Will she evacuate Korea? It is just
possible that Japan in justifying her policy will
parallel it with that of the United States toward
Mexico and the Central and the South American
Republics. Such a stand on the part of Japan,
strongly and persistently pressed, would constitute
a serious obstacle in reaching an agreement on a
limitation of armament.
Will Japan insist upon race equality, the right
for her people to own land in California and to colon-
THE 1* SIGN
ize in Mexico, South America and Australia? She
is a very prolific nation and must have an outlet
for her overflow population. Japan can be relied
upon to press such vital domestic questions to
advantage should the situation require it. Her
delegates will stand firm and refuse to make a
reduction in armament which she is fast acquiring
unless granted equal concessions.
What of England, she too has great interests
in the Pacific and Far East? For years before the
war, her bankers, tradesmen and financial journals
lamented the fact that Germany was making great
strides in the Far East, capturing the trade that was
once England's. They demanded that this condition
be checked by war.
Now, Egypt and India, very rich countries, are
being forcibly held by England for trade purposes.
The size and cost of the
army which she has to
maintain there today to
hold these people who
are fighting to get from
under her domination,
has recently been the
source of very strong
protests on the part of
the English working
people. Will England
agree to disband her
army and risk losing
these rich colonies?
Persia, a small weak country near India, is
dominated and exploited by England. How can
England insist on Japan withdrawing from Shantung
unless she withdraws from Persia ?
Another obstacle is Ireland. The peace of the
world cannot be established until Ireland is given
her freedom. England realizes this very well. Mr.
Lloyd George feeling the embarassing position he
would be placed in at the conference talking peace
and limitation of armament while he was waging
war on Ireland, desired very much to reach a settle-
ment with Ireland before the opening of the Dis-
armament Conference. Japan can not consistently
be asked to cease her atrocities in Korea and with-
draw her army from there while England does the
same in her possessions on a much larger scale. A
successful attempt to establish universal peace and
limit armament can not be made if one part of the
world is to hold the other part in subjection.
France seeing that England and Japan will not
Jesus — Hostia
Placidus M. Endler
A wheaten Wafer, white as sno^;
So fragile! Yet our faith doth know
Imprisoned" Love, transpierced ana nailed
The Vision Beatific, Veiled.
materially reduce their military forces on account
of the people they forcibly hold for exploitation,
announces that she will not give up her army on the
Rhine lest she might lose the valuable natural re-
sources taken from Germany. Mr. Briand says he
is resolved not to fall a victim to "mystic pacifism."
France also has interests in the Pacific which she
will desire to guard.
BMONG the contributory causes of war, trade
can be placed first. The desire for gain, for
commerical supremacy, is as rife among the
nations today as before the war. From time im-
memorial the East has been looked upon as the
treasure land of the world. The Washington Con-
ference will be controlled by the trade interests.
Trade will be given first consideration. Unless
these conflicting inter-
ests can in some way be
harmonized, it is useless
to expect any valuable
results in the reduction
or limitation of arma-
ment.
Another serious ob-
stacle which the confer-
ence will have to over-
come is the power of the
munition makers. Un-
less their influence is
destroyed, no permanent results need be looked for.
These "pocket-book patriots," continually keep alive
through their press a propaganda which inflames
the people and creates war scares. For years they
have successfully carried on a war policy which
increased the armament of the nations. Since the
move to limit armament has taken root among the
people, the munition makers have been busy circu-
lating false reports regarding the military programs
of the various countries and forming organizations
to combat the move.
The Washington Conference is not, however,
without its possibilities even though it be dominated
by the same old diplomats whose intrigues have
caused so many wars. The Italian delegates had
no part in the war. They are young men and will
probably bring a new view point into the conference.
The "whip of necessity" may compel the old diplo-
mats to adopt a new angle of vision. Economic
compulsion rather than a desire to avoid war may
force them to yield. The pressure from the people
Continued on page 13
Will's H
eiress
John Ayscough
Author of First Impressions in America; San Celestino; Faustula;
Monksbridge; Abbotscourt; Jacqueline; Fernando; The Tideway;
Saints and Places; etc.
^^^^HE priest had only just come in and there
m CA was something visibly temporary in his
^^^^ method of sitting before the fire: he had
not yet removed his wet (and shabby)
boots, and they had begun to smoke, though he
hadn't. His old and worn cloak, wetter than his
boots, he had absent-mindedly stretched across a
wooden chair, with the outer side of it turned to
the blaze, and that was also now steaming. His
shapeless, old gloves lay on the seat of the same
chair and were sodden with rain.
He was gazing into the flame of the logs, but
was clearly not thinking of them, nor of the grateful
warmth. There was no glitter of tears in his kind,
rather tired eyes : but the old, gentle face expressed,
not precisely melancholy, but a thoughtful regret.
At one end of the small room there was a door
leading into his little log-built church. At the other
end was another door, beyond which was his meagre
bedroom.
Presently he arose and passed into the cold
chapel. There was no light but that of the red lamps
before the altar, which scarcely sufficed to show
how bare the building was. It called, indeed, out
of the darkness, about half of the "Stations" of
the Way of the Cross: it showed, but dimly, Our
Lady's statue, and St. Joseph's; more plainly, the
simple altar — and very little besides.
From outside, one could hear the sound of
steadily falling rain: within, there was no sound
soever.
By the low rail of the altar (which the priest
had made himself) he knelt and prayed — for an old
friend, whose voice he would hear no more on earth.
Then, presently, he arose, went to a small cup-
board in the wall, and put away in it an empty pyx,
a little stole (purple on one side, and white on the
other), a little book, and some Holy Oil "stocks".
When he had locked up the little cupboard, he
knelt again for a few moments, this time before
Our Lady's statue; and then went back into his tiny
house.
He did now take off his wet boots, and put on
instead a pair of loose, very shabby slippers. Having
put the boots, with their soles to the blaze, against
the low fender, to dry, they immediately fell down.
As he set them up again, more carefully, his smile
was characteristic. It meant "My own fault! I'm
not going to try to put the blame on you." They
were too old friends (the only friends of their kind
he had) to find fault with or quarrel with. They had
been his companions wherever he was out-of-doors,
for several years; they had been soled and heeled
and patched over and over again.
QRESENTLY he took up his breviary and began
to say office — the lauds of the next day. And
all his praying was offered for the soul of the
poor friend whom he had just seen start upon his last
journey, relinquishing him into the care, kinder
than his own, of the Fellow Traveller he had given
him.
"Poor fellow!" he said aloud when he had
finished his office, with the closed book dropped into
his lap, but still held in his fingers. He leaned back
and sat gazing into the red heart of the fire. Its
heat made him think of another Heart, Divine and
Human. And he pressed the book with his fingers,
and that pressure was still a prayer.
"Poor Will," he thought, "he will have a home
at last."
Outside there was the rain's soft monotone.
"Just such a night," thought the priest, "as that
on which he came." It was ten years since that
other night and he hardly knew whether it seemed
double that or but the other day. The little episodes
of that other night seemed clear enough for yester-
day : but later episodes, happening separately at long
intervals of time, crossed it and made it seem long,
long ago.
He himself had not been here more than a year
then. He was still building (with his own hands)
the wooden chapel then: boys and girls of his
sparsely scattered flock, as it was then, he had
married since.
He had then, as now, been sitting in his old
chair, here by the fire, his cloak (hardly three years
THE + SIGN
old then) drying on the Windsor chair, when Will's
shambling knock had first been heard at his door.
When he called out "Come in!" Will had not
come in, but had only knocked again. So he had
gone to the door and opened it himself.
Outside in the rain, meagrely clad, there was
Will's wet, shivering, unimpressive figure : Elderly,
not recently shaven, certainly not recently fed, nor
warmed.
In spite of the rain it had taken two invitations
to get Will indoors.
"I'm dribbling rain," he had explained (very
needlessly, and very meekly). And though he eyed
the dry warmth of the log-cabin wistfully, he had
not moved a step forward. He had reminded the
priest of a wet dog, to whom "indoors" is out of
bounds — not a popular dog either.
"Come!" the priest had said, "Come in!"
Inside it was easier to see what Will was like —
not much to look at, though as a young buck he had
esteemed himself handsome. He was far from
young then; sixty or over. He had once been vain
of his curly, abundant brown locks ; he had left only
a few, meagre, grizzled whisps of hair, long
enough to be drawn across his bald crown. It had
formerly been his favorite occupation to review his
ample wardrobe, and count and try on his many
suits. The clothes in which he crossed the priest's
threshold were all he had in the world then. He
had pawned or sold (eaten, anyway) everything
else — clothes, jewelry, watch; and earlier, he had
sold (and eaten) a bit of land, a little stock, some
tools, and a few bits of furniture.
All this the priest had known as well, at first
sight of him, as now ten years later, when he had
heard all Will's dull, unhappy story time and again,
bit by bit, from Will himself.
And he had known at once (what mattered
more) that the man was starving. So Will stayed
on.
He was not dried for an hour, and sent back,
out into the forest and the rain; he was not fed
with one full meal and sent back to his fellow-
traveller, Starvation, waiting for him outside. He
had stayed on. Not because the priest had touch-
ing, fiattering illusions about him. To tell the truth,
the priest had perceived much that was far from
lovely or romantic in his visitor: there was that in
the man's face that told him (quite correctly) that
the stranger had been dissipated, selfish, boastful
and — a liar.
But he was starving — he did not say so, nor
even that he was hungry. Therefore he stayed on.
iir^ILL had been a gentleman: the priest saw
\\y that: and he had hardly remained a gentle-
man; the priest saw that too. It was not
mere poverty that had torn his patent of gentility,
but himself, his lies and shifts, his bragging, his
selfishness.
Not, thought the priest, that all the fault had
been Will's: partly theirs who had sent him over-
seas to get rid of him. Very likely they had had
over-sufficient cause to be glad to get rid of him.
He had, probably, been started in life at home more
than once, but had never worked, and had always
come back to be started again. Perhaps he had
been middle-aged when they shipped him over
here, to the far west: too old to have any real
chance; and perhaps (it was the fact, like more of
these conclusions of his that the priest labelled
"perhaps") they had sent him with scarcely any
capital — knowing he would spend what they gave
him. But they would frank him to the far west;
in the far west of that west had lain their real
motive; once there it would be too far for him
to get home again. That their incubus of a relation
was too old for such work as must be done over there
they could have known, and did know; also that he
had no fitness for the work, or knowledge of it; also
that he had not sufficient bodily strength, let alone
ardor and energy; also that a young man, strong,
eager, willing, could hardly do any good out there
with nothing in hand but the papers which made so
many acres of forest his own, so that there was not a
tree on them under which he had not a proprietor's
right to die. He would not anyway die at home,
in a British work-house.
All this the priest, ten years younger then,
had known at once — guessed it with a superfluous
"perhaps." So Will had stayed on. Will had a real
surname, and a good one; and presently the priest
knew it, but Will preferred the use of what he called
a Nom de plume — not that he had ever written
anything — and became known as Mr. Trees "My
only property over here," as he explained to the
priest alone.
V?=^E helped his friend to build the church, prov-
1 I ing oddly clever with his hands. He pro-
posed it himself, but with an apology, "For,"
said he, "I'm not a Catholic."
THE 1* SIGN
His people, he added, were Church of England
— and Low Church. For himself, he claimed the
motherhood of no religion. For a long time he
worked on the building of the church. During the
rest of the time he was helping to build "the hotel"
two miles away, for no present wage in money, but
on condition of being allowed a tiny room in it
(which he built himself) when it should be finished.
Meanwhile, he slept in a shed on part of the hotel-
site, where hay was kept for the hotel-keeper's pony :
and he dined every day with the priest.
When the church was finished, Will taught the
hotel-keeper's two boys, and he had free meals at
the hotel, and a suit of the hotel-keeper's clothes
when that gentleman regarded them as worn out.
Will proved to be also clever with his needle, and
earned a little cobbling clothes; finally, some time
after he had ceased to feed at the priest's table, he
became a Catholic.
That was all Will's story since the night of his
coming ten years ago. Very little "to it," you see.
I cannot assert that he ever became rigidly
truthful — fibs were part of the marrow of his bones :
but to the priest he told no lies, and to no one did
he tell any that were cruel, spiteful, injurious of
other people. Only he would brag — half-heartedly,
as not expecting to be believed, nor caring whether
he was believed. He would brag of having been
a wonderful horse-man and a wonderful shot; of
having spent huge sums, whereas he had only spent
more than he ought and had always been a nervous
rider and a slack sportsman. Of his family he never
boasted — it was an ancient one, and he never at his
worst had been given to brag truly.
He never became popular, but he was tolerated
and not at all disliked. The children liked him —
for he liked them better than he liked their fathers.
And the children's mothers liked him from the time
that he nursed little Marabel Wolf through the
diphtheria, Mrs. Wolf being away in the Maritime
provinces, whence she came, and Mr. Wolf being
(in his rather frequent cups) impervious to any
distinction between liniments and medicines. As he
had always been considered a rank coward, this
nursing of little Marabel surprised the settlement.
If he had caught the diphtheria and died, his funeral
would have been quite a testimonial : but he did not
die until seven years afterwards, so the opportunity
was not forthcoming.
Even previous to becoming a Catholic, he had
constituted himself sacristan, and had made a set of
vestments out of Mrs. Wolf's wedding dress which
she gave him for the purpose, as an act of thanks-
giving for Marabel's recovery.
XT was generally considered by the settlement
that Mr. Trees was clever, — which accounted
(if considered, epigrammatically) for his
being a failure in life. By the women, his extreme
personal cleanliness was held up as an example;
and his closet of a room at the hotel was declared
by Mrs. Sudd, the mistress of that establishment, to
be a pattern to all men, so tidy was it, so clean and
so "nacky."
All the same, Mr. Trees was not regarded with
enthusiasm by his male acquaintances. Even the
priest did not idealize him — he considered in him
not so much what he had made of himself, at his
best, as what the material had been out of which
that best had come. The finished result was not
splendid, any better than anyone had had a right
to count on.
And now Will was dead, and the priest knew
that he would miss him. He felt that the withdrawal
from sight of that personality of slight consequence
would leave in his own life a gap not likely to be
filled, or to be at all ignored.
In his fashion Will had been educated, and in
his degree and measure he had been refined — with
perhaps only a superficial refinement. Without the
least wit, or originality, his talk had never been
interesting; but it had been possible in talking to
him to take for granted the absence of a sort of
ignorance certainly to be reckoned with in any con-
versation with the other settlers. And the man was
himself a tribute to what had been done for him.
He had not quite, but nearly, ripened, like an autumn
apple to which sunshine had not come at all till too
late. For quality and flavour, the sun had come
very late to Mr. Trees, but it had come in the shine
of decency, happiness and purpose.
"Our Lord thought him worth making," thought
the priest, "if his family didn't think him worth
keeping. He suffered as much for poor Will upon
the Cross as for anyone of the Saints. And the devil
(what an example the devil sets us that way!)
took, I dare say, as much trouble to get hold of him
as if he had been a person of consequence."
The priest's fingers pressed upon his book again
— and meant a thanksgiving : that Our Lord had
thought the saving of poor Will worth His while.
"He saw in him things to like that we couldn't
THE + SIGN
see. I hope He sees things to like in me that /
can't. That's one's great hope. One can't even talk
His language in one's prayers — let's hope our broken
talk sounds in His ears as appealing as broken
French sounds in ours "
a
—ii—
VERYTHING," said the old priest to
himself, "keeps reminding me of that
night when poor Will first came — on his
way home. I believe I have been half
listening to hear him knock on the door again. ..."
And there came a knock, as meek as Will's
had been.
"Come in!" he called out: but no one came in.
So as on that former occasion, he went to the door
and opened it himself.
The light sent out an upward shaft into the rain
and darkness, and revealed a very large umbrella.
"Do come in!" the priest begged, and presently
the umbrella (after convulsive wavings) collapsed
and a very little elderly lady became visible.
"Miss Grove!", exclaimed the priest. "Do
hurry in out of the rain. What brings you out,
and so far from home, on such a night?"
Miss Grove appeared to be rather out of breath
— a little 'winded' by her struggles with the um-
brella. Even after she had come in, and after the
door was shut, she continued to pant.
"I hope nothing's the matter. I trust no one is
ill," said her host. "But even so, was there no one
else they could send?"
"No one's ill," she replied, "nothing's the
matter — except what you know, that poor Mr. Trees
is dead."
All this time the priest had been helping the
little, old lady to take off her very numerous (and
very wet) wraps. Miss Grove was well known to
him: she was a member of his congregation, and
aunt of one of its bulwarks, Mr. Hoss of the hotel.
Nevertheless, her present visit surprised him: she
was a fragile, timid, very shy little creature, and
he would hardly have thought her capable of coming
out into the forest in the black night, alone and
in such weather.
She was clearly in a state of considerable shy,
but eager agitation, and her little twittering manner
was more twittering than usual.
"Oh, Father!", she whimpered, making little
ineffectual dabs at her own person in search of a
pocket and a pocket handkerchief, "Oh, Father!
dear Mr. Trees — what a loss! There's nobody like
him — at all like him — in St. John of the Woods!
nor likely to be. It can't be expected."
She was sincerely distressed, and her being so,
for the solitary, not greatly popular, poor failure
of a man, pleased and touched the priest who had
been his one real friend. Two very small tears
trickled down Miss Grove's cheeks, which were like
two small apples. Everything about her was pro-
portionate— her whole body was little, her hands
and feet were tiny, and her mouth was like a button-
hole. The priest was a big old man, and his chair
was a big old chair: Miss Grove looked like an
elderly doll in it.
"So irreplaceable!", she cried, "so much man-
ner! Why there's no manner left at St. John of
the Woods!"
Inwardly the priest had to smile. His smiles
often were inward and invisible. She was so mani-
festly sincere, and poor Will had gone on such a
journey, where manner could matter so very little!"
"In that she continued shaking her little head,
and tapping one of her little feet on the floor, "in
that he leaves no heir or successor."
The idea of poor Will's heir, the idea of his
"succession" could only cause another inward and
invisible smile.
"As to his position," added Miss Grove, "I am
his heiress. He begged it might be so. That's
why I came to you. I was so anxious you should
become accustomed to the idea at once, Father.
I was so afraid of your forming any other idea or
plan. So I came at once. Mr. Trees wished it so
much — you ivill let me be his successor, Father!"
He had to confess a desire for enlightenment
as to what it was he was to let her be.
"Why Sacristan, Father. Mr. Trees was
Sacristan — irreplaceable, I know. But he did,
really, wish me to be his successor in the post. He
mentioned it so often. And I really was his under-
study. He taught it me. He made me quite under-
stand the little book — the Ordo, you know: you
see, I know its name: I quite understand it, tho'
it's all in Latin and queer contractions. V means
green vestments, and A white; R red; and Dup
means no black masses on any account. Poor Mr.
Trees said I got on surprisingly with the Latin.
I began last summer — he was quite struck when
I made out (it was the 7th of July, I remember)
that the feast was St. Cyril the Methodist: a
THE t SIGN
convert, of course, like himself; and the similarity
of our name was a link — after all what is a Grove
but a grove of Trees? He liked to show me the
Ordo, and also the Missal, and let me tell him in
English the Saint of the next day. Even in that
there's much to learn. On July the 26th he said,
'Well, to-morrow — what Saint is it?' 'Ah,' said I
when I looked! See how the church has saints of
every class and calling. The Martyr of the Panta-
loons— a tailor of course! Then on September 1st,
St. Duodecimo, a holy bookseller, you see : and on
the very next day, a holy gardener, St. Hyacinth
(another convert, evidently) — 'Sancti Proti Hyacin-
thi; St. Hyacinth the Protestant: 'Proti' is one of
those innumerable contractions, trying, till one gets
used to them. But dear Mr. Trees! how patient
and cheerful he was teaching me. And, Father, I
have washed all the albs and things since he fell
ill, and I should be proud to wash out the church
every Monday and Saturday — after Sunday, and
before, you understand: and arrange the flowers
(I often have) and clean the vases — and everything.
Poor Mr. Trees — he said, 'Go and ask Father Barry
to let you be Sacristan in my place. Say I left it
you, and he knows I've nothing else to leave. He
won't refuse.' "
He did not want to refuse. Poor Will! He
too had had the great human longing for a successor,
an heir; and his choice has been wiser than that
of many who choose an heir.
To the little old maid this service near our
Lord, in His modest house, would be a vocation,
a great honour and privilege and delight: and her
privileges in the world had been few enough. Why
should Will's last will and testament be set aside
and disregarded ?
"Indeed, Miss Grove," said the priest, "I am
only too glad that Mr. Trees thought of it, and only
too happy that, now he can ask nothing for himself,
he has left me the power of fulfilling a desire of his."
"He never did ask anything for himself," said
his loyal little friend. "Since he came here, how
little he had — and all earned : and how contented
he was with it! I have heard strong men, and young
men, make sneering hints about him who would not
have been content if what fed him for a whole week
had been offered them for one meal. Father, I can
never replace him: but I'll do my best in his place
if you will be so good as to do as you say and let
me be his successor."
He promised it should be so, and presently
himself saw her home.
"My first work," she said, at parting, "will be
getting the church ready for his requiem. His coffin
is ready. He made it himself, long ago, when he
was helping you, Father, to build the church. It
is under his bed. T used,' he told me, 'to plan how
I would live in my own house — and all my plans
came to nothing. But when I am dead I shall be
in a house of my own building after all.' "
n~he Disarmament Conference and Its Obstacles— -Continued
at home who abhor war and seek relief from taxa-
tion, the increasing army of un-employed, the
thought of the 10,000.000 of soldiers and the
30,000.000 civilians who would be living today had
it not been for secret diplomacy, may force these
grim old diplomats to open the session of the con-
ference to the public. If forced to work in the open
they will be compelled to honestly and seriously
consider a plan of harmonizing the conflicting in-
terests of the world, whereby an amicable settle-
ment can be reached on these questions without
resorting to the barbarous method of war.
The American people can greatly aid the con-
ference in reaching its objective by insisting that
their government stand for open sessions and bring
these diplomats, whose secret sessions have caused
so many wars, under the great controlling influence
of public opinion.
Let us pray, then, that the nations of the world
will beat their swords into plowshares, that perma-
nent peace may reign, and that humanity will be
spared another scourging.
Montefalco's Gnostl}) Visitant
A Roman Ecclesiastic
ffi
'ONTEFALCO is a quaint little town
situated like most towns in Italy on the
summit of a mountain and commanding
such a glorious panorama of the surround-
ing country that it has been called the "Balcony of
Umbria." From this balcony you look down on the
Umbrian valley and there meets your gaze an en-
chanting view of vineyards and oliveyards, fields
of grain and vegetables gardens dotted here and
there with hoary hamlets or single residences of
the Umbrian peasants. In the distance, and perched
again on hill-tops or mountain sides are the cities
of Assisi and Spoleto, Frevi and Foligno. The
beauty of the scene is indescribable — the color
scheme one that would wrap an artist into ecstacy.
Montefalco is even amongst Italian cities, excep-
tionally rich in art treasures and it has been the
birthplace of many illustrious personages the fore-
most of whom is St. Clare of the Cross in whose
heart the Divine Artist sculptured out of nerve and
fleshy fibre the instruments of the Passion — the
Crucifix itself, the Lance, the Nails, the Scourge,
the Crown of Thorns, the Pillar — a most unusual
miracle and a permanent one which may be wit-
nessed by any visitor to the monastery Church of
St. Augustine and which was recently witnessed by
the present writer. However, it is not with the
matchless beauty of the scene which Montefalco
commands that we are now concerned, nor yet with
the miraculous heart of St. Clare which has stood
the scrutiny of the keenest and most sceptical
observers, but rather with some strange occurrences
that happened only a few steps away from the
Monastery of St. Augustine and the Convent of St.
Leonard from September 2nd, 1918, to November
9th, 1919. These two Convents are separated by a
garden and a few times a year both Communities
meet for mutual entertainment and edification.
From a small, narrow and almost perpendicular
street you step into the little Church — "Chiesina" as
the Italians would say, of St. Leonard, and there at
your right is a sacristy about 8x4 feet in dimension.
This sacristy connects with the cloister by means
of what is called a "ruota" or "turn" that is, a
revolving drum-like dumb-waiter by means of which
messages or articles may be passed into or out of
the cloister.
Here precisely occurred the events narrated in
the Diary of the Rev. Mother Abbess which we now
submit to our readers and we submit it with the
understanding that the reader may pass whatever
judgement he pleases on the genuineness of the
facts related therein. This only shall we say at
present that the story seems to be recommended
by a simplicity, brevity, directness and wierd mono-
tony of cadence that might naturally be expected in
such subject matter.
DIARY OF THE REV. MOTHER ABBESS
1918
1st Time. Monday September 2nd. The
Sacristy bell rang and Sister Maria Teresa of Jesus,
the Abbess having gone to answer it a voice said to
her: "I must leave this alms here." The "ruota"
containing a 10 Lire bill was turned, and to the
question of the Abbess whether she should have a
triduum offered or some prayers or a mass, the
voice answered : "There is no obligation whatso-
ever."
"If I may be permitted to ask: Who are you?"
The voice answered: "It is not necessary to
know who I am."
The voice was gentle but withal sad, with a
quick far-off muffled sound.
2nd Time. Saturday October 5th. 3rd Time.
Thursday, October 31st. 4th Time. Friday, Novem-
ber 29th. 5th Time. Monday, December 9th. Each
time the message was the same and a 10 Lire bill
was left. The Abbess again asked if she should
have prayers offered and the answer was: "Prayer
is always good."
1919
6th Time. Wednesday, January 1st. 7th Time.
Wednesday, January 29th, almost always the same.
8th Time. Friday, March 14th. During the
time of examen about 8 o'clock in the evening the
bell sounded twice and having gone to answer, the
Abbess found 10 Lire on the "ruota" but to her
enquiries no answer was given. The front door of
the Church was closed and the key held by the
THE 1* SIGN
nuns. The servant was called and told to search
the Church carefully. This was done but no one
was found. At this juncture, writes the Abbess, we
began to suspect that whoever left the alms was
no person of this earth.
9th Time. Friday, April 11th. 10 Lire were
brought and the voice said: "Please pray for a
deceased person." This was the first time prayers
were asked.
10th Time. Fri-
day, May 2nd. A little
before the " great
silence," about 9.30
P. M., I heard the
sound of the bell and
four of us went to an-
swer,— Sister Mary
Francis of the Five
Wounds, Sister Amante
Maria of St. Anthony,
Sister Angelica Ruggeri
and myself. We found
two 10 Lire bills placed
in the form of a cross
but knew not who left
them there. The front
door of the Church was
closed.
11th Time. Satur-
day, May 25th. Again
10 Lire were brought.
12th Time. Morn-
ing of Wednesday, June
4th. 10 Lire found on
the " ruota " without
knowing who placed
them there.
frrfarr fnr itas nf tip Draft
Translated for The Sign
/T is truly meet and just, right and gain-
ful to salvation, that we should at all
times and in all places render thanks unto
Thee, O Holy Lord, Father Almighty,
Eternal God, through Christ Our Lord, in
whom the hope of a blessed resurrection
shone forth for us, that those whom the
unescapable lot of death casteth down may
be gladdened by the promise of immortality
to be. Life in thy faithful, O Lord, changeth,
it is not taken away; the dissolution of this
earthly tabernacle cometh before the en-
trance to the eternal mansions in heaven.
And therefore, with the Angels and
Archangels, with the Thrones and Domina-
tions, and with the whole heavenly court,
we sing the praise of Thy Glory, forever
saying: Holy, Holy, Holy, Lord God of
Hosts! Heaven and earth are full of Thy
Glory. Hosanna in the highest. Blessed
is He that Cometh in the Name of the Lord.
Hosanna in the highest.
a voice outside her cell said: "The Sacristy bell is
ringing." She went immediately to answer and
heard the usual voice : "I am leaving here 10 Lire
for prayers."
She asked: "In the name of God who are
you?" The reply came : "It is not permitted," and
she heard no more. The Abbess afterwards asked
the Community who had called her in time of Silence
but none of the Sisters had done so.
15th Time. Friday,
July 18th, after the
evening silence was
called at 9.30 o'clock,
the Abbess went to
close the door of the
bake-shop, and on re-
ascending the stairs
heard the sound of the
bell. She went to the
"turn" and pronounced
the salutation : "Jesus
and Mary be praised!"
A voice answered
"Amen" and then
added: "I am leaving
this alms for the
usual prayers." The
Abbess then with more
courage demanded : "In
the name of God and of
the most Holy Trinity
13th Time. Satur-
day, June 21st. Exactly
the same occurrence. It is to be noted, however,
that on the previous Thursday and Friday when the
bell sounded, one time Sister Angelica went to
answer, and the other Sister Angela, but no one was
found in Sacristy or Church.
14th Time. Monday, July 7th. About 2 o'clock
in the afternoon, time of repose, the bell rang twice,
but the Abbess thinking that some children were in
the Church did not trouble to answer. After a while
who
are you
The
same voice answered:
"It is not permitted,"
and no more was heard.
The Church door was
locked.
16th Time. Sun-
day, July 27. The Ab-
bess happened to go to
the "turn" before mass and found there a 10 L're
bill.
17th Time. Tuesday, August 12th, about 8
o'clock in the evening the bell rang and three nuns
went to answer: — The Abbess, Sister Mary Naza-
rena, and Sister Clare Benedict. They found 10 Lire
at the "turn" and conjured in God's name the my-
sterious person to declare who he was. No answer
was given. The servant then called in the Rev. E.
THE + SIGN
Alexander Climati, Prior of St. Bartholonew and
confessor of the nuns, D'Agasiz Tabarrini, Parish
Priest of Casale and Chaplain to the nuns, also Fr.
Angelo, Guardian of the Cappuchins. These
searched the Church but found no one.
18th Time. Tuesday, August 19th, at 6.30 in
the evening the bell rang, the Abbess went to answer
and said: "Jesus and Mary be praised!" The voice
answered : "Amen" and said : "I am leaving this alms
for prayers." The Abbess said : "We will pray for
you just the same, but please give the alms to some
person who is more in need of it." The soul
answered in pleading tones: "No, please take it.
It is a great mercy to me." Is it permitted to know
who you are?" said the Abbess. "I am always the
same person" was the reply — and no more was
heard. As usual the 10 Lire were left.
19th Time. Thursday, August 28th. Practically
the same message.
20th Time. Thursday, September 4th. Again
the same message.
21st Time. About 9.15 P. M. The Abbess on
closing the dormitory door heard the sound of the
bell. With another nun she went to answer, found
the alms, but heard no voice. The other nun then
retired to see if the voice would speak to the Abbess
alone, but not a word was heard. The Abbess went
upstairs without taking the money, and hearing the
bell sound again returned. The Soul offered the 10
Lire as usual but she refused it. Then the Soul
said: "Please take it to satisfy divine justice." The
Abbess then made the mysterious person repeat the
ejaculation: "Blessed be the holy, most pure and
immaculate conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary!"
The Soul repeated the words exactly.
22nd Time. Sunday, September 21st. In the
morning before mass the Abbess found 10 Lire at
the "turn".
23rd Time. Friday, October 3rd, about 9
o'clock P. M. as the Abbess stood at the window
of her cell she thought she heard the bell ring. She
went to answer and refused 20 Lire offered as an
alms saying their confessor had directed her to do so
unless the Soul would declare who he was, because
they feared diabolical deceit. The voice said : "No,
J am a suffering soul. It is now 40 years that I have
been in Purgatory for having wilfully ivasted
ecclesiastical goods."
24th Time. Monday, October 6th. The Abbess
had a mass celebrated for that soul by the Rev.
Alexander Climati, their confessor, and a short time
after the mass was finished the bell rang and the
same voice said: "I am leaving this alms. Many
thanks!" The Abbess asked some more questions
but no reply was given. The Sacristy was closed.
10 Lire were left.
25th Time. Thursday, October 16th. About
9.45 P. M. after silence was called and all the nuns
had retired, the Abbess heard someone calling out-
side her cell and saying that the Sacristy bell was
ringing. In the morning the nuns were asked about
this but just as in the case of July 7th, they knew
nothing. That night the Abbess went to answer the
call and gave the salutation: "Jesus and Mary be
praised!" the Soul answered: "Amen" and added.
"I am leaving this alms. Many thanks." (Here it
must be noted that on the morning of the same day
they had a mass celebrated for that Soul by the
Jesuit Father Luigi Bianchi who was then giving a
retreat to the Community). The Abbess replied:
"By order of our Confessor I must know your name
and surname otherwise I won't take the alms." The
Soul instead of a direct answer simply said: "The
Judgement of God is just and right." "But," said the
Abbess, "how now is this? I have had a mass said
for you and one mass alone is sufficient to free a
soul from Purgatory. How is it that you are not
yet free?" The answer was: "/ received a very
small share of it." The Abbess then said some other
things but the Soul did not answer. This time
20 Lire were left.
26th Time. Monday, October 20th. The bell
for Silence had just rung at 8.45 P. M., and as the
Abbess with two Sisters — Sister Mary Rosalia, and
Sister Clare Joseph were ascending the stairs they
heard the Sacristy bell ring, all three went to answer
and found 10 Lire at the "turn" but the voice did not
speak, presumably because of the presence of the
other two. They then went away and the Abbess
returned a second time but heard nothing. Then
having gone upstairs again and closed the door of
the domitory she heard the bell ring once more. She
answered and to the usual salutation the voice said
in a very clear tone : "Amen," and because the
Abbess had not taken the money, added : "Take this
alms. It is a great mercy." The Abbess took the
alms and the voice said: "Thanks!" "But," said the
THE 1* SIGN
Abbess, "Can I not know who you are?" The reply
was: "Pray, pray, pray, pray."
27th Time. Thursday, October 30th, at 2.45,
after midnight — The Abbess heard a voice outside
her cell saying: "The Sacristy bell has rung." She
went to answer and as usual the soul said: "Amen"
to the salutation, then immediately added: "I am
leaving here this" — but the Abbess without waiting
for the sentence to be finished said: "By order of
our Confessor I cannot take it. In the name of God
and by order of the Confessor tell me who you are ?
Are you a Priest?"
The answer was : Yes."
"Did the funds you wasted belong to this
Monastery?"
Answer: "No, but I have permission to bring
them here."
"And where did you take them?"
Answer: "The Judgement of God is just."
"But I scarcely believe you are a soul from
Purgatory. I think it may be some one who is play-
ing a joke on us."
"Do you want a sign?"
"No, I am afraid. May I call someone? I will
call immediately — "
"No, it is not permitted."
The Abbess took the 10 Lire and the Soul said :
"Thanks. Now it is my turn to pray."
The Abbess said: "Pray for me, for my Com-
munity, and for the Confessor."
The Soul said: "BENEDICTUS DEUS QUI"*
and it departed continuing the prayer in a low voice,
and she understood no more. This last time the
voice had less of nervous haste and less indistinct-
ness. Again, at one time it seemed to be speaking
* It is surmised that the soul began to recite verse
20 of Psalm LXV. "Blessed be God who hast not turned
away my prayer nor His mercy from me."
on her right and when departing it seemed at her
left side.
28th Time. Sunday, November 9th. At about
4:15 A. M. the Abbess heard from the dormitory
the sound of the Sacristy bell. She answered and
gave the salutation: "Jesus and Mary be praised!"
The usual voice answered : "May they be praised
forever! I thank you and the religious Community.
/ am now out of all pain."
"You must not forget the priests who have said
masses for you, and our Confessor, and Fr. Luigi
Bianchi, and Fr. DAgazio."
"I THANK ALL."
Said the Abbess: "I would like to go to Purga-
tory where you were because there I would be safe."
"Do the will of the most High God."
"You will pray for me, for my Community, for
my parents if they are in Purgatory, for our Con-
fessor, for Fr. Luigi Bianchi, for the Pope, the
Bishop, and Cardinal Ascalesi."
Answer: "Yes"
"Bless me and all the persons whom I have
mentioned."
"Benedictio Domini super vos!"
The morning before Fr. Luigi Bianchi, S. J.,
had said a mass for that Soul at a privileged altar in
the church of the Gesu in Rome.
The voice of the dead priest in the beginning
used to be sad but gradually became more joyful
and at last spoke in accents of blissful ecstacy.
Even in the sound of the bell, though it was
recognized as that of the Sacristy, there was always
something at once sad and consoling. When the
Sisters heard it they always said: "Mother Abbess,
it is that poor soul. Please go to answer." And
meanwhile a fervent "De Profundis" spontaneously
arose from their lips.
We trust that the above article will prove not only interesting to our
readers but will help to actualize for them the reality of Purgatory and spur
them on to a more ardent devotion to the Poor Souls. The writer assures
us that the facts are supported by an abundance of unimpeachable testimony.
For personal reasons he requests us to withhold his name — The Editors.
Current Fact and Comment
m
WHY GIVE TO
buting to Peter's Pence. While all Catholics
are assured that what is thus contributed is
applied with a minimum of waste to many worthy
and important objects, still would they be amazed
were they fully informed how numerous and diversi-
fied those objects are. Consider the upkeep of the
diplomatic service alone. It was consoling to ob-
serve the change of sentiment among the nations
in favor of the Vatican after the war. The number
of nations with diplomatic relations with the Holy
PETER'S PENCE
See has doubled; and now twenty five nuncios and
internuncios are established with the greater and
lesser Powers, while a corresponding number of
ambassadors and ministers are designated to the
Vatican. It is a department that cannot be conducted
gratuitously, to say the least; yet, when we consider
the incalculable benefit to Religion directly and
indirectly derived through this arrangement,
we find a most gratifying motive for generous
giving in the annual offering to the Holy
Father.
LET JUSTICE BLUSH
OUR readers have already been acquainted
through the columns of the daily press of the
acquittal of the murderer of Father James E.
Coyle former pastor of St. Paul's Church, Birming-
ham, Alabama. This ominous incident gives food
for disquieting thought to all sane citizens of our
Republic. It is the application in the concrete of
the damnable tenets of the Klu Klux Klan. Sollicitor
Joseph R. Tate in summing up for the State declared
to the jury, "If you go into the jury room, kick out
the evidence and render a verdict of not guilty, you
will have all the narrow-minded, fuzzy-necked
people come and pat you on the back, but the
remainder of your lives you will have your consci-
ence to prick and sting you." In face of this virile
charge a verdict was returned "not guilty." The
Nation commenting upon this disgraceful miscar-
riage of justice has this to say:
"Acquittal of the Rev. Edwin R. Stephenson,
a Methodist minister, of the murder of Father James
E. Coyle, pastor of St. Paul's Catholic Church in
Birmingham, will surprise no one who understands
the play of forces behind that beastly crime. Writ-
ing in The Nation for August 31, Mr. Charles P.
Sweeney made clear that anti-Catholic bigotry is
a predominant state of mind in that section of the
United States of which Birmingham is the metro-
polis. The murder of the priest in his own home
is the logical product, in a community predisposed
to lawlessness, of the reckless campaign of defama-
tion in which the junior Senator from Georgia,
Thomas E. Watson, is the central figure. He is not
guiltless of the murder of Father Coyle, as he was
not guiltless of the tragic lynching five years ago of
Leo Frank. Both were victims in part of his in-
cendiary vilification in that tinder-box of medieval
superstitions and phobias designated on our maps as
Georgia and Alabama."
SEEDS OF JOT— HARVEST OF TEARS
QFEW weeks ago, in one of our large Eastern
cities, a school girl, 15 years of age, went out
in search of romance. She found it, through
the medium of the "movies" and an automobile ride.
While standing at the curb after a "movie" show,
she was accosted by four unknown young men in
an auto, and invited for a ride. Here was the
romance and she accepted. The rest of the story is
written in scalding tears, a shattered body, and
bitter regrets. Her experiences were such as will
crowd her future with hideous memories. She was
held captive in a lonely shack for a whole week,
and made the pitiable plaything of a gang of
degenerates. She was finally turned loose, to
wander, dazed, in an adjoining woods, where, many
hours later, she was accidently found, and rescued.
She is now home under her mother's care, working
her way back to a doubtful recovery.
This tragic story is neither new nor uncommon.
Unfortunately, it is recurring with alarming fre-
quency in the police records of all our large Ameri-
can cities. It may be too much to expect that girls
of 15 should appreciate the many and various pit-
falls modern life provides for girls of their age. But,
certainly, mothers of girls of 15 cannot be blind to
what is going on every day, cannot be blind to the
many dangers peculiar to these modern times which
threaten their growing girls. Mothers who deliber-
ately blink these obvious facts assume a grave
responsibility before heaven. Too frequent attend-
THE +
ance at the "movies," with their unreal description
of life, and fantastic notions of romance, is one of
the most deadly dangers. "Automobilitis," or the
hunger of the young for the "joy-ride" — too joften
a misnomer for a "sad-ride" — is another. To the
list must be added the aimless promenading on our
streets of under-dressed and over-dressed girls. The
folly of many mothers who indulge their young
daughters in all the extravagance of indecent fash-
ions which brazenly parade the natural charm and
attractiveness of budding womanhood, places young
girls directly in the path of danger, and provokes
the attenton of the large number of vultures who
infest our streets under the guise of nattily attired
gallants in glittering motor cars.
One cannot help questioning seriously the cha-
racter of the bringing up of a girl of 15 who accepts
SIGN
an invitation to an automobile ride on a late Satur-
day evening from a party of young men, to whom
she is a total stranger. It would seem that a girl
who has been reared by a sensible mother, a girl in
whom had been instilled a proper sense of self-
respect, and the right ideal of maidenly modesty and
reserve becoming to girls of tender age, would know
better than lightly trust herself, unprotected, to the
company of unknown men, or be on the streets alone
late Saturday night, or any other night. One
wonders how many Catholic girls are joining the
numbers of those who meet with disaster via the
automobile and "strange young man" route. The
rearing and training of Catholic young girls, if it is
what it should be, should effectively safeguard them
against the many modern snares so abundantly set
for the unwary.
FATHER FIDELI5 KENT STONE, C. P.
V|^HILE Foch, Diaz and Beatty are being wel-
\I/ corned to America with every phase of a
country's applause, no recognition is given to
the passing of one whose remarkable gifts of mind
and heart could readily have swayed individuals and
peoples. On October 13, Father Fidelis of the
Cross (known in the world as James Kent Stone)
died in California at the advanced age of four score
years and one.
Father Fidelis embodied in his charming per-
sonality all that is admirable in the true American
ideal. He was the son of a distinguished Episcopal-
ian clergyman. He himself became a clergyman
in the same denomination. At a very early age he
held successively the presidency of Hobart and
Kenyon Colleges. In his thirtieth year he became
a Catholic, and two years later was ordained to the
holy priesthood as a member of the Paulist Com-
munity. Four year afterwards he joined the Pas-
sionist Order. As a Passionist he spent many years
abroad, particularly in Argentine and Chile where
he did much for the establishing and upbuild-
ing of his Order. During his long religious career
he held many positions of responsibility both at
home and in foreign parts.
As a young man he loved to climb the Alps,
when with rapture he would gaze upon the snow-
capped peaks glistering in the sun-light, forgetful
of the verdant fields, the fragant flowers and
mellow shade of the luxuriant valleys. This was a
portent of his after life. He unhesitatingly sacri-
ficed fame, fortune and pleasure which were easily
within his grasp. And having made the sacrifice,
he manfully pursued the arduous ascent to the
heights of virtue and union with God.
Men have been heard to complain that to
seclude oneself as he did from the world's notice
was a wanton burial of great talents. But in the
judgment of Him Who said "He that shall humble
himself shall be exalted" Father Fidelis was su-
premely wise. There is every reason to believe
that he received a welcome in heaven such as no
admiring throng could have vouchsafed him on
earth.
WHAT ABOUT THE LIVING HEROES?
CONGRESS has appropriated the sum of
$50,000 for the ceremonial burial of an un-
known hero. No true American will object
to this or any other sum being spent to honor this
individual hero and the thousands of others he
represents who so loyally played an heroic part and
generously made the supreme sacrific in the world
war.
But all the unknown heroes who went to battle
are not dead. We have a mighty number of ex-
service men in the country who acquitted them-
selves of their military duty as manfully and valor-
ously as any known or unknown dead hero. The
least these living heroes can expect from the Govern-
ment which they unflinchingly supported is the op-
portunity of now supportng themselves. These
heroes should be provided with work that will enable
them to earn a decent livelihood; and it is no more
THE +
than just that the Government give or, if necessary,
make jobs for these deserving men.
We know, of course, that there are many pro-
fessional bums who represent themselves as ex-
soldiers. But even allowing for these there is still
a very large number of worthy ex-soldiers without
employment who are only too anxious to get work.
It is nearly time that Congress should stop frittering
its time in party recriminations and pettyfogging
SIGN
investigations and do something for the ex-soldiers
who deserve so well of the country.
What has been said of these returned heroes
applies with equal force to the other living heroes
who did not go to war but who gave all that was in
them that we might win the war. We cannot honor
the dead too much. But it would be more fitting and
healthful for the country if Armistice Day was made
less a memorial day and more of an employment day.
POPE AND
^^XECENTLY general elections were held in the
I^T Republic of Nicaragua. That this republic
has a sound and unbiased electorate we are
assured from their choice for the presidency of
Diego M. Chamorro, a fine type of Catholic man-
hood. On the morning of the elections Signor
Chamorro with his family received Holy Communion
from the hands of the Archbishop. His election
being verified, he withdrew to the Cathedral where
the Te Deum was solemnly chanted in thanksgiving
to the Most High. Thereupon through the Secretary
of State at the Vatican he offered his respects
to the Vicar of Jesus Christ and notified him of his
election to the presidency. Some points from his
inaugural address will indicate how profound are his
Christian convictions: "The Catholic Church, of
which I am proud to be a faithful son, during my
incumbency shall enjoy the full freedom guaranteed
to her by the constitution, not only because it is so
guaranteed, but especially because the Church is
PATRIOTISM
the most powerful support of order and public
morals and because I esteem her as the true mother
of civilization. Humbly realizing that 'unless the
Lord guard the city, they watch in vain who guard
it,' I yield myself over to the guidance of the
Almighty, and committing to Him my destiny and
that of the country, I also put all my trust in Him
for the successful discharge of my duties." Ap-
parently the good people of Nicaragua do not be-
lieve in the thread bare calumny against the Catho-
lic Church, that loyalty to Christ's Vicar spells dis-
loyalty to one's native land. Would that our Ameri-
can bigots in high places were as enlightened ! Only
by fidelity to conscience, by fulfilling duties to church
and state will American Catholics live down this
flimsy slander. "Render to Caesar the things that
are Caesar's, and to God the things that are God's,"
this is Christ's principle, true and binding in the reign
of Tiberias Caesar — true and binding in the in-
cumbency of Warren Harding, President.
AMERICAN GOLD BUYS AUSTRIAN SOULS
/f^VRESS dispatches frequently inform us of the
w^J efforts being made by the Protestant sects
to alienate Catholics in Germany and Austria
from their faith. These proselytizers are using
some new tricks, such as holding "missions" in the
public squares of the cities without mentioning the
name of their religion, and even giving the impres-
sion that they are Catholics working in the interests
of the Catholic Church.. It is only when they see
an evident chance of making a pervert that they
reveal their identity. Their chief method of per-
version, however, is the "free soup" system so com-
mon in Ireland in the days of the famine. They
take advantage of the pitiful distress and harrowing
poverty of the wretched people and hold out the
bait of money, food and clothing. We may well
wonder if the decent Protestant people in the United
States are aware of the ignoble purposes to which
the money they so generously contribute is put.
The chief offenders in this contemptible business
of buying souls are the Methodists, Baptists and
Seventh Day Adventists. The New York Herald
justly remarked: "If the foreign sect works with
plenty of dollars or pounds sterling it becomes all
the more attractive to Austrian candidates."
We doubt whether the money being so lavish-
ing spent in the nefarious traffic of Germanic souls
will have more lasting results than similar expendi-
tures upon the Irish immigrants to our shores. An
incident is narrated in the new life of Cardinal
Gibbons. When that distinguished churchman was
Vicar-Apostolic of North Carolina, he once paid a
visit to Plymouth. Whilst there, the Bishop learned
that an Irishman had apostatized and had become
a Baptist. The Irishman was immersed, and after
the ceremony, was asked by his new co-religionists
to lead in prayer. He astonished them by reciting
the "Hail, Holy Queen."
China Calls
"M^^^HE many friends of the Passionist Fathers
M C*\ in America were made glad when they
^^^^ read recently in the Catholic press that
the Passionists had volunteered their ser-
vices to the Holy See for work in the Far East.
They will have added reason to rejoice now that
the offer has been accepted, and that a territory has
been assigned in China to American Passionists and
that a band of five priests
will leave the Mother house,
St. Michael's Monastery,
West Hoboken, on Sunday,
December 11th, for their new
field.
The Sacred Congrega-
tion of the Faith which has
special charge of foreign
mission activites has allotted
to the Passionist Fathers a
district in the Province of
Hunan, Central China. This
territory lies north of the
district now being evange-
lized by the American
Foreign Mission Society of
Maryknoll, N. Y., and south
of that under the care of the
Maynooth Irish Mission
Society. The entire Province
of Hunan is at present a
Vicariate-Apostolic under the
direction of the Spanish
Augustinians who have labored in the territory with
unflagging zeal since 1879. The population of
China is 440,000,000, four times greater than the
population of the United States, comprised within
an area only one fourth larger than our Country.
The Province of Hunan to which the Passionists are
going is about the size of the State of Kansas and
like that State is centrally located. Hunan has a
population reaching the enormous figure of
22,000,000 people of whom only 13,000 are Catho-
lics. There are at present in this territory thirty
European and two native priests.
The eyes of the Catholic world are turned today
to the Far East and not only from Europe but also
from America, missionaries are leaving in ever in-
creasing numbers. China with its teeming millions
is making an especially strong appeal. Hither
missionaries are hastening in the hope of garnering
a rich harvest of souls to Christ. This work, how-
ever, is not new. China has been a field of mission-
ary labor since the sixteenth century and has been
watered by the blood of hundreds of martyrs whose
hands are raised in supplication begging for the
redeeming blood of Jesus
Christ to free these hordes
of people from the miseries
of paganism.
During the last few
decades the Protestant sects
have centered their efforts in
an endeavor to propagate
their false doctrines among
the Chinese. With immense
wealth at their disposal, they
have succeeded in spreading
to every Province in the
Celestial Empire. But in
spite of this the Catholic
missionaries with meagre
financial resources, with little
else than a spirit of sacrifice
and untiring labor have
reaped gratifying fruits.
Nearly 2,000,000 pagans
have been converted. A
thousand native priests,
many native sisterhoods, and
an army of catechists aid the foreign missionaries
in their labors for souls.
St. Paul of the Cross, whose heart burned with
zeal for the salvation of the heathern, ardently
desired that his sons should give themselves to this
blessed work. Like his namesake, the great Apostle
of the Gentiles, he had but one desire, "to know
Christ and Him Crucified" and to spread this know-
ledge to the ends of the earth. In his Rule he
plainly directs that when the time presents itself
the Fathers of his Order, armed with the blessing
of the Vicar of Christ, must be ready to leave all,
home, friends and country, and go forth to preach
Christ Crucified to the heathen. It is worthy of note
that five years after the death of St. Paul of the
21
THE + SIGN
REV. AGATHO PURTILL, C. P,
REV. RAPHAEL VANCE, C.
REV. TIMOTHY McDERMOTT. C. P.
REV. FLAVIAN MULI.INS, C. P.
THE 1* SIGN
Cross, the Passionists were invited to make a
foundation in the city of Pekin. At that time, how-
ever, this could not be done. Now, nearly a century
and a half later, a band of Passionists, will for the
first time set out for China, not from the Eternal
City, but from America, a country which but a
decade ago was classed as a foreign missionary
field. True to the ideals of their saintly founder,
the Passionists have always preached the Gospel
to the most neglected children of the Church. For
many years they have labored in the Near East
where they have spared no effort to win back the
schismatical children of the Orthodox Greek Church
and the followers of Mohamed.
One of the first foreign missions undertaken
by the Passionist Order was the conversion of the
aborigines of Australia. In more recent times, a
band of Passionists was led by the noted Father
Fidelis Kent-Stone, whose death we are still lament-
ing, into the South American countries of Argentina,
Chile and Brazil. The Passionist Fathers of Spain
have been laboring for a long time past in the wilds
of Peru.
When we glance over the history of Catholic
missionary activity in China, and come to realize
that in spite of the long years of labor there are
relatively so few Catholics within its borders we
cannot but appreciate the difficulties that confront
the missionary in this limitless field. The work of
the missionary has indeed been carried on steadily
against almost insurmountable odds. Speaking of
the Province of Hunan alone, 13,000 Catholics out
of 11,000,000 inhabitants! This speaks volumes
for the bouyant heroism and apostolic zeal of the
Spanish Augustinians who have gone before. This
plainly tells the story of the hardships which are
facing the band of Passionists who are about to lend
a helping hand to their Augustinian brethen. Much,
indeed, has to be done before this land of paganism
becomes a spiritual child of the church. The mis-
sionary has merely touched the fringe of the multi-
tude. Our Lord's words, the "harvest is great but the
laborers are few," have through these many years
applied to China as to no other country in the world.
Whether or no China shall become a child of the
Church or a fruitful field of Protestantism will
depend in the main on the spirit shown by American
Catholics toward this great work, the preaching of
the Gospel in China. Let us pray, let us labor for
this noble cause.
The five Passionist Fathers who have been
chosen for the band are Rev. Fathers Celestine
Roddan of Randolph, Mass.; Agatho Purtill of West
Hoboken, N. J.; Flavian Mullins of Athens, Pa.;
Raphael Vance of Philadelphia, Pa.; and Timothy
McDermott of Pittsburg, Pa.
nsoners o
Thomas McGuiri
f Hope
^^^>HE Church is often called Mother, and
/ C\ rightly so. The children whom God has
^^^^ given her she takes to her heart and cher-
ishes with a mother's love. She guides their
every step on through life to keep them to the narrow
path which leads to life eternal. When death ap-
proaches she stands by to assist them in that moment
of need. But she does not part with them there.
Knowing that "there shall not enter into heaven
anything defiled," she follows with her prayers the
souls of her children into the prision of Purgatory.
Daily she pleads with God for mercy and offers in
atonement for her suffering children's sins the merit
of her grace. During November, particularly, is her
plaintive prayer incessant. Then she invites in an
especial manner her other children still in the flesh
to join her, that by united prayer, God may be moved
to set free from their prison of woe the souls of
the dear departed and to admit them to the joys of
Paradise, there to praise Him, to thank Him, and
to love Him forevermore.
Hence, at this time, all the faithful, hearkening
to the invitation of their Mother, devote more
thought and time to their deceased brethren. A
constant crying appeal for mercy mounts to heaven
from near every Catholic heart. The morning sun-
beams, dissipating night's darkness make visible in
every place the priest standing at the altar, and
THE 1* SIGN
gathered about him, with heads bowed in prayer,
large numbers of faithful. And in the evening
shadows, when the turmoil of the day has died away,
many more kneel around their Sacramental King,
thumbing their beads ; or quietly move from station
to station piously following in the blood-stained
foot-steps of the Savior in the Way of the Cross.
The fervor of the whole Catholic world is aroused;
it is sustained by a common thought, the liberation
of the poor souls in Purgatory.
It is the greatest charity to assist the poor souls.
Of themselves they can do nothing to alleviate their
sorrows, but are in all things dependant on the
charity of others. Intense is the pain they suffer
from the purifying flame, but their agonizing long-
ing to look upon the face of God causes them a pain
far greater. God is deaf to their plea for pity; in
life, His mercy was at their beck and call ; but now,
mercy has given way to justice. They turn in sup-
plication to their brethren here on earth, whose
prayers and good works they know can comfort
them and shorten their detention. From the depth
of their misery they cry out, "Have pity on me, have
pity on me, at least you my friends, because the
hand of the Lord hath touched me." To answer
the appeal of these afflicted ones — is there any
charity like to this?
XT is a duty incumbent upon everyone to succor
the poor souls, but especially to help those
souls to whom one is bound by ties of blood
and friendship. The departed have a claim on such
as loved them in life. Time may have filled the
void that their passing made in the home ; time may
have healed the wounds that grief dug in the heart;
but time cannot obliterate the obligation of remem-
bering the departed ones who still suffer on. Jf
the. voices of the dead could penetrate the portals
of death many stinging rebukes would tingle the ears
of the forgetful living. They who forget have never
pondered on the meaning of that plaintive pleading,
"Have pity on me, have pity on me, at least you
my friends, because the hand of the Lord hath
touched me." They who so forget can never have
brought home to themselves the import in the poet's
words :
"For what are men better than sheep or goats
That nourish a blind life within the brain,
If knowing God, they lift not hands of prayer
Both for themselves and those who call them
friends?"
Long ago the celebrated Athenian, Cimon, had
to bear the sorrow of seeing his insolvent father
imprisoned by hard, exacting creditors. To add to
the son's grief his father died in prison before a
release could be secured. The distraught young
man rushed to the prison and begged his father's
body, that, at least, he might give it decent burial.
When the creditors refused, he cried out in a
frenzy, "Let me first bury my father and I will
return and take his place in prison." This exhibi-
tion of filial piety is worthy of all admiration, but
it also deserves imitation. Fathers and mothers
are now languishing in a prison with which no
earthly prison can be compared for pain, misery
and sorrow. Brothers and sisters, too, are there and
many others who loved and were loved in life.
There shall they be until their debt is paid, even
to the last farthing. Relatives and friends on earth,
if they will, can cancel these debts and set their
loved ones free. More fortunate than the Athenian
youth they need not enter the prison house, they
need not serve another's term, they have but to pray.
"It is therefore a holy and wholesome thought to
pray for the dead, that they may be loosed from
sins," says the Holy Spirit.
What more beautiful example of this christian
duty than the pathetic prayer of the Angel of the
Agony as conceived by Cardinal Newman:
"Jesu! by that shuddering dread which fell on Thee;
Jesu ! by that cold dismay which sickened Thee ;
Jesu! by that pang of heart which thrilled in Thee;
Jesu! by that mount of sins which crippled Thee;
Jesu! by the sense of guilt which stifled Thee;
Jesu! by that innocence whch girdled Thee;
Jesu ! by that sanctity which reigned in Thee ;
Jesu ! by that Godhead which was one with Thee ;
Jesu! spare these souls which are so dear to Thee,
Who in prison, calm and patient, wait for Thee;
Hasten, Lord, their hour, and bid them come to Thee,
To that glorious Home, where they shall ever gaze
on Thee."
Sweet supplications like to these, addressed to
the tender Heart of the Crucified, and hallowed by
reminiscences of His bitter sufferings for souls, shall
not fail to draw down gentle and plentiful showers of
graces to refresh His languishing ones in their night
of pain.
To pray for the dead is an act of great charity.
To pray for the dead is a duty. To pray for the
dead is to sever one's bands by anticipation, for
whatever the living do for the dead, the Saints
assure us, shall be remunerated a hundredfold.
Whereon The}) Crucified Him
Hubert Cunni
OEVOTION to the passion of Christ is the
most ancient, it is the first of all catholic
devotions and showed itself very common-
ly by reverence for the holy cross even
before the year 300. We can follow this beautiful
spirit back through the mists and the mazes of all
the intervening centuries with a clearness that is
unmistakable and by evidences made up of authentic
statements and historical facts. These testimonies
show us that the piety of our ancestors to that
solemn sign was one of the best known traits of
their religion.
They held up that standard at all times. For
example, Minutius Felix, a practising Roman lawyer,
born of a pagan family about the year 250, became
in later life a convert to Christianity. In a work
entitled "Octavius" he publicly defended the faith
and its followers against the cruel attacks and false
ideas of his former fellows at the bar. The Romans
of that period were very much like our own Ameri-
cans of to-day; they were proud of their national
prestige and prerogatives, their liberty and inde-
pendence, and so they recoiled from anything that
savored of slavery or subjection; and because cruci-
fixion was the punishment of the slave they despised
the cross and everything associated with it; they
knew that the christians deeply venerated that
dreaded instrument and that was enough; the
Romans despised them and their symbol. The con-
verted . lawyer had learned much of both and he
loved his new-found friends and saw that their cross
was so prominent and prevalent that he boldly
declared, "you proud Romans had better beware lest
perchance you be actually honoring what you really
despise — lest you are adoring in your idols the wood
which we christians have already used for making
crosses."
That looks very much as though in the middle
of the third century the followers of Jesus were
trying to out-Titus Titus. The historian Josephus
tells us that in the seige of Jerusalem that general
crucified Jews till there was no longer to be found
wood for the making of crosses; our forefathers in
the days of Minutius Felix were using up all the
wood in Rome to make crosses of love!
Earlier than this the fervent attachment of
ngham, C. P.
christians to that mysterious wood can be read in the
works of Tertullian, born in 160 A. D. He was a
deep scholar, an elegant writer and a daring public
defender and advocate of Christ and all that was
His, like Bishop England in the days of our fore-
fathers in the United States and Cardinal Gibbons
in our own time. Tertullian can very aptly be called
the Defender of the Cross; that sacred subject comes
up in his writings in such a variety of phases as to
convince the reader that it is the dominant thought
of that wonderful man's mind, yet his works date
a hundred years earlier than the lifetime of Minutius
Felix. It is not unreasonable to conclude that Tertul-
lian's grandfather was living in the days of the
Apostle St. John, and thus we steadily creep back
further and further finding as we go that our favorite
devotion is strongly evident along the way. This
great mind tells us that in his day to the eyes of
the devout catholic, "every upright stick stands for
a portion of the cross." This brings us face to face
with the truth that devotion to the sacred wood was
fervent and universal in the middle of the second
century, that is, within one hundred years after the
death of Our Savior.
©UT we can go back sixty years earlier than
Tertullian and still meet even more and
equally inspiring evidences of the same truth
in him who was the earliest of the great men called
apologists, men who stood before the world and
propounded and defended with the powers of their
voice and pen the teachings and the practices of the
Church of Christ, I mean the great philosopher, saint
and martyr, Justin. This remarkable man was born
in Greece where he studied and where he became
a master of the philosophy of Plato. He was born
a pagan, but in the course of his young manhood
and first successes he received the light of faith and
went to live in Rome where he wrote and addressed
to the Emporer Augustus his "Apology for the
Christians" or what we would today call a Defense
of the Church of Christ. After the death of this
Emperor, Justin returned to his same labors and sent
a new apology to the succeeding ruler. These are
but some of the daring acts and learned writings
of that great and versatile man. We are not exactly
THE f SIGN
concerned with these more than to say that they
ultimately led him to martyrdom. But so exalted
were this man's sentiments toward the sign of our
religion that he says, "the cross is the greatest sign
of the power and majesty of Christ." He follows
up this statement by elaborate expositions and turn-
ing upon his opponents, hurls at them the absurdity
of condemning in others what is in constant evidence
and necessary use by all — a cross in one form or
other, on land and sea, in life and death; but he
drives the argument in upon them with convincing
vigor when he says : — "You are carrying that hated
figure in honor and even triumph but you are too
dull of sense to see it. And where? There at the
head of your public processions. The poles and bars
from which your
banners wave and
trophies hang — >
what are these but
crosses? " The
sacred figure of
Christ, indeed, runs
all through Justin's
writings. In his
extant writings
Justin brings up
the holy cross
thirty six different
times. In one work
alone, his "Dia-
logue with Try-
pho," he deals with
that venerable
topic in seven consecutive chapters.
Food of this kind fed to the soul of the Catholic
of today is strengthening and inspiring. It is all so
real, so solid, so satisfying. It is so plain and so
plentiful, and withal' so pleasing to our catholic
palate, that we are compelled to pause in the midst
of the growing thoughts and marvel that a practice
so homely with us today is really so ancient. The
vision which it produces of the unchanging features
of our Holy Mother the Church and the undimmed
brightness of every line of her figure and every fold
of her raiment makes the lips smile and the heart
peaceful. How true that she never changes! Ever
ancient, she is ever new in all her life and activity.
This shines forth in her devotion to the Passion even
in the detail of her delicate reverence for the death-
bed of her spouse. We can see this as far back as
the beginning of the second century.
Facts, not words impress these convictions and
sentiments both on mind and heart. The worth of
the quotations which we have hitherto given lies
mainly in the conditions which they reveal and
which their citation was intended to display. We
want to know not what the early christians say,
so much as what the early christians do : not what
a few of them say but what all of them do.
Christian faith is a vital fact; it is the most practical,
fruitful thing in all this world and so if devoton is
true it is a matter-of-fact affair in its results and the
devotion of His disciples to the sufferings of the
Nazarene in those days was a living, vigorous thing;
so vigorous that we can see
edifying lives.
foyi
■
I
HSH^^fe^T/^^
WmM.
■ *«t • ,f ;-'-»;>
^S@l||
V
m
CRYPT OF ST. CECIL
Note the simple cross depicted on
it even yet in their
The Roman
catacombs immedi-
ately stand out as
one of these con-
vincing facts. Let
us recall the senti-
ments entertained
by the Romans for
their legal gibbet;
they saw this hated
thing flaunted in
their faces by the
christians and
turned bitter con-
tempt upon them
and that symbol,
put their feelings
into facts, pursued
and persecuted that sign till they literally drove
cross and christian off the face of the earth and
compelled them to bore out a dwelling place under
the soil. There in gloom and fear these hated
people and loving hearts paraded their standard
until Constantine stamped it on his oriflamme and
made cross and christian free.
X STOOD one time before a grave, a tiny, age-
worn grave, and on the marble slab I read
the words "Rufina, Rest in Peace." Above
these simple words I noticed a plain cross carved.
The composite told me the story of holy sorrow,
holy love and holy confidence in the merits of the
passion of Christ. It was the usual story which the
writer and the reader have seen traced a thousand
times in the cemetries all the country over. How-
ever, I was not in one of our American cemeteries;
bare rock near the ceil
THE + SIGN
I was in the Roman catacombs looking on one of the
most convincing proofs of early Catholic devotion
to the cross. It has ever been "Unica Spes Nostra."
— Our Only Hope.
Anterior to the Christian Catacombs Calvary's
consecrated wood was revered and its copyings were
used by the devout so openly, so defiantly, so uni-
versally that it became their characteristic mark
and this so much so that it was known to every man
and woman as the christians' badge; it marked them
of from their non-christian associates as clearly as
it today forms the distinguishing mark between
our own and the non-catholic churches around us.
The brat on the street was taught even then, as he
was taught in our own country and in our own youth,
to sneer at his christian neighbor boys as so many
crossmarked donkies. This is a bitter and an time-
worn insult which millions of us have been com-
pelled to suffer, but here it is another example of
how God (and He alone can) is able to draw good
out of evil : here and now it becomes invaluable
evidence in point for we can trace its origin back
to Tacitus. This man was one of the greatest orators
of his time and is celebrated as an historian. He
was born in 55 A. D. or only twenty two years after
the tragedy of Calvary and so our studies show us
that devotion to the holy cross and passion of Jesus
was common, public, well known by friend and foe,
by the old and the young even before the year
100 A. D. What we do to-day when we kiss the
cross our ancestors were doing within fifty years
after Calvary saw the work of our redemption.
Success is the very best stimulant to labor and
that is why the discovery of these accumulating
evidences urges us to go on further in the hope
of finding even more. The hope is well founded
and the efforts are well rewarded. In recent times
there has been unearthed the most ancient christian
monument in the world and (how gratifying to be
able to say it!) that is nothing other than a cross.
Yes, it is true and there it stands in bold relief
against a stucco background on the walls of a
christian home — on Pansa's house in the ruins of
Pompeii!
Think of what this means in the interesting
cause for which we are contending. We know that
Pompeii and Herculaneum, twin cities of southern
sunny Italy, were the favorite and exclusive resorts
of the powerful and wealthy families of Rome, like
the Newports and the Palm Beaches of our own
land; these were the centres of all the social
grandeur and luxury that great wealth and refined
sensuality could crave. We also know that in the
year 79 A. D., these two cities were suddenly and
completely destroyed by the eruptions of Mount
Vesuvius. Now, it is a fact of church history, or
better still, of such pagan historians as Tacitus,
Suetonius and Dio Cassius, the later of whom is
famous not only for his elegance of style, but for his
diligence in the search for truth and the accuracy
of his data, that even during the lifetime of the Holy
Apostles men and women, even whole families of
the Roman upper classes and of the highest nobility
became christians. The home of Pansa is a strong
confirmation of such statements. Only forty-six
years have passed since the Passion and Death of
Jesus Christ in Jerusalem, less than ten years since
the martyrdom of SS Peter and Paul and, better still
while the Beloved Disciple, St. John, was still living
and in the height of his active work and ministry, not
only has the faith reached over these many miles
from Jerusalem to the wondrous bay of Naples and
into the most exclusive circles of Roman wealth
and power, but step by step with it has come devo-
tion to the gibbet of Calvary. Therefore this family
of Pansa, with a simplicity which rivals as it ante-
dates the ages of faith, and with a boldness that is
a keen rebuke to the prevailing shyness and cowar-
dice of our own day, though they know they will
thereby make themselves a term of contempt to
thousands of their old friends and neighbors, rise
superior to the coldness and disdain that is turned
upon them from the wealthy pagans about and they
mould the sign of Christ on the walls of their home.
Why? Because they are christians and christians
glory in the cross. They want to do as the christians
do, as all christians do around them, and in the year
70 A. D., every christian is a cross-bearer.
nERE is the church only forty years after com-
ing forth from the riven side of her Divine
Founder radiating a spirit of love and
reverence for the hard bed on which she was born.
What is the explanation? How came these first
christians thus spontaneously to love that instrument
of death which all the world besides hated and
shrank from? It is because they were taught to
love the cross by the Apostles themselves. The
newly converted christians along the shores of the
Mediterranean had heard St. Paul proclaiming in
words of fire the wisdom and the power and the
THE + SIGN
glory of the cross — "I am a christian and God
forbid that I should glory save in the shame of my
Master and that shame is expressed in the double-
dyed degradaton of His cross, through which the
world and all the wealth and all the honor and all
the pleasure of the world is dead to me. I am dead
to the world and with Christ I am nailed to the
cross; I carry all the marks of that cross and death
with me constantly not on walls of brick or cut in
stone but in my very body are they dug." The
inspiring story of the Master and His wonders and
His love and His cruel and unjust death had been
held before his hearers by every preacher; some
of the early christians had been eye-witnesses of
the martyrdom of the Apostles every one of whom
had not only preached the cross but died for love
of the passion and death of the Master. It was
from these that the first christians learned — from
their words, from their conduct, from their suffer-
ings, from their love, from their death — that the
cross of Christ is the greatest thing in all the world.
Devotion to the cross was first taught and first
practiced by the apostles and they learn the lesson
from Mount Calvary.
A Vision of the Day
y^^ORE than three quarters of a century has
vL£ elapsed since the great impartial Englishman,
Cardinal Newman, saw Ireland moving slowly
but surely toward her emancipation. Thus did
he contemplate Erin freed from her thraldom and
restored at last to her rightful heritage among the
nations : "I look toward a land both old and young
— old in its Christianity, young in its promise of
the future. A Church which comprehends in its
history the rise of Canterbury and York, which
Augustine and Paulinus and Pole and Fisher left
behind them. I contemplate a people which has had
a long night, and will have an inevitable day. I
am turning my eyes toward a hundred years to come,
and I dimly see the Ireland I am gazing on become
the road of passage and union between the two
hemispheres and the center of the world; I see the
inhabitants rival Belgium in populousness, France
in vigor and Spain in enthusiasm."
A Lo))al Sold
BPASSIONIST Father, who served as chap-
lain in the Italian Army during the world
war, tells us that he was an eye witness of
the following edifying incident:
"While stationed with a regiment from Fanteria
on the Carso," he writes, "I made the acquaintance
of Major Francis Rizzo. A close friendship grew
up between us. I was delighted to learn that from
childhood he had always loved the Sacred Passion,
and never went anywhere without having about his
person a small crucifix.
"On the 29th of June 1916, our regiment re-
ceived orders to move up to the front line. We were
soon afterwards in the thick of the fighting, and the
Major was one of the first to fall mortally wounded.
We carried him to the field hospital, his mouth
bleeding profusely. He held his little crucifix
tightly in his hands, and again and again put it to
ier of Christ
his mouth as a solace in his agony. Unable to speak,
and death swiftly coming on, he made a sign to write
and with trembling hand scrawled these few
words :
"I dearly love my whole faith and my whole
country. I bless God for this death, to die for my
fair and great Italy. Conquer; conquer; courage;
courage; trust, constancy in God's help. Farewell.
Farewell. Blessed be God. I love you all. Farewell,
my family, my fellow citizens of Salentino, my noble
land of Puglia. Again may God be forever blessed.
Francis Rizzo, major, 14 Fanteria.
"The pencil dropped from his fingers. Again
and again he pressed his crucifix to his bleeding
mouth. As the bystanders with indescribable
emotion watched him, the brave soldier of Christ
Crucified departed from the field of battle to enjoy
in heaven the fruits of eternal victory."
The White Rose of Lucca
The Storp of Gemma Galgani
MATTHEW KUEBEL
4 — Tke Marks of the Lord Jesus
M^'HE Spring of the year 1899 saw the end
a C\ of Gemma's long and painful illness and
^^^V ushered in a new period of her life, — a
period crowded with those external super-
natural manifestations which have made her unique
in the annals of Christian holiness, and have made
her name familiar throughout the Christian world.
Through affliction she would be transformed into a
seraph of love, and her pure soul adorned with
virtues as with so many precious jewels. By constant
communion with God she now lived more in heaven
than on earth.
Lovingly Gemma's heart now turned to the ful-
filment of the vow, made on her sick-bed, of enter-
ing the religious life. With intense ardor her soul
was straining, as it were, on the wings of desire to
enter religion, which, in her eyes was a mystic city
and a holy commonwealth resplendent with the light
of the Lord's majesty. She asked to be received at
the Convent of the Visitation. The nuns were will-
ing and even glad to admit her, so her confessor
undertook to arrange the preliminaries necessary for
her reception. But obstacles arose and the misgiv-
ings of the ecclesiastical authorities as to Gemma's
ability to fulfill certain canonical conditions were
not dispelled, so that they remained unmoved in their
refusal to allow the nuns to receive her.
Therefore, Gemma's future path was shrouded
in mystery. She was greatly perplexed at her un-
successful efforts to do what our Lord had apparent-
ly so clearly commanded her to undertake: "Renew
all thy promises to Jesus, and add that in the month
consecrated to Him (June), thou also wilt go to
consecrate thyself to Him." Was this not a clear
call to the religious life ? The darkness of uncertain-
ty in which she was walking did not permit her to
see the distant scene — a circumstance that was really
a tender mercy. Resolute as she was in God's service,
how could the gentle girl but be terrified had she
been permitted to see in advance and in all the
vivid truth of detail whither her feet were directed
— the mount of immolation and the altar of sacrifice !
Even now the time was at hand which God had
chosen for the immolation of this victim without
blemish.
God took care to prepare the sweet girl gradu-
ally for the sacrifices that He was about to demand
of her. Evidently it was God's will that in the fulfil-
ment of His purpose to make her a reflection of the
Crucified, she should have the merit of a sacrifice
wholly voluntary. By means of the most powerful
and sweetest attractions of grace it came to pass that
God's designs over Gemma were the only object of
all her desires. The heart-rending visions of the
Crucified with which she was favored and by which
the wounds of Jesus were impressed indelibly on
her soul, gave to her holy desires new impulse.
Henceforth she prayed with tearful earnestness for
the grace of participation in the Savior's pains.
>~-f"T the same time a heavenly voice was con-
1 I tinually urging her to go on courageously to
higher and better things. "Rise, take cour-
age," said the voice, "abandon thyself without re-
serve to Jesus; love Him with all thy being." These
words added zest to her holy desires :"0 my Jesus,
how greatly I wish to love Thee! but I don't know
how." And the answer came: "Dost thou wish to
love Jesus always ? Never cease even for a moment
to suffer for Him. The cross is the throne of the
true lover; the cross is the patrimony of the elect in
this life.'' And at last when all was ready, this
word came to her from Heaven : "Gemma, courage !
I await thee on Calvary, on that mount whither
thy feet are directed." Thus the immaculate white-
ness of a soul elevated to the highest peaks of per-
fection and glorified by the golden light of heaven,
was soon to be overcast (or rather say, embellished),
with the crimson hue and solemn shade of Calvary.
The eighth of June, 1899, was the day on which
God chose to glorify before the Christian world
the humble virgin of Lucca. That morning after
communion our Lord gave her to understand that
today He would grant her a great grace. It was
THE f
Thursday, the vigil of the feast of the Sacred Heart.
In the evening, while Gemma was engaged in her
usual devotions in honor of the Sacred Passion, she
was suddenly wrapped out of her senses, and found
herself in the presence of the Blessed Virgin and
her Guardian Angel. They were there no doubt to
support her in the painful ordeal which she was
about to undergo. Then the Virgin Mary opened
her mantel and covered her with it. "At that
moment," she tells us, Jesus appeared with all his
wounds open; but"
from these wounds
there no longer
came forth blood
but flames of fire.
In an instant those
flames came to
touch my hands,
my feet, and my
heart. I felt as if
I were dying, and
should have fallen
to the ground had
not my Mother
held me up, while
all the time I re-
mained beneath
her mantle. I had
to remain several
hours in that posi-
tion. Finally, she
kissed my fore-
head, all vanished,
and I found my-
self kneeling; but
I still felt great
pains in my hands,
and feet, and _ "
heart. I rose to go to bed, and became aware that
blood was flowing from those parts where I felt
pain. I covered them as well as I could, and then
helped by my angel I was able to get into bed. In
the morning I felt it difficult to go to Holy Com-
munion, and I put on a pair of gloves to hide my
hands. I could not remain standing and felt every
moment that I should die. Those pains did not leave
me until three o'clock on Friday — feast of the
Sacred Heart."
It is impossible within the narrow limits of this
sketch to narrate all the details of Gemma's mystic
martyrdom. But a brief summary of its more
SIGN
general features must not be omitted. These my-
sterious sufferings always began on Thursday even-
ing and always ceased on Friday afternoon. They
occurred regularly every week for two years, when
they ceased altogether in virtue of a formal command
imposed on Gemma by her confessor — a command
that God deigned to honor.
w
The Query
Nicholas Ward
I asked the heavens: What foe to God hath done
This unexampled deed? The heavens exclaim:
' Twas man; and we in horror snatched the sun
From such a spectacle of guilt and shame."
I asked the sea: the sea in fury boiled
And answered with its voice of storms: " 'Twas man!
My waves in panic at his crime recoiled,
Disclosed th' abyss, and from earth's center ran."
I asked the earth; the earth replied agast:
" 'Twas man! and such strange pangs my bosom rent
That still I groan, and shudder at the past.
To man, gay, smiling, thoughtless man I went
And asked him next; — he turned a scornful eye,
Shook his proud head, but gave me no reply!
ITH Gemma the stigmata, as these wounds
are called, opened in various ways: some-
times they came
gradually from
within; at others
they appeared in-
stantaneously, as
if the ecstatic's
hands were sud-
denly transpierced
with some sharp
instrument, — the
manner of the ap-
pearance of the
wounds always
depending on the
strength of the
inner fire of Di-
vine Love. When
the wounds ap-
peared a copious
flow of blood, of
course, always fol-
lowed ; but the
bleeding was not
continual as long
as the wounds re-
mained. It came
and went at irreg-
ular intervals,
waxing and waning with the impulses of Divine
Love in her soul.
But the five wounds were not the only 'marks
of the Lord Jesus' that Gemma was destined to bear
on her virginal body. Chosen by God to be the
spouse of His Crucified Son, Gemma was enriched
and adorned with all those wounds that rendered
Him in His human nature so infinitely dear to the
Father.
With spontaneous generosity and whole-hearted
courage Gemma co-operated with God's designs.
When she was favored with a vision of Jesus muti-
lated and bleeding as if fresh from the scourge,
"HE + .SIGN
Gemma would count those wounds with loving
sorrow, begging Him meanwhile to allow her to
share His wounds. When an angel displaying two
crowns — one of lillies and the other of thorns —
invited her to take her choice, she grasped the
thorny one with amorous impetuosity, kissed it and
pressed it to her heart, exclaming, "Give me that
of Jesus." So it was with her other visions of the
Passion — the intensity of her compassionate grief
could be assuaged only by participation in all the
sufferings of Christ.
Therefore, when as if agonizng with Him in
the garden, the crimson perspiration ran down her
face and bedewed her whole body; when her hair
was matted with blood from innumerable apertures
in her scalp, as if it had been pricked in so many
places by sharp thorns; when her body was furrowed
by deep and bleeding gashes, like the brutal lacera-
tions of the scourge; when her soul was inundated
with the bitter waters of dereliction such as engulfed
the Redeemer, and the palor of her countenance,
the drawn mouth, the sunken eyes and cheeks, the
laboring breath told of the martyrdom that she
endured, — all was but the answer to her own ardent
prayer; all was but so much ineffable consolation
to her heroic soul from the infinite bounty of God.
HOR a long time Gemma kept her miraculous
wounds a secret, for she had a keen repug-
nance to speak of herself, even to her con-
fessor. Only her aunt learned of the stigmata at the
time that Gemma received them; for the morning
after the wounds appeared for the first time, feeling
the need of telling someone, Gemma with outstretch-
ed arms approached her aunt and said with touching
simplicity: "Look, aunt, see what Jesus has done
to me." Shocked at first to see her niece's hands
bleeding and pierced with large wounds, the aunt
later came to understand the mystery.
Not until the end of July did Gemma tell her
secret to the priest; and it is an interesting co-inci-
dence that the first confessor to hear from Gemma's
own lips the story of her miraculous wounds was a
Passionist. When towards the end of June a Pas-
sionist mission was opened at the Cathedral in
Lucca, Gemma decided to make the holy mission.
She was profoundly moved, she tells us, when she
saw that the habit of the missionaries was exactly
like the garb that St. Gabriel wore in the visions of
him with which she had recently been favored, and
immediately she felt a predelection for the mission-
aries.
On the last day of the mission at the general
communion, our Lord spoke to Gemma, asking her
with reference to the missionary whether she liked
the habit of the Passionists, and whether she would
like to be clothed in it. These words filled her with
such emotion that she was unable to answer. Then
Jesus added : "Thou shalt be a child of my Passion,
and a beloved child. One of these shall be thy
Father; go and explain everyhing."
Gemma was overjoyed at these words, for, as
she thought, they explicitly promised that she would
one day be a Passionist nun, and that thus her
longing to become a religious would eventually be
gratified. Immediately, as if her soul had been
delivered from the shackles of some malignant
charm, all her aversion to tell her holy secret passed
away.
One Father Cajetan was the missionary to
whom Gemma went and revealed all the wonderful
things that God had wrought in her. The priest
was very deeply impressed by her sublime narrative;
but much more so, by the candor, the simplicity,
the humility, of which Gemma's every word was
redolent in the telling. He gave her prudent counsel
and ended by urging her to reveal everything to her
confessor without delay.
^I"- ^SATER on when the missionary returned to
It Lucca, he had the consolation of verifying
Gemma's story by witnessing with his own
eyes her miraculous wounds. He made a formal
statement to Monsignor Volpi, Gemma's confessor,
both of what he had seen as well as of his conviction
that its origin was divine. Soon after to Father
Cajetan's attestation was added that of the Provin-
cial of the Passionists, Father Peter Mareschini,
afterwards Archbishop of Camerino, who came to
Lucca on the 20th of August, 1899, and also had the
privilege of seeing Gemma's miraculous wounds.
The sublime favors that we have enumerated
were bestowed upon Gemma while living at No. 3
via del Briscione, and no doubt this house will be
a place of pilgrimage to future generations of Christ-
ians. But another dwelling is destined to share this
celebrity. In September, 1899, Gemma was adopted
into the large and well-to-do family of Signor
Giannini, at the request of his sister, Cecilia Giannini,
who had learned to love and revere the angelic girl,
(To be continued)
Arcnconfraternit}) of
the Sacred P
assion
"^^^^HE Rules of the Archconfraternity of the
a £j Passion set forth the purpose of the society
^^^V and the way to accomplish it. From them
the members learn to treasure in their hearts
the beautiful virtues of the Cross and to persuade
others whenever possible to remember devoutly the
sufferings and sorrows of Christ Crucified.
Many reasons could be mentioned for the
necessity or value of rules . As a train speeds along
to its destination surely and safely by means of the
iron rails, so every society asks the members to
follow some rules in order to attain the object for
which it was founded. Moreover, besides being a
principal means to the end, the rules also foster a
unity of thought and action among the members,
which gives strength to the whole society. Is it
not a pleasing sight to watch soldiers drilling and
marching? Something of the same pleasure may
be experienced on witnessing a number of persons
acting together as directed by the rules of a society.
Finally, the rules not only form a unifying bond,
but they are likewise a source of inspiration and
encouragement, enlightening and guiding the mem-
bers, and often rewarding them, in a measure, for
their loyalty and service to one another and to the
society.
The few rules of our Archconfraternity are
directive rather than preceptive. They are not
commands. They do not oblige members in the
sense that if neglected or omitted, a penalty is
incurred or advantages of membership are forfeited.
But they show what is to be understood by the
Archconfraternity of the Passion and suggest those
public and private exercises expressive of compas-
sion for the Divine Redeemer in His grief and pain,
and sincere gratitude for the plentiful fruits of
redemption.
St. Paul of the Cross had but one rule for the
faithful. He would entreat them to spend fifteen
minutes every day before a Crucifix. In glowing
language the Saint would picture the infinite love
and generous sacrifice of Jesus Crucified, the repa-
ration He made for sin, and His exemplification of
every virtue. He would then point out the ingrati-
tke Society
tude in giving over much time to work, pleasure,
and sleep, and of never recalling to mind what
Christ suffered for men's souls. To offset this indif-
ference the Saint used to instruct the people to gaze
upon a Crucifix for a quarter of an hour every day
as an expression of gratitude, and to obtain for them-
selves and their families the immense blessings of
the Passion of Our Lord.
"Think of the Passion of Our Redeemer," says
St. Paul of the Cross, "for a quarter of an hour
every day, and you will see that all will go well with
you, and that you will live far removed from sin.
I have converted by this means the most hardened
sinners and so sincere was their repentance that,
when I afterwards heard their confessions, I could
no longer find matter sufficient for absolution. So
remarkable a change came about because they were
faithful to the rule I had given them, to think of
the sufferings of Our Lord Jesus Christ."
As some found it difficult to be faithful to this
rule, the Saint proposed to them to recite piously
every day five Our Fathers and five Hail Marys
in honor of the Passion of Our Lord, and that it
would become better known to men.
^— f T the present day, there are only two rules
1 | which, in every part of the world, are common
to the Archconfraternity of the Passion. They
are the first two rules given in the manual and read
as follows: "The object of the Archconfraternity
is to promote a grateful remembrance of and tender
devotion to the Passion and Death of Our Lord
Jesus Christ, and the Sorrows of His Holy Mother.
The members keep this object in view, and pray
daily that they may know better and may make
known Jesus Crucified." The second general rule
refers to the Black Scapular of the Passion. "The
members are formally invested with the Black
Scapular of the Most Holy Cross and Passion of
Our Lord Jesus Christ. They wear this Scapular
constantly." (The Scapular Medal, blessed by one
authorized to do so, may be substituted for the
Scapular itself.)
THE 1* SIGN
Besides the above general rules, the Archcon-
fraternity in different countries has adoped parti-
cular practices, which assist the members in many
ways to cultivate true devotion to Our Lord's
Passion and to enlist the services of other apostles
to give greater honor to Jesus Crucified and insure
the salvation and holiness of many souls. The
particular rules followed in English speaking
countries bring out these exercises of piety, which
are already familiar to all Catholics. For example,
the members are asked to be present at the Holy
Sacrifice of the Mass, the "Memorial of the Passion"
as often as they can. Once a month, the members
should receive Holy Communion, wearing the badge
of the Passion. They are urged to practice some
devotion every day in memory of the Passion, such
as the devout veneration of the Crucifix, following
the Stations of the Cross, or the recitation of the
Litany of the Passion. The members are exhorted
to devote the Friday of every week in a special
manner to the memory of Christ's Passion and
Death. Attendance at the meeting every month is
an important rule, for then interest in the society
is renewed and greater enthusiasm is inspired in
promoting devotion to Jesus Crucified. The order of
exercises at the meetings, the distribution of devo-
tional leaflets or books or pictures, different works
of zeal, and similar matters are usually left to the
Director of the Archconfraternity to regulate, and
are not considered rules of the society.
Speaking of the apostleship of the Cross and
Passion of Our Lord, St. Paul of the Cross after
giving directions for missions and retreats, says,
something very pertinent to members of the Arch-
confraternity : "Circumstances will open numerous
other ways of promoting so great a work, and ac-
complishing their pious desire and purpose, to the
great advancement of their own souls, and of those
of others. For the love of God is very ingenious,
and is proved not so much by the words, as by the
deeds and examples of the lovers." These words
of the Saint express the idea of the Archconfratern-
ity. The members are not called upon to follow
strict rules, but rather to learn the love of Christ
Crucified and then do all in their power to make
known the Sacred Passion to others.
Those who faithfully and generously make the
rules of the Archconfraternity their own can be
certain they are doing much to honor the Passion
of Our Lord and secure for themselves and others
innumerable blessings in this life and for eternity.
>?^AVING treated of the rules, which serve as a
I P guide to the members, it will be interesting
to mention here those laws which support and
protect the whole society. The new code of the
Church's laws contains a chapter devoted exclusively
to archconfraternities, or sodalities of primary rank.
The society is placed under the supervision of the
Holy See. A chief society, or centre of activity, is
required. The Sovereign Pontiff, Pope Benedict
XV., appointed the celebrated shrine of the Holy
Stairs, familiarly called the Scala Santa, in Rome,
to be the centre of the Archconfraternity of the
Passion. The Supreme Director is the Superior
General of the Congregation of the Passion, who
resides in Rome. Through him the Holy See issues
those documents, which are necessary to establish
the society in different parts of the world. To estab-
lish the Archconfraternity in any church, or institu-
tion, the first requisite is to obtain permission from
the Bishop of the place. This permission is then
forwarded to the Superior General of the Passionists,
and he publishes the diploma of affiliation to the
Archconfraternity at the Scala Santa. He grants all
the privileges, which have been conferred on the
society of law, and makes known the indulgences
that may be gained by members.
The Supreme Moderator then is the only one,
who can make rules effecting the Archconfraternity
and all its branches. For each local branch there is
appointed a Director, who determines special laws
for the members in his vicinity. To him it falls to
assign the day for meeting, to keep a register of the
names of sodalists. It is his duty to keep the Sacred
Passion of Our Lord before the members, by instruc-
tions, sermons, and by means of leaflets, magazines,
and books. When receiving new members, he in-
vests them in the Black Scapular of the Passion.
From time to time, he reminds the members of the
privileges they enjoy and the rich indulgences it is
in their power to gain. The success of the Archcon-
fraternity depends in great measure on the Director,
and its membership will be more and more numerous
and more zealous as he directs them in honoring and
preaching Christ Crucified.
The Archconfraternity of the Passion, approved,
blessed, protected by the Church, unites in one
great sodality all the apostles of the Cross and
Passion of Our Lord Jesus Christ, it assembles all
nations on the "Hill of Calvary," it makes known
in every tongue the wonderful mysteries of Jesus
Crucified.
33
What Do You Know About:
Indulgenc
"^^^'HE ordinary Catholic takes little interest in
M Cj the doctrine of indulgences, but for four
^^^^ hundred years his Protestant neighbor has
found this doctrine a very interesting and
fertile field for activity, and all over the world has
made the subject very interesting for priests and
bishops, — very interesting indeed, — and very
annoying.
Because an indulgence is a detail of the religious
life of our people, the ordinary Catholic looks on it
as merely a minor thing. But if he will try to under-
stand that Protestant misrepresentation of it has
in the past ruined thousands of our own people and
kept still more thousands out of the true Church;
that this was the very subject that brought about
the greatest disaster that has fallen on Christ's
Church in a thousand years, — I mean of course the
revolt of Luther; if he will recall that this is the
breakfast food of the bigot and the half educated
minister, who not only travels through our southern
and western states but through South America from
Panama to Cape Horn, through Canada from Hali-
fax to Vancouver, across the Pacific to the Oriental
world, everywhere using the topic of indulgences
to poison the minds of millions against the Church,
he will cease to regard indulgences as a trivial
matter and will come to look upon them as a very
important and interesting subject.
1. Is an indulgence the pardon of sin for a
price ?
2. Does the priest sell indulgences to the
people like a hunting licence — for a fixed price?
3. Does the law of the Church tell the buyer of
indulgences how many and what kind of sins he may
commit, as the state law tells the hunter how many
heads of game he may bag for the season?
4. Does the priest get his support from the
taxes on indulgences?
5. Is this disgraceful traffic now plied in the
secrecy of the Catholic confessional?
These are only a few of the ignorant crudities
with which the minds of our unsuspecting non-
Catholic neighbors are filled by their fellows, whose
ignorance is as deep, if not as pitiful, as their own.
The menace of this widespread falsehood is evident,
and it can be fought down only by a knowledge of
the truth.
To all the previous questions and to all of their
ilk, there is but one answer: No. An indulgence
is not in any sense the pardon of sin. It is not a
licence to commit sin of any kind or degree. It is
not subject to tax. The priest must look for his
support elsewhere. The very nature of indulgences
demands that these be granted, published, and
imparted in the open, and always apart from the
Sacrament of Penance. And finally, they do not
pretend directly or accurately to determine the length
of time that a soul is to be imprisoned in the purify-
ing pains of Purgatory.
All this is made plain by the simple definition
of an indulgence, which is a remission before God
of temporal punishment due to sins, the guilt of
which sins is already forgiven or wiped away, either
by sacramental absolution or by an act of perfect
contrition. This favor can be dispensed only by
proper authority, with well defined conditions.
These two sentences comprise the whole teaching of
the Church on indulgences. They should be read
and re-read. They show:
1st. That an indulgence is not concerned with
sin, either past, present or future, with the guilt nor
with the stain which sin leaves on the soul; but
merely with one of the results of sin — the burden of
temporal punishment owing as satisfaction to divine
justice for sin.
2d. Absolution in taking from the penitent
the guilt and stain of sin discharges the debt of
eternal punishment, but leaves the debt of temporal
punishment still unpaid.
3d. Indulgences pay this undischarged debt
in part or in whole; and so we have a partial or a
plenary indulgence; the partial remits a part, the
plenary remits the whole obligation of temporal
punishment.
No Catholic may doubt that the Church has the
right to grant indulgences. Christ gave His Church
unlimited power over sin and sin's consequences.
His words are : "All power is given to me in heaven
and on earth; and as the living Father hath sent me,
THE + SIGN
so I also send you. Receive ye the Holy Ghost and
go forth : whosesoever sins you shall forgive they
are forgiven them, and whosesoever sins you shall
retain they are retained." This commission knows
no limitation; it is universal and absolute. If the
Church has the greater power to actually forgive a
man's offences and to declare him innocent, she must
have the lessor power to forgive a mere result of
sin. The whole includes the part. Thus has the
Church ever interpreted the words of Christ. The
Council of Trent irrevocably settled the matter by
condemning anyone, who should dare to teach the
opposite.
The authority to grant indulgences rests with
those alone, who are the heirs of the apostolic office;
and so, bishops, archbishops, cardinals, and the
Pope can grant indulgences. All other inferior
clergy can do so only in so far as they may be
authorized.
When the Church grants a partial indulgence,
for example, of one hundred days or seven years,
does that mean that should we gain this indulgence
our purgatory will be shortened to a corresponding
number of days or years? By no means. It does
mean that the temporal debt due to our sins has
been remitted to that degree to which God would
have -reduced it were we to have performed one
hundred days or seven .years of the ancient canonical
penances of the Church. In the early Church the
law specified the penance for specific sins; the con-
fessor was obliged to impose these specified penan-
ces, and the penitent was obliged in conscience to
fulfill them. These works were primarily corrective
or disciplinary and were severe penitential acts. As
to the merit of these canonical penances in the sight
of God, it is beyond the power of man to determine;
neither can we measure the indulgences of today.
But we do know that where man is exacting, God
is indulgent, and we can well feel that our indul-
gences shall prevail with His Mercy vastly beyond
the terms expressed — that one day shall be to Him
as a thousand years. That is God's way.
Indulgences are granted under very exact con-
ditions,— conditions which affect the one who seeks
an indulgence and the work such a one must do to
gain it. The petitioner must be a baptized Catholic,
in the state of grace, and united with the Church.
Hence, heretics, schismatics, apostates, excommuni-
cated persons, or persons in the state of mortal sin,
cannot gain an indulgence. Besides the petitioner
must fully accomplish the appointed work, and this
in the manner prescribed.
The works prescribed for the gaining of an in-
dulgence must be personally performed.
The gainer of an indulgence cannot apply it to
any living person.
Indulgences granted by the Pope, unless other-
wise specified, are applicable to the poor souls in
Purgatory. These embrace those indulgences, with
which we are most familiar, as, the indulgences of
the Way of the Cross, of the Rosary, of the Porti-
uncula, of the Archconfraternity of the Passion.
The living gain indulgences by way of absolu-
tion,— by the exercise of the juridical authority
which the Successor of St. Peter has over all the
living members of the Church. The souls of the
faithful departed receive the benefit of indulgences
by way of suffrage or prayer. The Pope has not
direct judisdiction over the dead; the souls of the
departed are in the hands of God alone. The Church
begs God to accept, in atonement for the sins of the
dead, those works of the living to which the indul-
gences are attached.
The great indulgences of the Church, or those
which are exceptionally rich, are :
1st. The Jubilee, which is a plenary indul-
gence accompanied with special privileges granted
for a specified time. It differs from an ordinary
plenary indulgence, in solemnity, in the special
powers granted to confessors during the time of
Jubilee, and in the very extraordinary graces which
accompany it.
2d. The Stations of the Cross. This is the
most richly endowed of all the ordinary works of
piety, and the performance of this act calls for
nothing more than these two conditions : that we
pass from station to station; that in doing so, we
think on the Passion of Christ. Nothing more is
prescribed. It is no wonder then that so easy, so
simple, and so very rich a practice is so very popular
and is steadily growing in favor among our people.
3d. The indulgence "in articulo mortis" is a
plenary indulgence granted at the hour of death.
This great privilege is attached to crucifixes blessed
by the Passionist Fathers. A person who has a
crucifix so blessed near or about him at the moment
of death receives the grace of the indulgence "in
articulo mortis."
35
Index to Wortkv?kile Reading
THE CHRISTIAN MIND. By Dom Anscar
Vonier O.S.B., Abbot of Buskfast. St. Louis: B.
Herder Co. Price $1.50.
Abbot Vonier has, on previous occasions contributed
two works of great merit which are of much service to
the serious reader who wishes to get beyond the cate-
chism and the works of popular instruction to an under-
standing of some of the depths lying below the palcid
depths of catholic dogma. In the present book his aim is
the same, though in the Christian Mind he is treating of
the ascetical side of revealed religion. The same un-
qualified praise however is not due to this work that
the former ones merited. One could not but rejoice
at the singular brightness and clarity in Abbot Vonier's
former writings. This singular lucidity, which on former
occasions enabled the author to bring out profound and
subtle truths appears dimmed in this present work. Too
often in the Christian Mind is there ponderous writing,
heavier than even good broad shoulders are capable of
bearing; too often is there a disconcerting avowal that
this or that is plain to the reader, when the truth seems
to be that closer fidelity to the point of view would have
elicited from the reader, not from the author, the grateful
assurance that the point was evident.
We are strongly of the opinion that the entire
Chapter X should not have found a place in this book.
It will unsettle the minds of most readers, if indeed it
will not convey a wrong and mischievous impression.
Those who are familiar with the question treated in this
chapter will, we think, still prefer the old presentation
rather than the abbot's novel one; and this, despite the
learned author's claim of an exclusive scriptural warrant,
a claim not likely to shake the conviction of his opponents
that their view is solidly based on the New Testament.
Our purpose is not to deter the public from reading
this book. Not withstanding some defects like to these
mentioned, it may fairly be considered a most important
contribution, one of a small number, to our ascetic library.
There has been a void in English of works treating of the
place of the Incarnate Life in the lives of men and this
will help to fill this long felt need.
With the exception of a few commendable works
in translation, mostly from the French and German, there
is a derth of any spiritual treatises on this fundamental
phase of asceticism in our language. "Christ's role," the
author says, and if he refers to English, says rightly,
the "role as the life of man is an unexplored field of
spiritual possibilities." Truly, the God Incarnate is es-
sentially and intrinsically the life of individual souls. His
most constant and solemn assertion is that He is Life,
man's life.
The whole range of the Pauline Epistles is covered
to show forth the christian mind as St. Paul conceived
it. For St. Paul, to live, was simply Christ. The Chris-
tian Mind has distinct value as a commentary on St. Paul.
Indeed, the author tells us that he was inclined to name
his book the Christ of St. Paul. What a pity that use
was not made for quotation of the recently published
Westminister version of St. Paul's epistles. . In so doing
he would have added light to light. The reader of the
Christian Mind will profit much if in looking up the
scriptural references the Westminister version already
referred to is used.
THE HOUNDS OF BANBA. By Daniel
Corkery. Dublin: The Talbot Press, Limited.
Price $1.50.
In this neat book is a collection of stories, the
episodes in each being taken from Irish life such as has
been lived in Ireland since the Easter Rebellion of 1916
to the present lull. Banba is an ancient name for Erin
and here symbolises the soul of that country. Any one
reading the Hounds of Banba will agree with the patriot
portrayed in the character, Seumas, "Ireland was safe;
her soul was the same old priceless soul: no wealth could
purchase it: no power break it." "After
the Rising there was in Ireland, as everyone knows, a
sense of spiritual exaltation that laughed all the wisdom
of this world to scorn. As Seumas put it to me : the soul
of Ireland had been more deeply influenced through the
hundred men who had died for her in Dublin than the
soul of England through the hundreds of thousands who
had died for her in France." .... "It is intensity
only that counts — intensity alone can raise vision.
Vision! — The land was swept with it — Our lives were
dazzled : we lived nobler." "And since
everybody had begun to learn Irish, it seemed that every-
body had at last came to know all this."
Those who were in a position to know the truth
about the Irish Republic could have had no doubt that
this prophesy would eventually come true; but we were
hardly prepared for the English debacle we are witness-
ing today. Capitulation, not humanitarianism, accounts
for England's executive submitting to the parleys now in
progress. It is not now as it was in the days of Elizabeth
and Cromwell ; truth, today, cannot be trammelled ; it is
abroad on the air. The day is gone when English junkers
can piously pose behind a screen of official, systematic
calumny. When the world began to awake to the doings
of the Black and Tans it peered to discover the leaders,
but in vain ; they were wrapped in an impenetrable cloud
of mystery. When the world had fully awakened the
mists were dissipated and the cry went up "Elizabeth
rediviva ! Cromwell come to life again !" The truth was
out ; the masked were unmasked. Murder gangs there
were; pure, exalted patriotism there was; but the torch
of home-love was burning within the Republican ranks,
the black clouds of murder and rapine were hanging
heavy over the tents of the Invader.
Each struggle of the Gael has had its bard to throw
his faggot and also keep aflame the patriotism of his race.
Immortal literature was born of the Easter uprising.
A new galaxy of writers appeared in Ireland. Among
these is Daniel Corkery. He has the varied gifts of poet,
dramatist and raconteur. These gifts he possesses to a
degree rare even in one of his race. Thus bountifully
endowed he took up the task of interpreting for the
world the final act in the century-old tragedy of English
frightfullness and unconquerable Irish patience. Mr.
Corkery has found a place in the elect school of Banba's
prophets, though he himself assumes no higher role than
simple chronicler. He has the eye of a seer and the power
of the romancer; he writes of his beloved with the
conscious freedom of a bethrothed. Katharine Tynan
says: "lie has struck a blow for Sinn Fein which might
make its fighting men envious."
The rapid growth in our circulation, a growth surpassing the most sanguine expectations,
necessitated an expansion in our printing department. This readjustment has been the occasion of
the delay in delivery. Such an augury of success will, we know, be a source of satisfaction to our
many friends. Through this improvement has entailed some inconvenience to our readers, it will
assure for the future a more efficient service. — The Editors.
36
^mum
A NATIONAL <J> CATHOLIC
/MONTHLY MACAZINESs
VOL. I.
DECEMBER, 1921
Mo. 5
7p ttit jTT m\ ttu w irn n-j; rr- •; ■. vr i- 7_gi ttjjt tjit tjtt ttit
SS21Z
I' 37
TV W TTIT T
5MM22E^! 32JDMDI33J £
Greetings!
TKe Passionist FatKers most cordially wish tKe many friends
and patrons of TKe Sign a Happy and Holy Christmas.
It is owing largely to tKe unselfish co-operation of tKese tKat
The Sign has become an efficient spokesman of Catholic
Truth and an attractive Messenger of the Sacred Passion.
As The Sign has for its sole purpose the extending of
Christ's Kingdom, the Fathers trust that its friends will regard
as a privilege the opportunity of sharing in its holy" mission.
May the Divine Babe of Bethlehem spread His hands in
loving benediction on all the readers, subscribers, contributors
and well-wishers of The Sign.
ftMftflWBftBrtfl
iffiffiffiffiffiimvmrrKitisa^^ ^r/svtsvj*
-^H'Tu^ni;
\
The Cross in Betklekem
A Christmas Harmon}?
J. Martin Bowes
■^^^■>HE Gospels furnish us with few details of
# C] the miraculous events which transpired
^^^^ within the hallowed precincts of the humble
shelter in Bethlehem on the night in which
Christ was born.
We are told, simply, that while there Mary's
days were accomplished that she should be deli-
vered and that she brought forth her first-born Son
and wrapped Him up in swaddling clothes and laid
Him in a manger.
"It is the custom in those Southern parts to
treat the new-born babe in a way strange to this age
and country. The infant is swathed around with
cloths much resembling the winding-sheet, the
bandages and ligaments of the dead."* So was it
with the Savior. The first fond offices rendered to
Him by His gentle mother at His birth were strange-
ly similar to the last sad services with which she
parted company with Him at the tomb. And if
we are to believe, with her great and saintly cham-
pions, that from the time the Holy Ghost over-
shadowed her, the life of her Divine Child lay open
before her, how tinged with melancholy must needs
have been her joy at having brought a Son into the
world, by the piercing remembrance of the tragic
events to be which the swaddling bands must in-
evitably have brought to mind.
Be this as it may, — and there is nothing in it
difficult to faith — it serves to put before us a thought
most appropriate to the time, viz., that the Divine
Infant, the Word made Flesh, as He lay in His
manger, was, as His name betokened, a Savior;
that already, within the Crib, the work of redemp-
tion had begun; that the Passion of Christ, if we
understand by the term expiatory suffering, found
its source within the Cave of Bethlehem.
It was the purpose of the Savior's coming into
the world to render to the Justice of God that in-
finite atonement for sin which fallen man of himself
could not make, to do penance for the long and
vitiated line of Adam, and this mission of penance
is marked in every feature of the Crib.
"Mary was with the child," we are told, when
♦Omnipotence in Bonds — Cardinal Newman.
she and her spouse arrived in the City of David. The
imperial enrollment had drawn so great a conflux of
strangers to the little town that there was no room
in the inn — mean and comfortless as such places
are — for the two travelers from Nazareth, and so
they sought shelter in a rude grotto attached to the
inn as a stable. Here, "while all things were in
quiet silence, and the night was in the midst of her
course," in circumstances so devoid of all earthly
comfort as to make the mere imagination of a
humbler or more cheerless nativity impossible —
Mary's Son was born.
Whether there were glories wrought on that
night within the cave, we know not, for the Evange-
lists do not disclose them, they tell us only of Mary,
having with her own hands wrapped the Infant in
swaddling clothes and having laid Him in a manger.
This much we are certain of, that the abode is one
of utter desolation and that the Babe lying upon
the scattered straw is the Eternal Word of God,
the Brightness of Eternal Light, and the Unspotted
Mirror of God's Majesty. There is no overpower-
ing immensity within these rough-hewn walls, no
paralizing splendor, no blinding glory; just little-
ness, feebleness, infancy. The Child speaks not,
He is lifted in another's arms, He makes no resis-
tence, He is seemingly, as others of His kind; yet,
not one circumstance of His environment escapes
Him, neither the fetid odors, nor the cold straw, nor
the raw air, nor the herded cattle; not one circum-
stance but is consciously experienced and eternally
registered. He is intensely, painfully, awake to them
all; already He has, in the words of the Apostle,
"learned by the things he has suffered."
Once on a time, Moses, the mightiest of God's
prophets, he too a savior of his people, while still
an infant and all unconscious of his plight, was made
to suffer, as he himself tells us in the fullness of
his years, by the harshness of a despot. In a rough
basket, daubed with pitch and slime, he was set
adrift among the sedges of the river whence he
was rescued by the piteous, spontaneous cry which
the very misery of his condition rung from him.
Not so was it with the Child of Bethlehem. If tears
THE 1* SIGN
coursed down His infant cheeks, and if a sob broke
on His baby lips, it was not because of the frailty
of infancy or the bleakness of His dwelling. — No! —
"His tears were drawn from Him," says St. Bernard,
"by compassion for His brethren, by the vision of
men's sins, and they are part of the price He must
pay for sin's forgiveness."
©
HE Word was made flesh to appease the jus-
tice of His
Father, to
atone for the sins
of all mankind,
and He chose to
take up His heavy
work from the
very moment He
began to be.
Whence, o f
the distress and
suffering conse-
quent upon His
infancy and His
squalid shelter,
nothing is lost; all
is eagerly gather-
ed up and freely
offered in expia-
tion for men's
sins. As Mary
lays Him in the
manger she can,
in very truth,
adore Him as her
God and her suf-
fering Savior.
Barely has the
Precious Blood
yet established its
course within His
veins than heav-
enly choirs are
proclaiming H i s
advent and commanding the shepherds to hasten
over to Bethlehem and there to do homage to the
new-born Babe as their Savior. Whilst they kneel
prostrate before His crib, it is their Redeemer who
beams upon them, and if the Justice of the A1-
mighty alone had been in question, the great work
of salvation had already been copiously accom-
plished.
;
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Here in this dark and dreary cave, offering but
scant protection to beasts of burden, are terminated
the sacrifices of the Old Law; here, in circumstances
as wretched as were possible on earth, the Infant
Savior, as the Great High Priest, inaugurates the
Law of Grace; here, on His bed of straw, as upon
an altar, Jesus offers to the Eternal Father, not the
blood of sheep or goats, but His own frail body,
the living tabernacle not made with hands, aj the
sole pure oblation
that can satisfy
for man's ini-
quities.
Here we be-
hold the Expected
of Nations, the
Lamb w it h o u t
Spot — Him, Who
alone taketh away
the sins of the
world — Him, Who
was slain from
the beginning, —
the Infant Jesus,
a victim from
birth. Ere His
feeble pulse had
well begun to
measure the term
of his mortal life,
the tragedy of the
Passion was in
progress; as His
life ended so did
it begin; "the im-
molation of Cal-
vary," says St.
Chrysostom, "was
but the supreme
culmination of the
drama, the first
scene of which
w a s staged in
SHADOW OF THE CROSS
Bethlehem."
*"" — I'ESUS initiates on the pallet of straw what
\\" He is to finish on the wood of the Cross.
Within the narrow limits of the manger, He
feels His soul consumed by that flame of divine
zeal for the salvation of souls, which later on in
life, He was to reveal in the words : "I have a
THE + SIGN
baptism wherewith I am to be baptised, and how
am I straightened until it be accomplished;" mean-
ing, I must submit to bitter suffering, yea even to
the length of laying down My life; for such is the
part I have freely chosen, but how am I straightened,
constrained, bound down, from carrying My desire,
at once, into effect!
Prevented, indeed, is the new-born Savior, pre-
vented by the dumb impotency of babyhood, by the
encircling bands, by the pailing of the crib. Already
He benignly hears the sinner's plea, but His tiny
hands cannot yet be lifted in absolution, His throb-
bing heart even now clasps to itself in one compre-
hensive embrace all the sons of men, but His tongue
cannot so much as lisp the sentiments which .stir
within His breast; one day His shoulders are to
bear the weight of a ponderous cross taken up for
our correction, but now He is manacled and fettered
by the solicitous hands of a creature; His divine
intelligence sweeps the horizon of human affairs
and the spectre of a cross looms up gaunt before
Him, but His infant feet can not yet trudge the
circuitous path to Calvary. Man fell from grace in
the free exercise of mature power, he was to be
restored to grace only by One in the full bloom of
perfect manhood. Hence Bethlehem must remain
but the first milestone on the divinely chartered,
penitential road of Redemption.
True it is, and we ought to strive hard to com-
prehend it, the Babe that lies within the Crib in all
the loveliness of innocent, helpless infancy — is even
now the conscious Victim of the sins of the world.
The joy which reigned about the cold cave on the
first Christmas night was not without its alloy of
sorrow. God does not change His ways nor His
only Son His character, as the Apostle writes—
"Jesus Christ, yesterday, today, and the same for-
ever." With Christ there is no forgetting, no specu-
lation; with Him, the past is ever present and the
future is ever nigh. So that we may affirm, follow-
ing out the thought suggested by the most penetrat-
ing religious thinker of the last century, Cardinal
Newman, that our Blessed Lord lived His whole
life in every moment of it. The span which bridges
Bethlehem and Calvary is one of conscious vicarious
suffering.
>—T MODERN painter, taking his inspiration
I I from this doctrine, has left us a touching
portrayal of it in a picture known as "The
Shadow of Death." He depicts a domestic scene
within the workshop at Nazareth. Mary is upon her
knees engaged in some menial task. Shavings be-
strew the floor; neglected tools lie at hand — the saw
still clamped in a half-severed board. The Savior
stands in the foreground, His arms uplifted in the
act of relieving the strain of muscles long cramped.
His feaures tell of sustained fatigue and extreme
weariness. The sunlight is falling upon Him in such
wise as to cast athwart the wall a dark shadowy
imprint of a cross. The tense, startled attitude of
His mother whose gaze is rivited on the ominous
spectre, so distinctly outlined, shows that she both
sees and understands. Thus does the artist with
his brush, vividly bring before us an imaginative
conception of a profound truth embedded in the
deposit of faith; a truth formulated long centuries
ago, by the author of the Imitation of Christ, into
the since universally accepted canon of Catholic
teaching, "For not even our Lord Jesus Christ was
ever for one hour without the anguish of His
Passion, so long as he lived, Christ's whole life was
a cross and a martyrdom."
If we peer into the recesses of the Cave of
Bethlehem, with the keen eyes of a glowing faith,
we shall see that, in very truth, the Cross of Calvary
lies aslant the Crib.
Apt is the saying: "there is pleasure born of
pain." Christmas is a season of exuberant joy, a
season when contagious gladness is a fioat on the very
air; but he does not penetrate its true significance nor
tap its richest vein of blessing who overlooks its
basic constituent of sadness. Christian tradition
teaches us to bring into God's house at Christmas,
ever-green trees, the fir and the pine and the cedar,
commemorative of the trees of the wood, spoken of
by the prophet, that clapped their hands and exulted
at the coming of the Lord, and to intersperse the
green branches with sprigs of holly that the crimson
berries may keep before our minds the red blood-
drops that one day the Infant is to shed for the
soul's eternal cleansing.
The real Christmas spirit, a unison of the blithe
strains of gladness rising above the minor notes of
sadness, is the spirit which should pervade the
Christian's life. It is the spirit which animated the
great Apostle of the Crucified, St. Paul, in the depths
of whose soul there brooded "a continual sorrow,"
while on its placid surface there played a perpetual
joy. "Let us exhibit ourselves," he writes, "as
sorrowful yet always rejoicing."
©
Fidelis of the Cross
(James Kent Stone)
Walter George Smith
HE life of this noble priest, which closed
at San Mateo, California, October 14, 1921,
was so varied
as to bear all
the aspects of a ro-
mance. Born in Bos-
ton, November, 10,
1840, he was the son
of the Rev. John S.
Stone, then of the
Theological Seminary
of Cambridge, and
founder of the Epis-
copal Seminary in
Philadelphia. H i s
mother was a daughter
of Chancellor James
Kent, one of the great-
est of judges and legal
authors that America
has produced. He
bore the name of this
ancestor and gave it
further illustration
until in 1878 he be-
came a Passionist and
received a name sing-
ularly appropriate,
Fidelis of the Cross.
His life may be
readily divided into
three periods — youth
and young manhood,
till he graduated at
Harvard in the class
of 1861; then a few
years of travel, study
at the University of
Gottingen in Ger-
many, service as a
soldier in the Civil
War, his ordination as
an Episcopalian Cler-
gyman, which occur-
red in 1866; finally,
from his conversion in 1870 until his death.
He married very young to Miss Cornelia Fay
daughter of a distinguished Boston family. At
A Tribute
The Mewman of Kiev? England, so I like
to call Kim. One of those gifted beyond measure,
yet displacing wealth rather of nature than of art.
Fidelis, they call him, his brethren of the govCn.
Humility his chosen state and virtue, ill according
with the reason his talents bring him. Yet he is
strong in action, nowhere showing signs of weak-
ness. Full voiced and full hearted, preaching in
tones of Vehemence the bitter and the svJeet of
Christ's meek Gospel.
I love him better, it may, be than I do his
doctrine. Of old he reached my heart, not by*
charm of Weakness. No, but fiery strength of
love divine consuming with a breath of flame my
soul and all my being.
I call him Newman. It pleases me to mark
the parity between them. He is different. He
has more dash and verve than the Englishman, but
lacks the quality that distinguishes our mother-
country from this nation, at least for English taste
we none of us have weight enough, But oh, his
spirit is tremendous with all the finer instincts
Ttfell developed to discern and all the qualities to
aid and make successful the irresistible resolution
to vCork and to accomplish, And for this I lov"e
him, for this I place him high over all my house-
hold gods.
Can I but be true to the lofty ideals he has
set before me, all may" ;9et be well in that glad
day when we shall stand to make account of all
the blessings Christ has gK>en me, this love of
ours may deepen vJith Charity divine. — M.
Note. This tribute was found among the
papers of Theodore Dehon Smith (Father Mau-
rice, C.P.), who died February 15, 1894, at Buenos
Aires, while working with Father Fidelis.— Author
thirty he found himself the widowed father of three
daughters. He was already well known in his
church and in the
world of scholarship.
He had been profes-
sor of classics, and
subsequently presi-
dent successively of
Kenyon College at
Gambier, Ohio, and of
Hobart College at
Geneva, N. Y. Before
giving a sketch of the
third and longest
period of his life, it
will be well to fill up
a few of the outlines
of the first two peri-
ods, and dwell upon
his natural gifts and
characteristics.
Y S I CALLY,
he was unusual-
ly strong and
nandsome. More than
six feet in height, he
was perfectly pro-
portioned and grace-
ful in his movements.
His face was lighted
up by e xpressive
brown eyes; his smile
was winning, his voice
perfectly modulated,
whether in conversa-
tion or in oratory. He
had a keen sense of
humor, the concomi-
tant of keen percep-
tion. Born in the best
circles of society, the
self - restraint of a
gentleman was as a
second nature. His
natural virtues would have made him an attractive
character under any circumstances. Although he
had the temper of a scholar, it did not dwarf his
Q"
THE 1* SIGN
executive talent, as was shown by his election to
two college presidencies, his service as a soldier
and his whole career after he came into the Church.
As a youth he loved the adventure of Alpine
climbing, and in the army, where he served for six
months in the Second Massachusetts Regiment, his
military abilty was proved by his attaining to the
rank of captain, after he had risen from the ranks.
He was wounded in battle and forced to retire.
This episode in his career was so brief as to be
almost forgotten, but
it was strenuous and
left its mark upon him.
His brother fell by his
side at Gettysburg, and
he lost too, an intimate
friend in the person of
Arthur Dehon, also a
member of the Second
Massachuse tts, of
which Fletcher Web-
ster, the son of the
great Daniel, was
Colonel, until he too
was killed.
Many years after-
wards in a letter from
Santa Clara, Cuba, in
speaking of the battle
of Santiago, he wrote :
"I cannot resist the
temptation of saying
that my old regiment,
the Second Massachu-
setts was there with
Roosevelt and Persh-
ing."
FATHER FIDELIS OF THE CROSS
invocation of the saints was to go back promptly
and penitently to the Ancient Church which proved
its infallibility by being in the right after all.' No,
he was not Ritualistic; neither was he Non-Con-
formist. He held to the Anglican Communion as
reproducing a primitive church, he assumed that the
Anglican church was Apostolic both in succession
and in creed, and he gave her the devotion of his
soul — 'not knowing an older and better,' he said.
He stood with confidence on this ground and thought
himself a genuine Ca-
tholic free from Papal
and Puritan innovation.
His friends at Kenyon
were 'dissenters' and
he came to Hobart."
He was ordained to
the Episcopal ministry
in 1866 and later his
scholarship and learn-
ing were recognized by
the degree of doctor of
divinity, and he is said
to have declined the
bishopric of Michigan.
Meantime his life was
happy with congenial
work and in the bosom
of his family whom he
loved devotedly. His
cup of happiness was
full. He had an in-
tensely affectionate na-
ture, and craved a re-
turn of the love which
he gave in full measure.
XN a sketch, written by his close friend, Father
Felix Ward, C.P., light is thrown upon his
tendencies as an Episcopalian. "Kenyon was
low church, and his own high church learnings led
him to resign the presidency of Kenyon and to
accept that of Geneva, N. Y. Not that he was
'Ritualistic,' for he regarded that movement with
impatience as illogical. 'If the Ritualists were right,'
he said, 'the Reformers were wrong and the great
sin of schism could never be justified by such paltry
differences as separated them from the great Roman
Church. The only consistent course for a man who
believes in the Great Sacrifice of the Altar and the
BPPARENTLY he had no full appreciation of
the weakness of the Anglican foundation until
they were about to crumble. In a letter to
Father Edmund Hill, C. P. written from Buenos
Aires in 1893, he gave some Latin verses per-
fectly Catholic in their tone, "redolent of the
cloister and the Middle Ages." They had been
written in his father's library in October 1861. He
tells his friend that after Commencement Day at
Harvard, the year of his graduation, he wrote these
lines and was never able to account for the inspira-
tion.. There were no Catholic works in the library,
except the Latin Vulgate. This he was wont to read,
dwelling especially upon the Psalms and Isaias.
THE 1* SIGN
He was familiar, too, with the singing parts of
Rossini's Stabat Mater, which gave him the metre.
It is not too violent a presumption that, even at
this early age, he belonged, at least in part, to the
spirit of the Church. Indeed, it is a commonplace
that after the lapse of four centuries of erroneous
teachings, much yet re-
mains of Christian truth
among our separated bre-
thren, which needs but
good will and opportunity
to develop Faith.
It would have been
impossible for a mind so
open and candid as that
of James Kent Stone, after
pursuing a course of the-
ology offered by any
Christian denomination,
not to have given, eventu-
ally, earnest study to the
proofs of Catholic Truth.
Too many men seek in the
study of religion and
philosophy to sustain preconceived
theories which fit in, either with
their personal interests, or with
ease of life. It is so much more
comfortable to go with the stream.
All converts from the subtle-
minded Newman to the humble
man who can grasp but the penny
catechism have found the same
difficulty. The charm and beauty
of the English Liturgy, adopted
by master writers in the Eliza-
bethan age and repeated from
childhood, have brought inspira-
tion and consolation to many a
soul. Even stronger than the
association of the forms of prayer
and church services, are the social
and family ties, which mean much to all of us, but
are especially strong with an affectionate and gentle
nature. Added to these considerations is the melan-
choly fact of four hundred years of misrepresentation
until the very atmosphere of Catholic Truth has to
be created among those who have inherited the
prejudices of "far off unhappy days."
IE AUTHOR
:R MAURICE
ENT Stone's easy familiarity with the Greek
and Latin languages made it comparatively
easy for him to read the writings of the
Fathers, and it would seem as if he had verified
by his own researches, or corrected where inade-
quate quotations were made the authorities quoted
among his favorite An-
glican divines. Bull, An-
drewes, Barrows, Jewell
were mastered, and sooner
or later his subconscious
mind analyzed the errors
of their reasoning in op-
position to the Catholic
Church.
While this mental
process was going on, he
was himself speaking and
writing quite unconscious-
ly, but naturally enough,
in the same vein.
No man knows, per-
haps, exactly how his con-
version has come about.
He can, perhaps, trace the first
doubt, but the multitude of im-
pressions and suggestions that
have finally prepared the mind
for the act of volition to accept,
and then the earnest desire to
receive the gift of Faith are hardly
explicable. Dr. Stone tells us
himself the steps of his progress,
but he does not profess to under-
stand them fully. His formal sub-
mission to the Church followed the
appeal of Pope Pius IX. after his
Encyclical summoning the Ecu-
menical Council which assembled
in 1870 in Rome. The Pope's
letter addressed to "Protestants
and other Non-Catholics" was
dated September 13, 1869.
Father Fidelis writes: "It was early dawn, a
dark morning in the Autumn of 1868. I had
not yet risen, but had roused myself and lay listen-
ing in pleased fashion, to the 'pipe of half awakened
birds' and wondering when the college bell would
ring, when of a sudden the thought came to me :
What if the old Roman Church should be right after
PAULIST 1872
THE t* SIGN
all? Such an idea had never before entered my
mind.
"I lay trembling and very still and then
material things vanished and I seemed to see above
me vast depths as of an unillumined sky. While
I looked a door was opened in heaven and there
was light there, a pale radiance, that grew in un-
imaginable beauty, — the 'light that never was on
sea or land,' and in a moment more I beheld far,
far away, the vision of a great White City like unto
the heavenly Jeursalem slowly described with
towers and battlements, that I did not dare to gaze
upon, for they were luminous with a splendor that
a flash I knew that no intellectual decision was pos-
sible in such a moment; it was my will alone which
must act. With a voiceless cry to Heaven, I sum-
moned all the many energies of my soul, and offered
up blindly as in sacrifice all the possibilities of life
and in death, I made a resolve — a simple, intense
resolve, — to be true, true to God, true to my con-
science, true to myself.
"It was all I could do.
"I looked again, but the vision had faded, and
the room was growing bright in the light of common
day, then a weakness came over me but my soul
was at peace."
FATHER FIDELIS' FIRST PASSIONIST FOUNDATION, BUENOS AIRES, THE ARGENTINE
did not fall upon them from above nor from without
but which came from within, and I knew the glory
of God was there and that the Lamb was the light
thereof.,
"Then came a voice quick and sharp with words
inaudible to the bodily sense, yet which rang
insistently through my startled soul, and the words
were these : 'Shut that door, shut out that dream —
if you look you will lose your head as others have
before you.' The voice was not from heaven. I
was sure of that. Was it diabolical? I thought so
then, but I knew not. . . .1 simply knew that a great
temptation had come, and had taken me by sur-
prise and I must fight then and there Then in
DOW came to his mind the word of a fellow-
churchman — his 'beloved Richard Hooker' :
"If truth doth anywhere manifest itself seek
not to smother it with glossing delusions, acknow-
ledge the features thereof; and think it your best
victory when the same doth prevail over you."
He experienced the same mental struggle de-
scribed by many a convert and the same sense of
"blank desolateness": "I was groping amongst
ruins and wherewith should I go to build again?. . . .
On the one hand I put aside. . . .cherished opinions;
hallowed associations; the intellectual and social
accumulations of my life thus far; a useful and
THE 1* SIGN
honorable position, fair hopes and plans long pon-
dered; the grief of hearts more dear than hopes
or plans or life itself. On the other hand I had to
be on my guard against, what?. . . .On the side of
the Church of Rome there was absolutely nothing —
unless indeed it might be some attraction in the very
completion of the immolation; and so I set my face
forward with desperate earnestness and in due time
— it may seem a very short time — I had not a trace
of doubt left that I had all along been a vain enemy
of the One, Catholic and Apostolic Church."
Dr. Stone was received into the Church
December 8, 1869,
at Madison, N. J.
by Dr. Wigger,
the pastor, later
Bishop of New-
ark. With cha-
racteristic zeal
and love for those
who had been as
he, he gave him-
self up to the
work of writing
" The Invitation
Heeded," at once
an apology, like
Cardinal New-
man's famous
work, and an ap-
peal to Protest-
ants.
"When the
task was finish-
ed," says Father
Ward, "he received a letter of introduction from
Doctor Wigger to the Rector of Fordham, where
he wished to spend a few days in prayer. On the
way he stopped to see Bishop Bayley and Doctor
Doane, at Newark. They wanted him to spend the
night with them. Doctor Stone held up the letter
saying: 'I am due at Fordham this evening.'
Doctor Doane took the letter, which began: My Dear
Father Rector,' and inserted it in another envelope
and addressed it to the Rector at West Hoboken.
Handing it to Doctor Stone he said: 'Doctor, remain
with us tonight. The carriage will be ready to take
you over to the Passionist Fathers in the morning to
begin your retreat.' Doctor Stone acquisced. Doctor
Wigger intended that letter for the Jesuit Rector, but
Providence intended it for the Passionist Rector."
WITH FATHER MARK MOESLEIN, C. P., AT CORPUS CHRISTI. TKXA
nE made his retreat under the direction of
Father John Philip Baudinelli, who first sug-
gested to him that he become a Passionist.
By advice of his friends he became a Paulist, with
the understanding that he might retire to the Pas-
sionist Order if later the way seemed clear. Father
Hecker, the then head of the Paulists, loved and
admired the Passionists and did not forget Doctor
Stone while in Rome. Cardinal McCloskey ordained
him December 21, 1872.
Now began formally, the third, last and longest
period of this wonderful life. Father Stone was a
missionary b y
nature. As a Paul-
ist his success was
immediate and
assured. Great
c o n g r e g ations
hung upon his
words. Throngs
of penitents ga-
thered about his
confessional. But
the insistent call
to a stricter rule
was not to be put
aside. It was
necessary for him
before entering
the Passionist
Order to make
provision for his
children. The
three little girls
were then at the
Academy of the Sisters of Mercy, Manchester,
N. H., where the second one died. The two surviv-
ing daughters were then adopted by Michael J.
O'Connor, now of San Francisco, Calif.
The soldier of Christ stood now as an athlete
stripped for combat. He had sacrificed all that
was nearest and dearest to his human affections,
though the love of his venerable mother remained
with him until her death in her ninetieth year. He
never faltered on the long dreary pilgrimage which
took more than a half century to complete. Neither
his work for souls nor the vicissitudes of travel ever
stilled the yearning of his heart for the affection
which was legitimately his, but which was gone
from him irretrievably.
THE + SIGN
XN August 11, 1878, Father Stone was received
into the Passionist Order at Pittsburgh, Pa.
He took the name of Fidelis of the Cross.
At once he became distinguished and successful as
a preacher of missions to which he gave himself
with all the ardor of his nature. "The Invitation
Heeded" went through seventeen editions and was
translated into foreign languages. It fixed his place
as a controversial writer and has been compared
for its strength with Cardinal Newman's great
"Apologia". The beauty of his style was not less
pronounced in the pulpit than on the printed page.
He wrote no more for publication until the last year
of his life he revised his book and republished it,
with some fragmentary letters and descriptions,
under the title "An Awakening and What Followed".
It is to be regretted that he did not write more.
His vast learning gained before his thirtieth year
was rarely drawn upon or systematically added to
thereafter, from the very exigencies of his life.
He spent three years in Rome when he was
made superior of the Passionist houses in South
America. Then followed twelve years working,
preaching, and founding houses in Argentina, Chile,
and Brazil. During an epidemic of small-pox in
Buenos Aires, with but one assistant he worked to
the point of exhaustion. Sometimes on the Argen-
tine pampas, sometimes in the tropical forests of
Paraguay and Brazil, and then by the curving shores
of Chile, where he looked on the one side across the
Pacific, and on the other on the towering peaks
of the Andes, he pursued his wo: k "without haste
and without rest."
Eight times he passed through the Straits of
Magellan. Many times he crossed the South Ameri-
can Continent. After twelve years of arduous
service in South America where he left his monu-
ments in six houses of his Order, he returned to the
United States. Here he held the offices of Pro-
vincial-Consultor, Master of Novices and Provincial.
During his Provincialship he made arrangements
for the foundation of a monastery in his native city
of Boston.
XN 1896 the Faculty of Harvard University
invited him to preach and repeated the invi-
tation in 1897, when he accepted and deli-
vered a masterly discourse on "Fidelity to Grace
Received." At the urgent request of President Eliot
he took charge of the 1400 teachers who attended
the summer school at Harvard in 1901.
In 1908 he was recalled to South America where
he remained until 1914 when he was assigned to
Mexico.
In a graphic letter he speaks of his journeying
through Spain before taking steamer to close his
affairs. When the steamer reached Rio the war
had broken out and he was detained for a year
longer than anticipated. He made farewell visits
to the houses of Argentine, Brazil and Chile. His
steamer was chased through the Straits of Magellan
by the German steamer Dresden, and when he finally
reached Panama he found his entrance to Mexico
barred by the revolution. The monasteries of the
Order in that unhappy country had been seized and
desecrated. Therefore he settled for a while in
Cuba, until permission came to take up a mission at
Corpus Christi, Texas. It was his hope to go from
there to Mexico when political conditions should be
settled and recover the property of the Order. He
was now a very old man, but his gallantry would
have taken him into the very heart of the disturbed
country had it been possible. Reluctantly he had
to put the purpose by. In 1919 he retired to Nor-
wood Park, Chicago.
For the past two years, until May 1921, he
rested at Norwood, as much as his growing physical
ailments would permit. At times he suffered tor-
tures of pain but he bore all with heroism, striving
to make light of it when in the midst of a very
paroxism.
BS if in answer to a half century of yearning
and prayer his daughter Frances came to him
bringing the assurance of a filial affection
that was balm to his spirit. It fell about him like
a benediction and seemed to give him a new lease
of life. His strength was so far returned that, with
the permission of his superior, he yielded to her
invitation to go with her to her sunny home in San
Mateo. He bore the journey well through the high
altitudes of the Rocky Mountains, notwithstanding
high blood-pressure, and after a brief rest was able
to say Mass on Pentecost Sunday and thereafter
every day until within two days of his death. This
was in his daughter's private chapel, with herself,
her sister Mary, (Madame de Cazotte), and his
grandson, Mary's son Michael, as the congregation.
Such a consummation gave him, no doubt, a fore-
taste of his eternal reward. It was beyond his hopes
of earthly happiness. Notwithstanding his gradual-
ly declining strength he was well enough to realize
THE + SIGN
in full measure his crowning earthly blessing. And
then the end came quickly. Conscious until his
last breath, praying his favorite ejaculations, and
the while holding in his hands his little crucifix, and
having about his neck his rosary, he died in the
arms of his daughter Frances, with Mary and
Michael present, and a priest reciting the Office
of the dying. And so the great summons came.
He had been waiting for it long.
nE closes the last chapter of "An Awakening"
with an apostrophe which shows his perfect
peace : "And now what can we do, my soul,
but wait, watching for that knocking at the gate
of which our Lord speaks, and which St. Gregory
interprets as the kindly warning of one who comes
and bids us open. Wouldst thou have him tarry?
Nay, thou hast little to gain and much to lose; or
wouldst thou linger to parley with thy friends? They
are gone long since, those friends of thy youth;
and those of later years, they too are going one by
one; they have outstripped thee. Wouldst thou
not enter with them into that City of God which
once thou didst behold so far away? Oh! Blessed
mission of peace: Beata pads visio, have I forgot-
ten thee, nay, he will be my friend indeed who shall
bring to me the message; 'The Master is come and
calleth for thee.' "
At Normandy, Mo. his mortal remains are in-
terred with his brethren at the monastery of Our
Lady of Good Counsel. The last obsequies were
celebrated in the church erected by another great
missionary, the Jesuit Father de Smet, not far from
the beautiful Florissant Valley hallowed by the work
of that great man and his companions and by
Mother Duquesne, the saintly foundress of the
Sacred Heart in America.
That fair country will ever be blessed by the
works of these great servants of God. It is a fitting
resting place for the mortal remains of one, whose
every thought was given, as were theirs, to the
greater glory of God.
T
ree or
Crib?
A Parent'
"iir^ELL, Bob, I suppose you have your Xmas
\\J tree bought by this time," said I.
"No sir!" he replied, smiling; "no more
Xmas trees for me."
"Man dear!" I cried, aghast; "no Xmas tree for
the children? Where is your Xmas spirit?"
Bob's smile only grew wider. "The children
don't want any, "he said. "They have something
better than all the Xmas trees in the world; and if
your kiddies saw it, they would be as green as your
old tree, with longing for it."
"Talk is cheap," said I, sneering.
"Come home with me, if you wish to be con-
vinced," was his final retort.
At the door his boys met us with glad shouts.
"We were waiting for you, Dad," they cried, leading
the way into the cellar. There the three took off
their coats, and seized hammer and nails and paint
and brush. Then they set to work on something
resembling a miniature cave, cut out neatly in a mass
of papier mache rocks, which stretched up and back
from the opening.
"What is it, anyway?" I asked.
ll
; Parable
The little fellows stared up at me with surprise,
and, I thought, pity.
"What do you think it might be?" returned
Bob.
"It looks to me like a little cave, — or stable,"
I replied.
"Well," he said quietly, "did you never hear of
Anybody being born in a stable — on Xmas day?
Suddenly my face burned.
Bob kept on gently. "Tom," he said, "what on
earth is the sense of dressing up the old tree, like
the pagan Druid priests used to do ? Instead of buy-
ing a lot of cheap tinsel and gaudy colored Xmas
balls, to hang on a dead tree, why not spend your
money in making a little shelter in your home for
the One Who started Xmas. Come around with the
children on Xmas morning, and see who has the
real Xmas spirit. Every year we get some new ideas
in fixing up His little home; and now we have the
prettiest crib "
But I had gone, to get my own boys, to make
a Xmas crib, that would beat Bob's, "all hollow."
The Christmas Mass of Pope Gregory
(Anno Domini 1075.)
Gabriel Francis Powers
^^^^HE crowd was breaking up. The speaker
# £j who had been addressing them, a man of
^^^^ noble mien and of an earnest, spiritual
cast of countenance, left the position he
had taken upon the steps of the Basilica of the
Apostle and made his way through the old portico
and atrium to the interior of the church. There he
knelt humbly on the marble floor before the shrine
of Our Lady with its mosaics on gold ground, close
to the Porta Santa. Outside, the last words flung
down in that sonorous voice seemed to be ringing
still: "My people, remember Christ Crucified....
Remember Christ Crucified, and that sorrowful
Mother at the foot of the Cross, and you will certain-
ly sin no more."
Awed, in spite of themselves, and wondering,
his hearers dispersed, some into the basilica to pray,
others hurrying off to their business, the numerous
small vendors on the steps and in the paradisus,
back to their wares of silk goods, leaden images
and food stuffs. "Well, well, well," quoth one old
dame as she returned to her dusty figs and nuts,
"many a time have I heard that before, but never
from the likes of him! Time was when only church-
men preached."
"Who is the orator?" enquired a prospective
customer. .
"Who? You may well ask that! No less a
person than the Prefect of the city himself, the
noble Cinthius. He has got it into his head that
the people of Rome are going to the dogs, and he
is going to help save them by preaching himself.
Lackaday, but this world is turned around!"
The Prefect having finished his devotions,
mounted his horse which an attendant held by the
bridle at the foot of the steps, and came slowly
by the Borgo, past the Mausoleum of Hadrian, still
admirably preserved, to the Bridge once known as
AElius and then as Santo Pietro. He crossed it
toward the city side, forgetting the blue sky over-
head and the golden water flowing in the December
sunshine under the ancient arches, as he approached
that dread eyescore, the tower which the rebellious
Cencio, the head of all the malcontents in the city
and constant opposer of the Pontiff Gregory, had
dared to erect, amost like a defiance at the entrance
to the bridge. Cinthius knew very well that the
tower should not be there. A year ago he had
endeavored to have it seized and its builder pun-
ished, but Cencio's party was too powerful and
Cinthius himself had been obliged to release his
prisoner, lest a revolution break out.
^^^HERE was some trouble at the tower now.
^^J A group had formed, the idle were running
to see, and shouts and a calling for the
guard rang out upon the air. "Here! Here is the
Lord Prefect himself! Now will you let them
pass?" Cinthius took the scene in at a glance.
A group of seven men, evidently poor pilgrims,
stood at the entrance to the bridge, held back by
the spears of Cencio's soldiery, and the assembled
crowd, loudly vociferous, took part — here for the
strangers, and there for the men at arms. Cinthius
enquired the cause of the disturbance but so many
voices imparted the desired information that the
words were confused. He addressed himself to
the foreigners and, in bad Latin, their spokesman
replied: "We have no money, Sir; indeed we would
pay if we could. We have come all the way from
Canterbury afoot, begging our way through the land
of the Franks and Lombards. We cannot break
bread until we come to the shrine of the Most
Blessed Apostle."
The Prefect turned to the Captain of Cencio's
ruffianly mercenaries. "Do you understand? They
are poor pilgrims going to the Shrine of Blessed
Peter. They have no money."
"That is no concern of mine. My orders are
to see that no man, woman or child passes this
bourne without paying toll for the bridge."
Again the blue-eyed Saxon spoke up: "Sir,
if he would let us pass to the hospice of our nation
across the river, no doubt we could get money and
come back and pay."
"You will pass for once without paying, friend,
or I will know the reason why. Stand back there,
men, and let these poor strangers through in the
name of Our Lord Jesus Christ."
"That may be a friend of your master's, Sir
Prefect; not of mine. I have my orders, and that
is enough."
"Let them pass, do you hear, or you will rue
it! Here, strangers, pass"....
"How dare you! How dare you, you dastardly
Cinthius? Is not this my tower, and have not I. ."
THE + SIGN
The Prefect drew his sword. This was Cencio in
person, come down from the upper chamber, mad
with fury, his evil eyes rolling in his head. "Take
your hand off my bridle!" the Prefect commanded.
He was alone, but for the groom behind him, while
Cencio had a swarm of men-at-arms at his command,
and he knew his peril, but he had the advantage
of being mounted.
"You were warned a year ago that His Holiness
would not endure this holding up of peaceful citizens
and visitors coming from afar to the Tomb of the
Apostle. It is a disgrace to our city of Rome that
you should take it upon yourself to close a highway
and the bridge of St. Peter to levy toll upon the
passers-by."
"The tower is mine, I built it; and I have a
right to say who shall pass through this gateway."
"You have no right to build a tower at the
entrance to a public bridge; you have no right to
interfere with the traffic; you have no right to
extort payment forcibly from persons over whom
you have no authority. This was all made plain
to you a year ago."
"Go and complain to your Pope if you are not
satisfied, dog of a Prefect! You have done me
harm enough already by stealing from me the
office which now is yours and which should have
been mine! Do you think I can forget so easily?
Cinthius is Prefect, and better men than he must
make their living as they can. You would stop me,
would you? Watch lest I make your master too
pay for your insolence. Here, men, lock these fool
pilgrims in the dungeon. They shall not pass now.
They shall not pass if that mockery of a prince,
thy Pope, come in person to beg for them. Cinthius
hath crossed me, and woe betide the man who
crosses Cencio!"
> f" SHARP scuffle followed. The mercenaries
J I seized the poor pilgrims and dragged them
within the tower; partizans of the Prefect
took stones to throw at Cencio; others, partisans of
Cencio, rallied around the soldiers; blows began
to rain; the cries of the Saxons who, being unarmed,
resorted to fighting their captors with their fists,
mingled with the cries of the Roman populace,
only too familiar with street brawls. Cinthius
groaned aloud, and set his horse at a gallop in the
direction of the guards' quarters. How many men
can you let me have, now, at once?" "Eight. . . .
perhaps ten...." — Again Cinthius groaned. — "My
faith! Ten Men to protect the city of Rome! Call
together any citizens who will stand by you. Arm
them in any way you can! That tower of Cencio
on the bridge is coming down now, today, before
the sun sets. This city has too many masters by far!"
It was done as he said. Before sunset the
captives had been set free, Cencio arrested, and the
tower demolished. And in many secret places of the
city, the followers of the arrogant citizen who con-
sidered himself the equal of the Pontiff and of the
noblest men in the state, gathered to consider what
they would do.
Cinthius betook himself to the palace to
render an account in person of what had taken place
in the city that day.
Dusk was falling, but the great Pontiff bowed
still over his writing, in his room that the sfndcws
were invading.
He would receive the Lord Prefect at once.
GINTHIUS, entering noiselessly, bowed over
the sacred foot. Gregory raised him quickly.
A man of indifferent stature, not commanding
in appearance, but with marvellous eyes, full of
intense light, and with more concentrated vigor and
energy of life in those eyes than is commonly seen
in one hundred gifted men. — "Ah, Sir Prefect, you
are the very person we wished to see. Christmas
draws near. We must not forget the annual bounty,
corn, oil, and some small largesse, that the poor
who ever suffer most should suffer a little less,
when He comes who chose to take their state."
"It shall be done as Your Holiness commands."
"The diaconie will attend to most of the needy,
but we give you special charge to see that none is
neglected in the city at this time. . .Now another
matter, good Cinthius, it has been reported to us
that you are preaching to the people, that you have
even preached at St. Peter's; and though we com-
mend your zeal — highly — and could desire that
some who have the obligation would discharge it
as earnestly, yet, for the sake of order in all ranks
of the Church, henceforth you will desist from
preaching. We express this wish with all deference
and benevolence toward our true and loyal son,
the Prefect of our city of Rome."
"I thank your Holiness. If I have done wrong
I beg Your Holiness to pardon me. Evil is rife
and souls go to perdition. They will not listen to
churchmen. I had hoped they might, perhaps,
listen to me."
13
THE
SIGN
"The hope is worthy of you, Cinthius. But
yours, I need not remind you, is a different task.
Justice, the sword, has been placed in your hands.
Watch over the city, hear causes, render righteously
to every man, punish
the evil doer — as you
have power to do — I
need not say these
things to you, my
Lord Prefect, you
know them well; but
we remind you that
the rendering of jus-
tice is a sacred action
and imitates the
divine office of the
Godhead."
"I am not worthy
of the honor Your
Holiness has seen fit
to put upon me but I
will fulfill the obliga-
tions it carries with it.
This very day, my
Lord, I endeavored to
right a galling wrong;
and yet fear that I
have exasperated one
of Your Holiness's
most formidable
enemies."
"My e n em ie s ,
Cinthius, are as the
sands of the sea. For
two "years now, from
the day it pleased God
to place this heavy
burden of the Papacy
upon us, they have
been active in their
machinations. More,
we have been con-
tradicted and mocked,
even as Christ was.
What enemy is
against us anew
today?"
"A very bitter one, my Lord; he who contended
the office of the city with me and never forgave
Your Holiness's choice — Cencio."
"Ah!" one of those lightnings that might have
Christmas Carol
J. Corson Miller
As Joseph opened wide the door,
To let the Shepherds in;
The Ox and Ass did raise their heads,
And made a welcome-din.
These simple folk were guests the night
Of little Jesukin.
The wind blew hitter chill; the Star
Burned brightly overhead;
The Shepherds sang a silver song
Before his stable-bed.
Kind folk, let songs go forth this night,
And let the Poor be fed!
The Mother looked upon her Child,
And held Him to her breast;
Then through the night a great light streamed
North, South, and East, and West.
'T v?as Law of Love, and born through Christ
A Babe — for earth's distressed.
The Ox and Ass did keep him vJarm
And Joseph watched beside;
His bed Was laid with roughened straw,
But He v?as satisfied.
The Poor, the Weak, the Halt, the Blind —
Help them at Christmastide!
Make ye dear songs of joy* on earth,
This night that He was born;
With every brother's hand-clasp out
To brothers all forlorn.
Then shall your hearts be glad, indeed,
Come merry" Christmas-morn.
been anger, repressed as swiftly as it flashed, or
understanding only, lit the vivid eyes one second.
"Cencio," the voice said quietly, "your enemy and
ours. What fresh plot has he trammeled now?"
"Holy Father, this
morning as I came
from the Tomb of the
Apostle, the street on
the city side was
crowded, all the traffic
held up, and Cencio's
ruffianly soldiers, with
arms in their hands,
Eorbade the passage of
the bridge to seven
poor pilgrims who had
no money to pay the
toll."
eREGORY start-
ed so violently
in his chair that
it was pushed back-
ward. His hand
struck the arm of it.
"An outrage ! A n
abomination! If there
is one road in this
world that shall be
free, free to every
man born anywhere,
free to every comer
from the uttermost
parts of the earth, it
shall be the road to
Blessed Peter. Why
was this not stopped,
Sir Prefect? A year
ago we gave orders
that this disgrace to
Rome should cease."
"He was arrested
and warned, Your
Holiness, but he was
bold, knowing his
strength; and, sad to
say, many nobles of
the city who are doing
the same thing on the highroads around their castles
sided with him. But he will collect no more tolls
on the bridge to St. Peter: I had the tower torn
down this day."
THE 1* SIGN
"Good, good! Excellent. .. .the only way to
stop it! And guard the bridge now, Cinthius. Do
not let him return to it. What of Cencio himself?"
"That is the knot, Your Holiness. I had him
locked in the Castle until I could learn the wishes
of Your Holiness. Unfortunately, he has an im-
mense number of followers, and I do not feel that
the affair is ended."
"There will be fighting in the streets, and others
who do not love Gregory will rally to him and
sustain him, if we hold him — .
Yet if we let him go free, he will but stir up
more hatred against Your Holiness."
"Magnanimity becomes the high office of the
Bishop, Cinthius; and we have ever endeavored to
forgive, for the love of Christ, what enmity and the
ambitions of the world have turbulently raised
against us."
"Am I then to release him?"
"Fine him as a just punishment and a caution
to him. And the day before the Vigil of Christmas,
say to him that Gregory desires all Christian people
to be glad that day, and to celebrate in their homes
and among their dear ones, the sacred rites of the
Birth of Our Saviour. ..."
Cinthius looked up, wondering; the voice had
trailed a little on the last words, and the dusk, com-
ing, robbed him of the expression on the Pontiff's
face. But he saw his head turned to one side, and
followed the direction of the glance in which he
had grown silent. It met the ivory Figure hanging
upon a cross on the wall.
CHRISTMAS Eve, with weird pipings of moun-
tain shepherds in the streets; with piles of
honey-cakes and spice-bread on the market
stalls; and dancing of children, in artless rythms
of gladness before the brightly illuminated houses,
for that Christ the Child was born.
Strangely, at eventide there was a clap of
thunder; most strange where the Christmas nights
are a marvel of clear blue, sprinkled with diamonds.
Women crossed themselves, and drew the little ones
into shelter, with some unspoken fear of a portent
of evil. Clouds continued to gather, and, at the hour
when the faithful were leaving their homes to
assist at the Midnight Office, a storm, almost a
hurricane, broke loose over the city.
In spite of the beating rain, Gregory came in
solemn procession to the Basilica of S. Maria
Maggiore, for the festival was one of the four annual
occasions on which the Pontiff celebrated Mass
with great pomp in the major church of Our Lady.
All had been prepared for the celebration of the Holy
Sacrifice at the altar where the relics of the Crib
were specially venerated that day. Many lights, and
the hanging lamps of silver before the shrine, filled
the crypt with a soft radiance; small sprigs of box-
wood and laurel, scattered on the marble floor and
trodden by the feet of the worshippers, made a
faint, garden-like scent in the mild air; the splendid
altar vessels of gold, and the pontifical vestments
of dark blue velvet embroidered with silver thread
and adorned with the image of the Holy Mother of
God bearing the Divine Child in her arms, lay ready
for the Pontiff's use.
The basilica itself was fairly well filled, and the
disorder of the elements was forgotten in the solemn
stillness, the deep, sweet joy of the Christmas Night.
A crash of thunder burst just overhead as the Pope
stood at the foot of the altar, but Gregory, with
folded hands and living eyes upturned to the "ever
lasting tabernacles," did not seem to hear it. The
seven great white candles, borne by the acolytes
of the deacons in the procession, now lighted the
table and the Pontiff's face. Gravely and yet
joyously, his voice intoned the Gloria, and a strong
current of religious emotion ran through the kneel-
ing crowds as sweet-tongued choristers took up the
full volume of the strain, almost like those angelical
choirs which had first floated, in white wreaths of
melody, above the stable roof.
There was a slight, unaccountable stir among
the people at the foot of the stairways, as the
Offerings of bread and wine were carried into the
sanctuary. And some turned their heads involun-
tarily, because it seemed that new, unwelcome
presences had somehow stolen into the midst of
those who prayed. Yet not a sound was heard.
Gregory, moving as it were in a cloud of gold, and
wholly rapt in the awe of the Mysteries he was
celebrating, proceeded with the Consecration. As
he set down the chalice, a rush was made toward
the altar. Women screamed without understanding
what thing had happened. The stately robed figures
around the sanctuary flew to the assistance of their
Chief.
Armed bandits had seized the Pontiff, torn the
sacred ornaments from him, and enveloping him ir.
a cape that made him unrecognizable, forced him
THE *f SIGN
roughly through the crowd and toward the door.
His own attendants struggled to hold him back, and
many a loyal man sprang out to defend the Pope.
The greater number were at sea, not knowing what
thing had occurred.
A cry, awe-striking in its horror, went up:
"Romans, arm! Arm! The Pope is being taken!"
.... Long moans, and shouts of rage responded.
At the door, men had drawn their swords, even in the
holy place, and the runners, with that cloaked bulk
in their midst, had to fight their way. Steel flashed,
blade struck sharply against blade, and cries of
sudden biting pain rang out. But the robbers
reached the door. In the confusion inside the church,
women and children were trampled, and men fought
one another, not knowing themselves if this were
friend or foe. The Pope was thrown upon a waiting
horse, panting men mounted around him, and closed
in as they went, and at a mad gallop through the
wet streets and the storm, the cavalcade headed
westward.
Those who had horses, noblemen and officials
in the congregation, flung into their saddles and
started in pursuit. As the first group raced through
the Forum of Trajan, and past the historic column,
the advanced pursuers drew so near that two or
three of the pursued turned and barred the way.
The others, still tearing in the direction of the Tiber,
swerved abruptly south in the Parrione quarter, and
came to that ancient, hoary palace, fortified like a
castle, where Cencio and his clan dwelt.
Shouting and beating the great portal, one
raucous voice was lifted above the others to cry:
"Open, dogs, open! Haste! It is I, your Lord!"
The gates flew wide, and banged again heavily
behind the riders. "Secure the doors. Make a
barricade.." gasping, "We are pursued". .. .The
man was no longer young and he had ridden hard.
But he tumbled quickly from the saddle in the
inner court, where his ruffians were dragging the
half-smothered Pontiff from his mount.
With rude hands they plucked the cloak away,
and that majestic figure stood revealed, his white
alb making the figure almost luminous in the dark.
The pallium of his supreme Bishopric still circled
his shoulders, and hung down in one long band
marked with black crosses, from chest to knees.
The face of Gregory was inscrutable, but he was not
afraid, neither was he intimidated. Some of the
men, less hardened than the others, saw with dread
that, from a wound in the head, blood was slowly
trickling and stained the white garment on the
breast. More than one recoiled at the sight.
DOT so their master. Striding forward, with
horrible fury, he struck the Pontiff full in the
cheek. "Ha, Sir Pope, you wished that I
should spend Christmas with my family? Well,
you are bidden, too. You shall keep it with us, far
from church mummeries. You had not quite finished
your Mass, had you? Pity we should have had to
interrupt you, but there are too many old scores
that require settling between us. You thought you
were lord of Rome, did you not? Well learn now
who is your lord!"
"Brutally, and with concentrated rage, he struck
the silent Pontiff again and again, on the head, on
the neck, on the chest, with a lust of fury. And,
as if this were not enough, women added their
taunts and insults to the violence of the men. Trip-
ping down from their quarters in gaudy finery,
Cencio's sisters, veritable harpies, shook their
hideous shrivelled fists, and hissed out their in-
vectives in the Pontiff's face.
"You have felled our tower, have you? We,
patricians of Rome, are to be beggared to please
you! Wait and see what Cencio has in store for
you! To the dungeon with him, to the underground
dungeon. . . .Cencio, what are you waiting for? He
must never leave this house alive."
"Get out, you hussies, I can take care of my
own affairs! Here, men, bring him up. I want
him in the great hall for trial. He shall not say
he has not had a fair show!"
A dozen of them, pushing, pulling, and striking
him as they went, ushered the prisoner into the vast
room, on the upper floor. Gregory had not spoken
once; only, under their blows, he raised his eyes
to some Presence of which they wot not, and which
to him was near.
"So! You do not choose to answer me? Per-
haps we can find the means of coaxing you a little . .
a couple of turns of the rope might help. ..."
Gregory was standing in the middle of the hall,
white in face and in vesture under the fitful light
of the torches. Cencio took one step toward him:
"Where are your friends now, would-be master of
Rome ? Why don't they come to your assistance ? . .
You low monk Hildebrand, I will abase you so
that "
THE 1* SIGN
B FLASH of lightning, so vivid that it blinded
him, cut the unfinished words. Gregory
lifted his head high, looking out through the
tall windows, heavenward. It was as though he had
seen or heard something. Cencio put his hand over
his eyes, while the thunder crashed; and, as he
groped, blind indeed for the moment, and moving
his arms convulsively, he heard, muffled by the
storm and yet ■ distinct, a bell in the far distance
ring the tocsin.
Another, nearer, answered it with that same
short, insistent, distressful note; and then another,
like bronze voices lifted in alarm. Cencio cowered
perceptibly. Gregory gave no sign, but he too had
heard, and the great soul in him struggled with the
emotion flooding it. The Church was calling for
him!
In the same moment, as if in answer to the
bells, a roar went up beneath the palace windows:
"The Pope ! Yield up the Pope !...." Cencio reeled.
The eyes of Gregory had fixed themselves intently
upon him and seemed to pierce him. He moved
away, and looked down into the street. Even in the
darkness, he could see that it was black with crowd-
ing, swarming humanity. The low, ominous mur-
muring, heavy with anger as they gathered, was like
the threat of a stormy sea. The narrow street was
packed, and still they came pouring; and once more,
and with increasing volume, the shout went up :
"Death to Cencio! To death with him! We want
the Pope!" And then a volley of cries together:
"Give him up! Give him up! We want the Pope!"
Cencio gnashed his teeth and flung out of the
door. Down to the court he ran, and out to the
gateway, sword in hand : "No surrender," he kept
crying, "no surrender! The Pope is ours. Just hold
the doors."
/f^VARALYZED with fear at what might be hap-
K^r pening to their Pastor and Father behind
those dread, impregnable walls, the plebs,
the poor, the nameless swarm of the lowly, pressed
against the gates. And here and there, mingled
with the populace, the nobles who were faithful
threw out their rally cries : "Gather, gather ! Orsini !
Orsini to the rescue!" Answered by: "Colonna,
Colonna, Colonna!" And the shout of the ecclesi-
astics: "Chiesa! Chiesa!" A sudden red glow
broke out, illuminating all the walls, and the crowd
cheered: "Fire! Fire! Burn them out! Deliver
our Pope!"
But the brave blaze died in wet wood and
smoke. Then beams were brought, and the besieged
heard the dull, ominous thuds of battering at the
gates. Those great portals of solid oak and iron
would hold out a while — but how long? Archers
manned the ramparts and began to shoot down
arrows into the crowd, but there was no moving
it; a few cries, a few imprecations; but that relent-
less pound, pound upon the doors did not cease for
one moment, and a preliminary crash foretold the
end.
Cencio ran hither and thither, his hands trem-
bling, his mind a blank. Should he kill him?
Would it be best to kill him, or to use him as a
shield? Some fear he could not account for, or
master, kept him from the presence of his victim.
The guards still stood at the doors of the great hall.
Gregory, in the midst of the confusion and turmoil,
was silently praying. He heard the battering rams :
it meant the end for him, too — they would never
yield him up alive!
And suddenly, with a crash of rent, splintering
wood, a terrific roar from the multitude, the gates
gave and the mob poured in, clambering over the
barricade, beating down the soldiers and henchmen,
filling the castle like a flood.
Cencio fled up the stairs, to the hall which his
mercenaries had deserted, and fell prostrate at the
Pontiff's feet: "Save me, pardon me. .have pity. .
they will kill me". . . .
"Gregory pardons; but you will go to the spot
where Christ was struck and buffeted to implore
His pardon there". . . .
HIKE a torrent, and with cries that rang to the
very rafters "The Pope! Where is the
Pope?" the human tide swirled in. At their
head Cinthius, the blade of his sword bent and
stained. When he saw the Pontiff, a sob broke
from him, and the tears ran down his face: "Thank
God! Thank God!" With shouts of joy the people
threw themselves down and kissed the sandaled
feet, the hands, the garments, as though they could
never tear themselves away from him again. It
was Cinthius who recognized the figure crouching
in the shadow behind Gregory, and he endeavored
to pull him forth, none too gently. Gregory stretch-
ed his arm over the miserable coward : "Do not
touch him, Cinthius. The presence of the Pope is
sanctuary. He will go to Jerusalem." The people
THE + SIGN
recognized him then, too, and yelled: "Kill him!
Kill him! Rid the earth of the scoundrel!" — "Nay,"
Gregory answered, "nay, good folks; God wills
that the sinner should repent and live . . . Who will
find us a horse that we may go back to S. Maria
Maggiore and finish our Christmas Mass?" Like
children they went, happy, eager, every man deter-
mined to bring the horse for the Pope.
Cinthius, with mute horror, was gazing at the
Pontiff's torn vesture, the bruises upon his face,
those dark, tell-tale stains upon the breast of the
alb. He knelt down before him, too overcome to
speak his sorrow, and the great tears ran down his
cheeks again. Gregory laid a gentle hand upon the
stooping shoulder : "Cinthius, with the help of God,
let us so raise up the Throne of Peter that scenes
like the scenes of this night may never be repeated
in our city of Rome again." — "God be with Your
Holiness, my Lord Pope, and crush His enemies and
yours beneath your feet."
"Come, let us go. The night is almost over.
Christmas, oh, my God!. .. .Christmas". .. . He
turned and motioned Cencio to follow him ; Cinthius
surprised the expression on the guilty man's face:
"My Lord, I beseech Your Holiness, let him remain."
Gregory bowed his head and passed on.
Not one horse but a dozen were in waiting;
the court was filled with torches moving as the
crowd made ready to escort the Pontiff; the air
was murmurous with happy voices lowered through
reverence, and yet ready, on the smallest provoca-
tion, to burst out into cheers. Ecclesiastics and
acolytes who had followed from S. Maria on foot
and mingled with men-at-arms in the storming of
the fortress, gathered around their Bishop, and
Gregory perceived how all the best blood in Rome
drew in a close ring around him: there were to be
more surprises!
As he attempted to mount, there was indeed a
rush in his direction, held strongly back by the self-
constituted guard around him, but it came from his
lowly saviors, the rank and file of the people of
Rome. Gregory raised his hand to stop their accla-
mations, and, instinctively, the action changed to a
blessing. He smiled at the young man who bent
the knee, and his fair proud head, to hold the
Pontiff's stirrup. "Ah, Gelasius". . . .
So they brought him back in triumph to Santa
Maria Maggiore. At the door they flung down their
cloaks that he might walk upon them. There was
a hush, solemn as death, when he stood again before
that altar from which he had been torn, and then a
soft sound of women weeping in the distance.
Pallid and with sunken eyes, but with that same
unquenchable brightness of the glance, Gregory
folded his hands and ascended unassisted to the
altar. One moment he stood with humbly bowed
head before the Cross, then turned to the Missal
where it lay open, as he had left it, and completed
the Canon. Presently his clear voice, not very
strong but full of an exalted faith, intoned: "Pater
Noster qui es in coelis". . . .
At the Communion he returned to the Pontifical
Throne and the assistants brought him the Sacred
Cup and Bread.
So Pope Gregory finished his Midnight Mass
in the Basilica of Our Lady. As he did, the first
light, dim still and faint, struggled in through the
clerestory windows. Outside, over the blue Alban
hills the day was breaking in cloudless splendor
after the hurricane, and Rome awakened, a new
Rome as it were, to the rutilant joy of Christmas
morning.
Motker of Christ
Placidus M. Endler
She hungered" for the heights above,
The Highest heard her longing love;
But Heaven unwilling vJould not wait,
And hastened to anticipate.
Current Fact and Comment
O1
ST. PAUL ON
HE public eye is focussed on one spot these
days, — and that spot is Washington, D. C,
where the nations are met to discuss the prac-
ticability of disarmament, and the public ear is
strained in that direction to catch the news of any
real decisions which will have a real effect in pre-
venting real wars. All affect on admiration for
disarmament, but nobody likes to disarm.
While it is the sincere wish of every humane
person that war and its attendant horrors be pre-
vented in the future by a holiday of disarmament,
there is one kind of warfare which, instead of admit-
ting reduction of the weapons of war, rather lays
down as a first principle their absolute necessity,
and, moreover, commands their constant use. That
warfare is the world-old conflict between the individ-
ual soul and the powers of darkness. St. Paul, the
accredited representative of the Prince of True
Peace, writing to the first Christian soldiers at
Ephesus, tells them not to disarm, — not so much as
entertain the thought. No reduction of war strength
for Paul. He, rather, tells those Christians to put
on more armor, to be covered with it from head to
foot, for their fighting was not against flesh and
blood. No ! Their battling was with "principalities
and powers, against the rulers of the world of this
DISARMAMENT
darkness, against the spirits of wickedness in high
places." And in order to prepare for an attack at
any moment from these formidable and unseen
enemies, they must have their loins girt about with
truth, have on the breast plate of justice, have their
feet shod with the preparation of the gospel of
peace, on their head the helmet of salvation, one arm
holding the shield of faith, while the other is ready
to strike with the sword of the spirit.
Diplomats may continue to speak honeyed
words; covenants may be entered into, circuitously
arrived at; armaments may really be reduced (per-
haps), and, in the end, we hope that war will be no
more. One thing however, we are certain of, War
with capital ships, submarines, machine-guns and
poison gas may know a lull on account of disarma-
ment, but the war that St. Paul speaks of shall never
cease. There can be no parley, no covenant, no
truce with the enemy. Arms must be increased rather
than reduced, for our enemies are powerful and we
are weak. They — the wicked spirits — are always
our enemies; — never more so than when they seem
friends.
Therefore, be armed, be strongly armed, be
completely armed, for in this war there can be no
truce — only victory.
ANOTHER ASPECT
gPASSIONIST Father who has recently been
conducting a series of missions in the South
writes us the following interesting and hope-
ful account of his impressions, which well deserves
to be quoted at length.
"Frequent and recent outbursts of bigotry and
outrages against Catholics in Georgia may mislead
those who do not know our southern states, and
make them judge other states by what they hear and
read of Georgia. Most of the southern states are
very predominantly Protestant, but few are so pre-
dominantly bigoted as the state represented by Mr.
Watson. Some missions this year among Catholics
and Non-Catholics in North Carolina gave me my
first experience in the South, and revealed to me a
better class of Protestants. That state, with a popu-
lation of 2,500,000 of whom only 8,000 are Catholics,
is both the most Protestant and the most tolerant of
the southern Protestant states.
OF THE SOUTH
"A strong spirit of Methodism, Freemasonry
and human respect blinds many to the claims of the
Catholic Church, or keeps them out when convinced
of those claims; but it does not tolerate bitter
bigotry. Cardinal Gibbons, who was once Vicar-
Apostolic in North Carolina, did much by his noble
priestly life, public spirit, and sermons to foster that
spirit of tolerance. He died whilst I was giving
missions there, and I was much impressed by the
manner in which Protestants read the papers to get
news of his death and burial. Many of them went
to Baltimore to pay their respects to his dead body,
and on their return eagerly told their friends of what
they had seen at his obsequies.
"A proof of the great difference between
Georgia and North Carolina was given at Durham
some years ago. That town including East and West
Durham has a population of over 30,000 with about
120 Catholics. At the time mentioned Mr. Ham, a
THE + SIGN
bigoted Protestant minister from Georgia, gave a
mission for the Rev. Mr. Smith in his Baptist Church.
During the mission he made the usual vile and bitter
charges against the Catholic Church, priests, and
nuns. The local Protestant papers published Mr.
Ham's sermons, but they also gave Father O'Brien,
the local priest, an opportunity to refute the slan-
derer. The sympathy of the town was with Fr.
O'Brien and against the parson from Georgia. His
stay was shortened, and his mission went far beyond
his intentions. Two sons of Mr. Smith, who were
going to finish their education at Philadelphia,
questioned Mr. Ham about the charges he had made
against Catholics. He told them that a little experi-
ence among the Catholics of Philadelphia would
soon convince them of the truth. They became
acquainted with Catholics in that city, and were in-
deed soon convinced of the truth, — a truth that
proved the falsehood of the bigoted parson, and
led them both into the Catholic Church."
The above will help to correct a false idea too
commonly entertained by persons ill-acquainted with
the facts. Bigotry and the South are not synonim-
ous terms. Every state below the Mason-Dixon line
is not to be classed with Georgia and Alabama.
These two states may be the noisiest, they may beat
loudest on their tom-toms of intolerance so that their
sound goes forth to the farthest ends of the nation,
but they do not represent — for which may God be
praised! — the widest sentiment of the South. Too
often is it the black side of the Southern shield
which is held up to view, but we ought not to forget
that there is yet another side, a side which reflects
what is best and noblest in our Republic.
TERCENTENARY OF JOHN BERCHMANS
^^^HIS year marks the Tercentenary of the death
V^ J of Saint John Berchmans. The event is one
of interest to the whole Catholic world.
A glory to God, a glory to Christ, and a glory
to his Society, the ife of this Servant of God, is a
wonderful inspiration to every Catholic, particularly
to our Catholic youth.
John Berchmans was born at Diest, March 13,
1599. His parents were humble, poor, and God-
fearing. From his tenderest years, they impressed
upon the child's mind and heart the simple lesson
of holy religion. These impressions were deep and
lasting.
At school, John showed uncommon talent. But
his religious progress always ran far in advance of
secular knowledge.
Called to the religious state, he entered the
Society of Jesus. As a novice and student, no singu-
larity of conduct distinguished him from his fel-
lows. He walked the common ordinary paths.
His contemporaries esteemed him just a good faith-
ful religious.
So he lived, faithful to routine duties until in
his twenty-second year, he was called to his reward.
Short was the span of his years; but before heaven,
long were they in grace and merit..
This is the career which occasions a world wide
commemoration. It offers a practical lesson to all.
Like John Berchmans, every Christian is called
to be a saint. In the mad rush of the modern world,
this fundamental truth is lost sight of. The false
notion is abroad that sanctity is only for the religious
and the priest; — a thing, whose home is in the
cloister and not in the world.. Nothing better illus-
trates the tenor of the day.
Still, sanctity is as much a duty as patriotism.
"This is the will of God, your sanctification,"
declares Saint Paul, and thus he addresses himself
to his converts, "To all.... the beloved of God,
called to the saints."
The life of John Berchmans demonstrates how
practical saintliness is in the every day life of the
Christian.
In vain, do we look in that life for ectasies,
miracles, or other startling manifestations of divine
omnipotence. There are no heroic actions, in the
ordinary sense of the word; no frightful austerities,
inspired by the holy follies of penance; no great
works of the apostolate. His life ran on in the. com-
mon course of ordinary mortals.
The secret of his saintliness lies in this, that
he was a clever spiritual financier. He learned how
to get rich quick. He saw his opportunities. He
grasped them. Like Midas, everything, at his touch,
turned into gold, not the corruptible gold of this
world, but the incorruptible gold of the kingdom of
heaven. To him, even the least of his thousands
of little every-day duties, was an opportunity of
amassing new wealth. In a short time, he became
a spiritual millionaire.
He took Saint Paul at his word, "Whatsoever
THE f SIGN
you do, do it from your heart, as to the Lord, and
not to men; all whatsoever you do in word or work,
do all in the Name of the Lord Jesus Christ; whether
you eat or drink, or whatsoever else you do, do all
to the glory of God."
Here is the lesson of his life. God, Whose
glory John Berchmans constantly sought in all that
he did, drew aside the veil, and revealed him to us,
clothed in everlasting glory — to be our model and
inspiration.
CHRISTMAS AND THE WORLD PROBLEM
XN our busy, selfish, material, and commer-
cial world, Christmas day comes as a bright
spot in an otherwise dreary landscape. Admist
the grinding, selfish struggle for advantage, "good-
will" reigns supreme. The brief change is a
refreshing tonic. Few can be insensible to the
emotions this most appealing of all Christian festi-
vals inspires. The day brings its memories of
childish hopes and dreams; its simple decorations
of holly and ivy and mistletoe, the fragant boughs
of the pine woods, bright with tinsel and many
colored lights the homely gathering together of the
family around the fireside hearth; the scattering of
good cheer, the special thoughtfulness for the poor;
the exchange of Christmas greetings and gifts; —
in a word, the day, with all its hallowed associations,
makes us forget, for the nonce, the vexing and
sordid cares of every day life. The world would
be a much drearier place than it is if it were not
for the annual visit of the Infant Saviour. The
cheery greeting of "Merry Christmas," goes a great
way to heartening us for the unknown vicissitudes
of another year.
If we seek the reason of the peculiar fascination
this most beautiful ,of all Christmas festivals exerts
over us, we will find it in a very elementary fact in
tnAR
FOCH THE
[ARSHAL FOCH, Generalissimo of the Allied
irmies in the World War, has visited the
United States. His tour of the United States
has been a continual triumph such as no conqueror
in the heyday of Roman might ever surpassed. The
acclamation has been spontaneous and unlimited.
Universities, civil organizations, patriotic societies,
labor unions, religious bodies have all vied with one
another in showering honors, complimentary mem-
berships, golden keys, substantial gifts on the man
who has taken a place in the imagination of the
American people equal to that of his brother in
arms, Lafayette.
Marshal Foch is a distinguished soldier, the
profoundest strategist of his time. His niche in
the annals of fame will be with the world's great
commanders. The Marshal is more than a soldier.
human nature. The appeal of innocent childhood
is one against which the human heart can never
successfully steel itself. The hard knocks of life,
and contact with an unfeeling world, may sear and
callous the heart, and put the sneer of cynicism on
the lip, and the scowl of sulleness on the brow, — but
the callousness and the cynicism and the scowl will
melt away, before the smile in the eye of an innocent
babe. For these little ones have a way of their own
of stealing into our hearts. Christ manifested His
infinite wisdom in a most unexpected manner when
He came as a helpless child.
It is a sad day for any man when he is not
moved by the tenderness of Christ's cradle. There
are those who do not experience the blessed peace
Christmas day brings — because there is no room
for Christ in their lives any more than there was
room for Him in the inn. The world at large is torn
by strife and unrest and disorder because it has cast
Christ out of its life. Nations know not peace be-
cause they have closed their doors against Him who
from His humble manger preaches the emptiness and
worthlessness of mere worldly glory and ambition,
because rulers and statesmen have no room for Christ
in their deliberations of schemes of government.
CATHOLIC
He is a practical and devoted son of the Catholic
Church. Even when the colossal responsibilities of
his exalted office weighed heaviest upon him he
could yet find time each day to spend an hour at
prayer. Marshal Foch is a worthy successor of the
warrior saint of France, Louis IX.
No other foreign dignitary who has visited
America since the close of hostilities has received
a reception like to that tendered the Allied Gene-
ralissimo, with the one exception of Cardinal Mer-
cier, whose coming to American shores was a na-
tional event of lasting significance.
It is something for Catholics to remember and
in this remembrance be proud, that these two tower-
ing personalities in the world's greatest cataclysm
were members of the One, True, Holy and Apostolic
Catholic Church.
21
Tke Union Jack Afloat Over Sion
Tke Politico-Religious Status of Palestine
The Very Rev. Cyprian Jourdin, C. P., St. Martha's Retreat, Bethany, Palestine.
eREAT was the joy of the Christian world
at the announcement that Jerusalem was
free. The victory which liberated the Holy
City from Turkish dominion came as a ray
of sunshine in the midst of the gloomy winter of
1917, a winter especially gloomy for the people
of Palestine who had experienced for three long
years all the miseries of war. Yet these same
people who knew better than anyone else the true
state of affairs in Palestine, felt a sense of uneasi-
ness at the terms of the British manifesto, in which
Mr. Balfour, on November 2, 1917, promised that
Palestine was to be a national hearth to all Jews.
This promise of the Modern Moses, prostrate before
the golden calf, was the beginning of that extra-
ordinary movement which, has drawn to Jerusalem
from all quarters of the globe a motley gathering
of most undesirable elements. This imported popu-
lation is already a grave menace to the future peace
of the Holy City.
Passing over the supposed necessity compelling
England to assume the protectorate of Palestine, the
traditional liberality of British administration (out-
side of Ireland) gave promise that a wise and con-
ciliatory government would be assured to the Holy
Land, and, likewise, that the communities long
established in Judea would be confirmed in the
peaceful enjoyment of their acquired rights, tradi-
tions and customs. Before the war Christian,
Mussulman and Jew had finally come to accomodate
themselves to Turkish rule. No one imagined that
the English could be less tolerant, still less that
their victory, which was in fact an Allied victory,
would inaugurate an era of anxious unrest. Yet,
it is not without reason that Our Holy Father, the
Pope, and with him all right-minded Christians,
demand to know if Jerusalem has been snatched
from Turkish domination only to fall under the
galling yoke of provoking and aggressive Judaism
championed by Great Britain.
At the close of hostilities the Allies, conforming
to one of Mr. Wilson's Fourteen Points, acknow-
ledged the right of small nations to determine their
own form of government. An American Commission
was sent to the Near East to ascertain the wishes
of the people. All declared in favor of a national
government. But the Statesmen at Versailles seem
to have had other designs; they created for the
case the new system of Mandates.
Q Mandate as understood in Article 22 of the
pact of the League of Nations, recognizes
certain rights of small nations. These rights
are divided into three classes following the degree
of civilization and capacity for self-government of
each nation. The nations of the first class are entitl-
ed to an autonomous government. The Mandatary
Power proffer helpful counsel and protection. Man-
dates of the second class give to the Mandatary
Power the right to interfere in the internal adminis-
tration of the nation subject to the Mandate. The
Mandates of the third class go much further, their
effect is little short of annexation.
The Mandate for Palestine which Turkey re-
nounced in favor of the principal Allied Powers
according to the tenor of article 132 of the treaty
signed at Sevres on August 10, 1920, has been
conferred on Great Britain by Article 95 of the
same treaty.
In what class of Mandate does Palestine find
herself? The Mandate itself is silent on this point.
But the terms of the Mandate and their application,
show but too clearly, that the Palestinians have
been radically excluded from the first and second
class only to be put in the third class.
In effect the Mandate after having inserted in
its preamble "that the Mandatary shall be responsi-
ble for the execution of the declaration made on
November 2, 1917, by the British Government in
favor of establishing in Palestine a national home
for the Jews, stipulates in the first article that His
Britanic Majesty shall have the right as Mandatary
to exercise in Palestine all the powers of a sovereign
state.
^^=^HE exercise of this sovereignty is along the
L^ line marked out in articles 2, 3, 4, 6, 7, 11 of
the Mandate. These articles, which are silent
on the participation of the natives in the government
of the country, make provision for the organizing
in the country of a political regime, administrative
as well as economical, which will render possible the
establishment of a national home for the Jews.
(Art. 2).
THE + SIGN
A Jewish Bureau shall be established, consti-
tuted for the purpose of aiding the administration of
Palestine. The Bureau shall be Zionist in organi-
zation as long as the Mandatory shall think its
functions and its constitution conduce to the desired
end. (Art. 4).
The Administration of Palestine shall be bound
to faciliate Jewish immigration by holding out com-
paratively easy
but Palestine is for all practical purposes already
a Jewish state under the sovereignty of England.
terms, and shall
be bound also to
encourage inten-
sive colonization
of the country
by Jews, and this
to be especially
applied to those
lands belonging to
the state and also
to the uninhabited
districts which are
of no present
public value.
(Art. 6). To this
end a law regard-
ing nationaliza-
tion shall be
drawn up to facili-
tate the attain-
ment of citizen-
ship by such Jews
as intend to make
Palestine their
permanent home.
(Art. 7). All
these articles, not-
withstanding the
constant reitera-
tion that the civil
and religious
rights of all the
inhabitants without distinction of race or religion
shall be safeguarded, treat the native Arabs as
enemies and Palestine as a conquered land. This
is purely and simply an overt seizure of Palestine
by the Jews. England by virtue of her mandatary
rights is handing over to the Jews a country to which
they have no right.
Not only is every inducement offered to those
Jews who wish to establish themslves in Palestine,
The Governor, Sir Herbert Samuel, is an Israelite.
He has established his office of administration in
view of the Holy City on the Mount of Olives in
the ancient convent known as "Victoria," formerly
the abode of the German Protestant Deaconesses.
In the Governing Council, the more important
offices are held by Jews. Saturday is become the
official day of rest, and a Hebrew dialect called "Yddasch"
is, together with English and Abrabian, the language of the
courts and of official acts.
The Mandatary Power endeavors to justify this pre-
eminence given to the Jews by avowing that they constitute
the native population of the land and that to establish for
them a national home is but remaining faithful to one of Mr.
Wilson's Fourteen Points.
If such be the case, the application of the principle,
'that small na-
tions have the
right to determine
their own form of
government," is a
farce. The Jewish
element in Pales-
tine is but a very
small minority
and . hardly sur-
passes the number
of Christians. The
great majority of
the population is
of Arabian ex-
traction. The
total population of
Palestine is about
700,000; 100,000
are Jews; 100,000
are Christians ;
& Underwood the remaining
CITADEL OF SION AND THE JOFFA GATE mm afe Arabs
Then too, it must further be noted that the greater
part of this one hundred thousand Jews is not native.
It is made up of immigrants which Jewish enterprise
has brought to the farming sections of Palestine or
to the Holy City itself. The Jews who are today
invading the country come from the Ghettos of the
entire world. They are so far from being Palestin-
ians that their native co-religionists consider them
as strangers and are but half-heartedly concerned
at their arrival.
23
THE + SIGN
ON the other hand, the Arabs and Christians
form the overwhelming majority of the popu-
lation. In order to rob these of their rights,
history is made to bear false witness. Some pre-
tend that the successors of Mohammed took posses-
sion of Palestine unlawfully in the seventh century
and consequently that the present occupation is but
a usurpation. What a puerile contention! If the
world must go back to the state in which it was
thirteen centuries ago, what nation today could
establish a claim to occupied territory ? And further-
more, no one has yet convincingly proved that
the Arab-Mussulmen of Palestine are the descend-
ants of invaders.
The soldiers of
the Caliphs who,
setting out from
Mecca, in less
than one hundred
years conquered
a great part of
Asia, North Afri-
ca, Spain and
Southern Gaul,
until Charles Mar-
tel, the Grand
Duke of the
Franks crushed
them at Poitiers,
were comparative-
ly few. So that
in Palestine the
greater part of the
Arab population
could not be the descendants of the invaders from
Mecca and therefore they must be of the native
population of Syria and Chaldea who have occupied
the land from time immemorial. The predominance
which the British Mandate gives to the Jews is an
act of flagrant injustice and gives the lie to the
"Treaty of Versailles" which says: "Palestine for
the Palestinians." Reflexively Arabs, Mussulmen
and Christians have solidly united against this
menace to their interests.
Unanimously and with unswerving firmness the
delegates and chiefs of the most important localities
in Palestine reject the Jewish rule which the British
Mandate has imposed upon them and they have
not ceased to appeal to the considerate judgment
of the world. Zionism, favored as it is in high
diplomatic circles, is offensive to Arab, to Christian
and to Mussulman; in fine, to the great majority
of the population. The favors of which the Jews
have been the recipients from the English Govern-
ment have only augmented the antipathy of the
Islamo-Christians against that Government which,
on the taking of Jerusalem, was hailed as a liberator.
This hatred has been shown by violent mani-
festations on the public streets. The first mas-
sacre of Jews took place at Jerusalem on Easter
1920. This great Christian feast happened to coin-
cide with the feast of "Nebe Mouca" (Prophet
Moses) of the Mussulmen, who, at the time, go
solemnly in pilgrimage to the so-called tomb of
Moses. The
morning after the
massacre these
same Mussulmen
when passing the
Catholic convents
shouted : "Down
with the Jew,
Long live the
Cross, Long live
the Pope."
& Underwood
READING THE BRITISH
TILL more
serious
trouble
broke out at Joffa
on May 2, 1921,
when 30 Jews and
10 Arabs were
killed and 142
proclamation Jews were wound-
ed. These tumults show the grave problem which
confronts the British Mandate — Arabian resistance
and the Jewish predominance.
Following these troubles, the Governor of Pales-
tine, Sir Herbert Samuel, assured the natives that
the "Jewish National Home" did not mean "Pales-
tine for the Jews" and that Jewish immigration would
be limited, and that a constitution was being drawn
up by the British Government whereby public opin-
ion could freely express itself, and that the people
would have duly authorized representatives to
guard their interests.
These fair words have not yet materialized and
the country is still in a ferment. The least spark
suffices to create a new conflagration. May God
forbid that civilized nations make of Palestine —
"that cradle of revelation and the land of the pro-
THE 1* SIGN
phets," — the tomb of Justice and right! Surely they
cannot permit that the Holy Land which was recon-
quered by all Christian nations, and where before
the present immigration, the Jewish element figured
as only one seventh of the native population, should
be placed exclusively in the hands of those who
crucified Christ. If this comes to pass, then that
land from which have radiated the sublime princi-
ples of brotherly love and peace, will be the scene
of revolution and of new carnage, and the fanaticism
of the Mohammedans throughout the world will be
aroused to the great prejudice of Jews and Chris-
tians alike.
*y*HAT then
\I/ are we to
think of the
future of Catholic-
ism in Jerusalem
and throughout
Palestine?
The follow-
ing are the Arti-
cles of the British
Mandate from
which we may
gauge the status
of Catholics.
Art. 8.
The immuni-
ties and privileges
o f foreigners ;
u n d e r s tanding (
thereby the right
of Consular protection such as was formerly enjoyed
through treaty or by customs of the Ottoman Empire,
are definitely abrogated in Palestine.
Art. 15..
The Mandatary shall see that complete liberty
of conscience and free exercise of all forms of
religious worship be guaranteed to all; subject to
requirements of public order and morality. No
distinction among the inhabitants of Palestine
whether as regards race, religion or tongue, is to be
recognized.
Art. 16.
The Mandatary shall be charged with the
exercises of such surveillance of the conduct of mis-
sionaries in Palestine as is necessary to order and
good government. By virtue of this surveillance
no one shall hamper the liberty of action of the
missionaries or put any obstacles in their way
either by making distinctions or stirring up pre-
judices against them, whatever be their religion or
nationality.
These articles of the Mandate do away with all
those immunities and privilges which the Catholics
missionaries, especially, enjoyed under the Ottoman
Government. By this act members of religious
orders and missionaries are less free to carry this
work, now, under the British, than they were under
the Ottoman Government. And this, despite the
fact that the greater part of them, French and Ialians,
cooperated effectively in the conquest of Palestine;
and despite the
fact also that it
was owing to their
influence and the
confidence which
the nation had in
them, that the
conquest of Pales-
tine and Syria was
made compara-
tively easy for the
English and the
Allies.
None ques-
tion that the
former relations
between the peo-
ple and their
ruler, were incom-
patible with the
THE JEWS CELEBRATING THE ANNIVERSARY OF ALLENBY'S ENTRANCE exercise of a
sovereign power such as England; but if this sove-
reign power is to be exercised by the Jews alone as
is the case of Palestine today, then what is to
become of the civil rights of Catholic citizens!
During the Turkisk regime, the different ele-
ments lived side by side in quarters circumscribed
by age-long tradition. Since the Crusades, Catholics
and especially the Religious of St. Francis — so
highly esteemed in the Church and throughout the
secular world — following the example of the early
Christians, have maintained the rights of Catholic-
ism in the Holy Land.
Since the time of Charlemagne, France has
exercised her protection over all Catholics living in
Palestine, irrespective of nationality, so much so,
that the Arabs call all Catholics indiscriminately
"French." The Religious of St. Francis called the
i|
*
m^M
f "J
, v. .JH. TrfW «
f
■ v a
W immf
r.lg&C
25
THE 1* SIGN
"Guardians of the Holy Places" have often proved
their title by the shedding of their blood. They it
was who opened the first schools, who built the first
hospices wherein lodging and shelter were assured
to all Catholic pilgrims to the Holy Land.
1NCE 1847 Palestine, together with the Isle
of Cyprus, has formed a diocese under the
jurisdiction of a Patriarch. His Excellency,
Monsignor Barlissina is the present titular. Since
that date numerous religious congregations of men
and women, the greater majority being French, have
established themselves in Palestine. Before the war
there were about thirty such.
The impor-
tance of the works
of charity under-
taken by these
zealous religious
without distinc-
tion for Jew,
Arab, or Chris-
•ian, could not bet-
ter be set .forth
than by a few
figures, eloquently
testifying to Ca-
tholic activities in
the Holy Land.
In Palestine (
there are 1200
centuries they have regarded as their traditional
enemy that they will not fail to take revenge in the
very country where Christianity was born. They
will not hesitate to attack the principal moral power
in Palestine, Catholicism, certain that in expelling
the Catholic missionaries and religious and in clos-
ing the monasteries and convents, they will effectu-
ally extinguish all Christianity in the Holy Land.
Then shall the Catholic world behold with awe the
catastrophe predicted by Benedict XV. in his allocu-
tion of March 10,1919, when he conjured up the
dreadful prospect of "The Holy Land in the hands
of the Jews."
^^^gj ^^^
p
- - wiJr^x ^Rk^' "?*^POB tz\ i
EH
It
u
\— Underwood &
priests and religious men and 500 nuns : 6500 pupils
are taught, and 8000 orphans are cared for. The
average number of patients yearly treated in the
hospitals is 7000, while 35,000 patronize the dispen-
saries. Besides this, countless sick are visited in
their homes. The point worthy of note is that all
is done gratuitously.
After the deliverance of Jerusalem the self-
sacrificing work of these devoted men and women,
was actually thwarted by a liberal Protestant or
Jewish administration which regards the Christ of
the Christians either as a stranger or as an enemy.
And if, which may God forbid, the British Mandate,
as it is at present exercised, receives the formal
approbation of the League of Nations, the Jewish
state will automatically be released from British
control and persecution will inevitably follow.
The Jewish immigrants are so imbued with
hatred towards Christianity which for so many
'NFO RTU-
N A TELY,
the Schis-
matic Church, be-
ing without au-
thority and with-
out a head, is not
likely to accept
the challenge.
Until the Patri-
arch of the Schis-
matic Church of-
ficially opened the
Holy Sepulchre
to the Jewish
underwood Governor, a Jew
Palestine being modernized by Zionists ^ad never dared
to enter therein. The Greek Schismatic Church is
becoming little by little domesticated through the
constant pressure of the present ruling power which
has already begun to interfere in its internal admini-
stration and which of course always favors its puppet
to the great detriment of Catholics. There are other
facts more serious which already show the open
hostility of the new Mandatary towards all that is
Catholic.
The following weighty words pronounced by
the Sovereign Pontiff in the consistory of June 13,
1921, on the subject of Palestine, were the occasion
of a significant incident in the Holy Land. The
Holy Father said in substance : "When the Chris-
tian soldiers of the Allies recovered the Holy Land
we shared the joy of all the faithful. But we do
not disguise the fear of seeing an event so important
and so joyous in itself, end in assembling the Jews
in Palestine and giving them a predominance and
a privileged status.
26
THE 1" SIGN
"Events have shown that our fear was not a vain
one. So far in fact from being ameliorated, the
condition of Christians in Palestine has become
worse than that of old. On account of the new laws
and constitutions, which, we will not say by the aim
of the authors, but certainly in fact, tend to destroy
Christian influence to the advantage of the Jews.
We see further that many are endeavoring to deprive
the Holy Places of their sacred character and to
transform them into pleasure resorts where license
is given full rein, all of which, if deplorable any-
where, is especially so in that country where at
every step one is confronted with the most sacred
religious memories."
Although an arbitrary unprincipled censorship
forbade the Catho-
lic Papers to pub-
lish the words of
the the Pope, a
Jewish Journal
"L'Arez" of Jeru-
salem, on June 20,
was at liberty to
put an entirely dif-
ferent interpreta-
tion on them. This
same paper on June
28, in an article,
headed "The Pope
and Palestine" fal-
sified the words of
Our Holy Father in
which he treated
of the moral condi-
tion of Palestine. Other Jewish papers published
the same article. An article in the "Pm Pas," a
Jewish journal published at Jaffa on June 30, printed
the following: "The word Justice has become the
pet word of the Popes, serving to hide their evil
deeds and to deceive the people." Further on it
adds: "The Holy Ones of God preach in their
churches a national movement, incititive to murder
and pillage, and plot with the devil and the Pope."
This accusation is as false as it is absurd for not
only has no priest or religious encouraged active
resistance, but, during the disturbances in Joffa last
May, a massacre of Jews by Mussulmen was pre-
vented by the sole intervention of the Latin
Patriarch, Monsig. Barlassina who hurried to the
scene at the first alarm.
FORMER HOMES OF THE GERMAN PROTESTANT DEACONESSES NOW 1
RESIDENCE OF SIR HERBERT SAMUEL
nOW then are we to explain the conduct of the
Mandatary Power towards Catholics? It
allows full liberty for the publication of such
inflammatory articles as above against the Pope and
yet forbids the diocesan authorities to defend the
Holy Father by means of their own papers. The
Latin Patriarch protested energetically against this
attitude of the British Government in a Pastoral
Letter dated July 7, 1921.
To sum up, Palestine is actually a closed
country, wherein the opposing parties are ready to
come to blows at the first provocation if the terms
of the British Mandate meet with the approval of
the League of Nations.
Jewry wishes to restore the ancient kingdom of
David and Solo-
mon in Palestine
and to exercise un-
controlled sover-
eign power. The
Mandatary played
into its hands in
naming a Jewish
governor in Pales-
tine, when expedi-
ency and even pru-
dence, demanded
either a Mussulman
or a Christian
Governor in the
midst of such rival
factions.
The Chris-
tians and Mussul-
men and Arabs base their contention on their
numerical strength. "No Jewish rule," they say.
"The Jews are but a small minority and hence their
participation in the government ought to be in
relative proporation to their numbers." Since
neither the Christian nor the Mussulman can hold
his own in the financial field by matching capital
with capital or even shrewdness with shrewdness,
continued recourse will be had to violence. In such
case the Mandatary power will bring into play
its full war equipment, machine guns, armored cars,
and fighting planes, and coerce submission. This
condition will obtain so long as the natives do not
allow themselves to be bought by gold, a thing so
easy in the Near East.
The Land of Christ is to be a flag-stone on the
English imperial road between Egypt and India.
27
THE f SIGN
As she passes over this road she will crush Justice
and Right in the very land of their birth. She is
indifferent to the fact that she is creating a centre
of Moslem agitation which will be linked with the
two other spheres of unrest, Egypt and India, thus
adding to the force of the storm which is gathering
in the East against the British Empire.
As Caholics we favor neither the agitation of
the Arabs nor the triumph of Judaism. The two are
equally a menace to the peace of the Orient and
a danger to Catholicism. There is no question of
depriving England of the Mandate. She will not
give up her hold. But England is bound in justice
to exercise her power in a way which will safeguard
the rights of both Christian and Musselman. The
Palestine question is not an affair of politics; neither
is it a mere English colonial problem. It affects
Catholics the world over. The Holy Places consti-
tute a sacred patrimony, about the preservation of
which all the faithful are concerned. These are
the sentiments which Pope Benedict has so elo-
quently voiced in the allocution above referred to.
It is for Catholic opinion to support the appeal
of the Sovereign Pontiff, and in all effective ways to
bring his point of view before the Executives of the
great nations and the accredited representatives in
the council of the League of Nations, So that im-
mediate and efficacious steps may be taken to put an
end to the transformation of Palestine into a Jewish
state..
^^s^HE proclamation of the Governor of Palestine,
y*J Sir Herbert Samuel, after the massacre at
Joffa, gives the broad outlines of a policy
replete with wisdom, and it is only necessary to con-
firm and apply it should the League of Nations
underwrite the British Mandate.
If Sir Herbert's wise words are not listened to,
then, not only shall we see the Holy Land lost to
Christianity and the rights of the non-Jewish ma-
jority trampled under foot, but we shall see two
thousand years of history annihilated in the land
where history first had birth, in that land where
stands the most ancient of momuments, in that land
about which the Christian's most hallowed memories
cling; we shall witness the amazing spectacle of so
called Christian Nations, under color of replacing
the Ottoman dominion with their own much vaunted
ideal of liberty, in reality setting up a new and more
galling tyranny in the Land of Christ's Birth.
A Christmas Nocturne
Murtagh Moore
Sleep, Jesu mine!
Thy" Father is out where the stars cleave the night;
He'll guide them a while; now close thine ey"es tight;
Rest Thou, betime.
Sleep!
Sleep — thine eyes beguile!
For the wild sparrows no care to thee take;
Thy Father vJill guard them, asleep or awake:
Forget them awhile;
Sleep!
Slumber in peace!
Men are asleep in the mumerous town?
Angels keep vigil the night's shadows dovJn;
Give thy heart ease.
Sleep!
The White Rose of Lucca
Trie Stor;9 of Gemma Galgani
MATTHEW KUEBEL
4 — The Marks of tke Lord Jesus — (continued)
gN arrangement such as this was pleasing
to Gemma, because it delivered her from
prying neighbors' vulgar curiosity, and
from the misunderstandings that arose
from time to time in her own. home because of the
unusual ways of her spiritual life.
In the meantime Gemma went to her confessor,
Monsignor Volpi, and informed him modestly,
simply, and sincerely, of all the details concerning
the reception of the miraculous wounds. The Bishop
received her very kindly, listened to her narrative
without any expression either of wonder or of sur-
prise, and without giving any decision on so im-
portant a matter, merely bade her to pray very hard
and then dismissed her.
While the Bishop could not believe that a soul
of such eminent virtue was the victim of self-
deception and hallucination, still he was much per-
plexed to think that his humble penitent was the
recipient of spiritual favors that had not been vouch-
safed even to many of the greatest saints of the
Church. The formal statements of the Passionists,
as they did not relieve the prudent Bishop of his
responsibility, so they did not dispel his anxiety to
know certainly the origin of the marvels that had
become ordinary incidents in Gemma's life.
To ascertain whether or not these things were
the results of natural causes, Monsignor Volpi en-
listed the service of a worthy and competent phy-
sician, but the attempt to subject these heavenly
things to the judgment of science proved abortive.
For our Lord warned the Bishop through Gemma
that the course that he had proposed to take was not
pleasing to Him ; that if he came alone to see Gemma
he should be convinced; but that otherwise he should
see nothing. Nevertheless, the Bishop did not think
it right to abandon his purpose; so that although he
visited the house at a time which otherwise would
have been most opportune, Gemma's wounds, seen
only a moment before by the members of the house-
hold, immediately disappeared, when the doctor
accompanying the Bishop approached to examine
them. Painful in the extreme was the effect of this
incident on the Bishop's mind, and he was not
entirely re-assured, when Gemma went to show him
alone the wounds that he had not been permitted
to see in company with the physician an hour or two
before.
y^^HE Bishop was a very busy prelate, and al-
y_ J though he kept himself informed about Gem-
ma's affairs by members of the household he
could not give to the important question the attention
it demanded, and therefore, the responsibility of
Gemma's direction weighed upon him heavily.
While he was in Rome at this time he sought to
interview one Father Germanus about the matter,
but that learned and holy priest was out of the city,
and subsequent efforts on both sides for a meeting
were equally unsuccessful.
Afterwards there was an interchange of cor-
respondence between them, in which Monsignor
Volpi told the distinguished priest all about Gemma
and asked for suggestions in the matter of her
direction; while Father Germanus, in turn, advised
that Gemma be placed on the ordinary path of virtue
followed by the majority of the faithful. Later, in
reply to further details the Bishop furnished, he
suggested that recourse he had to the exorcisms of
the Church.
Sometime after, on the 1st of September, 1900,
to be precise, at the Bishop's request Father
Germanus was sent by his superiors to Lucca. Then
it was that he met Gemma for the first time, and
that in accord with the Bishop's desire, he undertook
her spiritual direction; and until her death three
years later he remained her spiritual guide.
Father Germanus tells us that as soon as he
met Gemma he was filled with veneration for her,
and that even from the beginning he felt that she
was no ordinary soul. Nevertheless he applied him-
29
THE f SIGN
self industriously to discover whether or not Gem-
ma's spirit was from God.
For a long time Gemma was kept in suspense
as to what she should understand by the extraordin-
ary things that she experienced. But at last, after
a long and searching investigation the prudent
priest's first impression became his settled con-
viction, namely, that Gemma was a soul of rare
sanctity and endowed with marvelous supernatural
gifts.
Conformably with this decision he announced
to Gemma, much to her relief, that her extraordinary
spiritual experiences were operations of the Spirit
of God, and that she could surrender herself to
their leading without hesitation, misgiving, or fear.
It was beyond her ability to express her joy at this
announcement, for no one could have felt its need
more than she; and no one could have been more
grateful for the decision when it came.
5 — Sweetness and Strength
XN the preceding chapters of this story a
fairly well-defined outline was traced, it
is hoped, of Gemma Galgani's beautiful
personality; a personality of which narra-
tive order does not permit or require the full por-
trayal. Hence it will be well to pause before narrat-
ing the closing chapter of this short but saintly life,
and fill in the picture with a little more detail.
The phrase, "sweetness and strength," aptly
sums up the spiritual beauty and perfection of our
saintly subject. This touching sweetness was the
result of Gemma's wonderfully childlike simplicity,
which was always her principal charm. But as this
simplicity was quite supernatural, it carried with
it no element of weakness; for, she was endowed
in a high degree with the opposite virtue of heroic
strength. One virtue did not weaken or destroy
the other; rather they were a mutual support. All
her life Gemma drank deep at the fountains of
strength — the five Wounds of Christ: she knew
by personal and voluntary participation all the
bitterness of His chalice; hence it was that while
heroically strong, she was at the same time adorned
with somewhat of that magnetic appeal by which
Christ Crucified draws all things to Himself. Gem-
ma's sweetness and strength were the sweetness and
strength of the Man of Sorrows.
Although Gemma died in the flower of young
womanhood, she retained to the last the childlike
simplicity which was her characteristic virtue as
well as the form, the color, and the savor of her
spiritual perfection. She entered the path of
Christian holiness when as yet a child, and after a
type of sanctity the most sublime had been realized
in her, she ceased not to be a child in heart and mind
and soul.
The pictures that we have of the saintly girl
display one of those rare countenances that never
outgrow the sweet charm of childhood. The expres-
sion of her face with its soft roundness of line and
feature and its serene openness of gaze, indicates
the lucid candor of a soul that has not learned the
art of concealing its sentiments, because unconscious
of aught of which to be ashamed. Such a reading
of Gemma's countenance is. entirely consistent with
her saintly character. Her mind's eye was always
fixed upon God, — an attitude which begot an un-
alterable serenity that was like the placid surface
of clear water, which mirrors all that falls within
its compass but upon which nothing is able to make
an impression. Hers, too, was the heart of an
innocent love, a heart in which calm rectitude and
perfect order reigned, and hence one that was
immune from the canker of vain-glory, of pride, or
of disorderly affections of any kind.
^TRANSPARENT candor, an outgrowth of Gem-
y_ J ma's simplicity, was enshrined in her whole
person and shone with a bright effulgence
in her every word and action. It has already been
noted how straightforward she was in speech, and
how this trait was sometimes misunderstood for
rudeness and pride. The truth is, she always endeav-
ored to put in practise the Gospel precept of
absolute sincerity, of which idle talk is the greatest
foe. In her letters she avoided the conventional
preambles, no matter how high of station was the
persons addressed, and went straight to the point.
The only introductions she used was certain ex-
pressions peculiar to her and full of ineffable sim-
plicity. "Monsignor," she would begin, "stay and
listen; so and so has happened." Or again: "My
Father, listen to the curious thing I am going to tell
you." Then immediately followed what she had to
say, without thought for style, but just as her heart
dictated. Yet how charming are those letters in
their spiritual unction and in the noble simplicity
of their untutored eloquence!
When Gemma had to treat personally with
others about any matter, she did so with an unre-
strained cordiality and ingenuous affabiliy. Fre-
THE 1*SIGN
quently, distinguished persons, attracted by her repu-
tation for holiness, called to see her, and not rarely
to consult her on important affairs. In such cases
she was always very brief; gave her answers with
evident grasp and insight, and then withdrew as
quickly as she could. Yet she always inspired with
affectionate confidence those who met her, and only
a brief acquaintanceship was all that was necessary
to fill them with veneration. This regard she returned
with much tenderness, yet with no show of effusion
or compliment.
In a word, she was in everything the same
simple girl, natural, unassuming, hating and avoiding
all singularity. True it is that she must of necessity
attract attention by the severe plainness of her dress,
by her dignity of bearing, and by her uncommon
modesty. Of such attention however she was quite
unconscious. When in church nothing distinguished
her from other devout worshippers except, perhaps,
a somewhat more rapt devotion in her prayers.
She was accustomed each day to hear two Masses,
at the first of which she communicated, and during
the other she made her thanksgiving. At the first
sign by her adopted mother, who in later years al-
ways was her companion, Gemma would at once
interrupt 'her devotions and prepare to start her
home, as if she had been waiting all the while to be
called away. She would not return to church again
until evening, when she would visit the Blessed
Sacrament and assist at Benediction.
©UT it was in the practise of virtue that Gem-
ma's simplicity shone with truly divine
beauty. It will be sufficient to speak here
only of her obedience and humility, for these bore
most deeply the stamp of her sweet childlikeness.
It was her perfect obedience that lead Gemma
to abandon her will and judgment, not only in the
mere commonplaces of life, but in all spiritual mat-
ters, especially extraordinary ones. She would un-
dertake nothing without the approval and permission
of her spiritual director. Thus in regard to certain
excruciating pains in her head she wrote: "Provided
you approve, Father, I should like to ask Jesus to
calm my head a little." "Give me leave, Father,"
she wrote again, "to ask Jesus to take me quickly
out of this life, to be with Him in glory." To such
a degree had she attained in this virtue, that even
when favored with visions of Our Lord, she did not
consider herself at liberty to disregard the directions
of her confessor. The latter imposed on her a time
limit in which to treat with her Savior; thereafter,
even though she was consumed with love and com-
passion at His feet, when the striking of the clock
announced the expiration of the allotted time, full
of distress she would exclaim: "Jesus, go away I
don't want you any longer." "Poor Jesus," she once
said, "how often have I not been rude to Him in
obedience to the confessor. And He stood there, so
good, so good."
In the practise of humility she was equally
childlike and perfect. So deeply was she convinced
of the need of humility in God's service, so strenu-
ously did she strive to acquire this virtue, that in the
end her lowliness of heart became so profound that
she felt herself to be the most sinful among all God's
creatures.
In every word and action this sense of her
spiritual wretchedness and misery is revealed.
Hence her repeated lamentations over her ingrati-
tude and the multitude of her sins; hence her remon-
strances when others requested her prayers, and her
appeals to their supposed knowledge of her sinful-
ness as a sufficient proof that no good could be
expected from her; hence her dread of being deceiv-
ed by Satan and in turn of deceiving others; hence
her repugnance to speak of her great graces : for
her anxious care to keep secret, "the things of Jesus,"
as she called them, was equalled only by her dread
of their becoming known.
No wonder that the dear child was filled with
shame when before her Lord; no wonder that she
was wont to beg Him to reserve His gifts for those
who were more worthy, and to warn Him to beware
lest He soil His hands with a creature as wretched
as she. How touching are the epithets she applied
to herself, especially in prayer! She styled herself
"foolish virgin," "miserable being," "useless ser-
vant." "Dear Mother," she would pray, "dear Lord,
this miserable being has to be lifted up." She used
to say that whoever prayed for "poor Gemma"
would do a really great act of charity.
We are not surprised to learn that Heaven,
without fear that its bounty would be abused, lavish-
ed its gifts upon this blessed child so deeply ground-
ded in simplicity and lowliness of heart. In fact,
Gemma's sweet childlikeness was the 'open sesame'
that unbarred the gates of heaven, almost at her
bidding, for she was favored with countless visions
and apparitions of Our Lord, of the Blessed Virgin
and of the Angels.
To be continued
31
Archconfraternit}) of
the Sacred P
Relations to Other Societies
^-— ^HATEVER inspires and encourages virtue
W I ^ and religion receives the sanction and
\^\J support of the Church. This is true of the
different societies which bring the faithful
together to honor some mystery of our divine
Savior's life, or of His immaculate Mother, or of
some one of His wonderful saints. The value of
confraternities consists in keeping the truths of faith
always vivid and active, while at the same time
affording numerous opportunities to practice Chris-
tian charity. Such societies serve as an antidote to
individual selfishness, greed, and pride, and develope
in social life that spirit of "love one another, as I
have loved you," which distinguishes the true fol-
lower of Christ. Today the world is filled with
fraternal organizations, but only in the sodalities
of the Church may be found that kindness, sympa-
thy, mutual help, and potent influence, which exact
denial of self for the sake of others, the sacrifice of
personal interests to promote the spiritual welfare
and true happiness of the neighbor. The Church
urges her children to form sodalities, or to unite
with societies she had approved, because they truly
advance the kingdom of Christ on earth, accomplish
much in saving souls, and day by day increase the
number of the saints. Like a display of beautiful
flowers, here and there exhibiting clusters of violets
or lilies, of carnations or roses, of peonies or chry-
santhemums, so the varied sodalities of the Church
enhance her grandeur, exalt her teaching, and every-
where diffuse her ardent love of sincere piety and
solid virtue.
The difference between societies is not merely
a matter of name, but is to be sought in the purpose
they endeavor to accomplish. Some societies are
devoted to works of charity, such as the care of the
sick, or the relief of the poor, or the conversion of
pagans and the spread of the faith. Others, again,
have aims that are purely devotional, — that so by
constant recollection of some divine mystery, or
the veneration and imitation of some saint, the
members will be able to make their lives more con-
formable to the faith they profess. Distinctions
may also arise on the account of age, sex, state in
assion
life, the means to be employed, and the manner of
direction. Some have a regular election of officers,
and others are governed by prefects or promotors
under the leadership of a Director or Moderator.
Moreover, some sodalities confine their sphere of
action to their immediate vicinity, while others
radiate their influences throughout the universal
Church.
In many respects, however, the societies of the
Church are alike. They make the same public pro-
fession of faith. They consider the Holy Sacrifice
of the Mass and the regular reception of the Holy
Sacraments as their main sources of spiritual
strength. They seek the approval and blessing of
the Church for the devotional exercises they prac-
tice, or the works of mercy and charity they under-
take. It is the purpose of all to give greater honor
and glory to God, to proclaim and defend His
Church on earth, to combat error and vice, to afford
encouragement by good example, and to assist as
much as possible in the conversion of sinners and
the salvation of souls. Such is the harmony be-
tween the societies that often persons become
members of three or more of them, and successfully
promote the interest of all. While each society
strives to attain a definite purpose, they support
each other and move together to the great end point-
ed out to them by the Church.
xs
HE Archconfraternity of the Passion aims to
enlist every man, woman, and child, in its
world-wide mission of preaching Christ
Crucified. To succeed in this exalted purpose, it
requires nothing that would interfere or conflict
with the duties of any other society. On the con-
trary, it chooses many devout practices for its own
great work, which are regarded by other sodali-
ties as rules. To promote devotion to the Sacred
Passion, the members of the Archconfraternity
assist at Holy Mass, receive regularly the Holy
Sacraments and pray daily that Jesus Crucified
may become more generally known and venerated.
Even assisting at the meetings of other societies
and following their devotional exercises may be done
A NATIONAL Sj> CATHOLIC
/MONTMLY MAGAZINES
| VOL. I.
JANUARY, 1922
No. 6
d, 1922
rorwar
XT Will be of interest to SIGN readers to learn tkat THE SIGM begins its first
New Year with a reading circle of 60,000. This is its growth since August,
1 92 I . This gratifying result has been achieved in strict adherence to its original
policy) of appealing to the public through accredited solicitors who are responsible
directly to the Editors of THE SIGN, and for Whose thorough trustworthiness THE SIGN
is read;9 to vouch. No agency has been, or will be, authorized to represent THE
SIGN. This policy^ THE SIGN is determined in future to maintain.
Such a phenomenal growth, has not been attained without a number of unavoidable
inconveniences. These Will diminish as THE SIGN Waxes stronger.
THE SIGN thanks- its readers for their patronage, and at the same time it asks
their active cooperation in helping to Widen the sphere of its influence, to bring it into
every Catholic home, to sustain it in its avoWed mission of making Christ Crucified better
known in the land.
The better to attain this end, it will continue to feature both devotional and
instructional articles on the Sacred Passion. These will be contributed by various Passionist
Fathers in different parts of the world. Among these articles Will be a number of new
illustrated studies of the Holy Places written from the Holy Land.
To numerous inquirers THE SIGN is pleased to announce that materials are being
gathered for a biography^, shortly to appear, of Father Fidelis of the Cross — James Kent Stone.
Father Felix Ward, C.P. in lieu of special articles, Will contribute a number of
advanced chapters from the book on which he has been engaged during the past four
))ears — "Passionists in America, Sketches Historical and Personal".
The department of fiction Will be cohered by such Well-knoWn authors as Padre
Coloma, S. J., John Ay^scough, Gabriel Francis Powers and others.
The monthly publication of letters from the Passionist Fathers who have recently
set out for China will enable SIGN readers to keep themselves informally in touch with
latest developments in the present day movement in the Catholic Church of America
towards the Chinese Mission Fields.
To the instructional pages already featured will be added neW columns succinctly
treating of Church History; also, of sociological and economical topics along lines
mapped out by the N.C.W.C. These will be conducted by accredited specialists in
these departments.
THE SIGN, in conclusion, wishes its many patrons a happy and prosperous NeW Year.
2
I MMM5Z
v ^ffsftrSfiEi
The Epipharpj) of the Passion
Tke Savior King
Herbert McDevitt, C. P.
ON two occasions our Divine Savior Jesus
Christ was publicly proclaimed King of
the Jews. Soon after His birth, the Wise
Men from the East journeyed to Jerusalem
inquiring: "Where is He that is born King of the
Jews?" The manifestation of Christ to these three
pilgrim Gentiles is now commemorated under the
title of the Epiphany. After many years, Our Lord
carried His cross through the streets of Jerusalem
and was crucified on the hill of Calvary. Then
Pontius Pilate wrote a title, we are told, in Hebrew,
Greek, and Latin, so none would fail to understand
the superscription : "Jesus of Nazareth, King of the
Jews." This was the Epiphany of the Passion, the
second manifestation of Christ the Savior to the
world.
In both events Our Blessed Lord is called the
King of the Jews. With some knowledge of the
Sacred Passion, one may go to Bethlehem with
the Wise Men and adore the Son of God in the arms
of His immaculate Mother and offer Him gifts.
With the incidents of the Epiphany in mind, one
may ascend the slope of Golgotha and like the Wise
Men kneel in adoration before Christ Crucified and
present gifts to Him. In the Epiphany of the Pas-
sion as in the Epiphany of the Crib, it is Christ
the King and Savior of the world, Who commands
the reverence of mankind.
The circumstances of the Epiphany of the
Infant Redeemer are thus related by St. Matthew
in the second chapter of his Gospel. "When Jesus
was born in Bethlehem of Juda, in the days of King
Herod, behold there came Wise Men from the East
to Jerusalem, saying : 'Where is He that is born King
of the Jews? For we have seen his star in the
East, and have come to adore Him." The Evangelist
tells us that King Herod was troubled and all
Jerusalem with him on hearing of the birth of a
king.
Calling together the chief priests and scribes
of the people, the king anxiously inquired where the
expected Messias should be born. They replied in
the words of the Prophet Micheas that Bethlehem
of Juda would be the place. Herod asked the three
Wise Men privately about the wonderful star, which
had guided them thither, and failing to glean the
information he coveted as to the whereabouts of the
the Child, craftily instructed them to continue their
journey to Bethlehem. Seek diligently for the child,
he said, and when you have found Him, return that
I may also go and see Him.
The Wise Men quitted the presence of Herod
and his court to resume their journey to Bethlehem.
Once more the star shining brightly went before them
until it stood above the place where the Child was.
Entering the grotto, they found the Infant Jesus,
nestling on a bed of straw, His immaculate Mother
kneeling over Him, and by her side the silent
Joseph. Falling down they adored the Child King,
Whom faith had told them was the Messias, God
Incarnate. Thereupon opening their treasures they
spread before Him costly gifts of gold, frankincense,
and myrrh.
Admonished from on high that they should not
return to Herod the Wise Men followed a different
route back to their own country. An Angel then
appeared to Joseph whilst he was asleep, warning
him of impending danger to the Holy family. With
all haste Joseph took the Child and His Mother and
fled into Egypt; for as he knew, Herod was seeking
the Child to destroy Him. In truth, the cruel
tyrant sent a company of soldiers to Bethlehem with
instructions to slaughter every male child under two
years of age. Thus, amid scenes of blood, lamenta-
tion, and death, ended the first Epiphany.
XT may be truly said that the Sacred Passion
of Christ was graphically foreshadowed in
the Epiphany of Bethlehem. His own people,
the Jews, that one day would cry out: "Away with
Him! Crucify Him! We have no king but Caesar!"
even at the time of His birth, ignored Him; whilst
three Strangers from afar must needs travel perilous
roads to welcome and to worship Him. All Jerusa-
lem indeed was troubled at the time of the Savior's
birth, but no man accompanied the Wise Men to
find the King of the Jews. As the Apostle St. John
well expresses it: "He came unto His own, and His
own received Him not."
When the Wise Men discovered the Child and
THE 1* SIGN
His Mother, did they ask the question, which in after
years would be heard in Pilate's Hall: "Art Thou
a king?" Did they read in the helplessness,
poverty, and humility of the Holy Child, the truth
which He in the fullness of His years would enunci-
ate for future ages: "My kingdom is not of this
world?'' The Wise Men beheld His Sacred Body
trembling from weakness and from cold, as one day
It was destined to trem-
ble beneath the cutting
lash. They, blessed with
wisdom and with wealth,
blushed not to prostrate
themselves before Him;
but a day would come,
alas! when the meanest
among men would dare
to crown Him with a
crown of thorns, and
bending the knee in moc-
kery would raucously
shout: "Hail, king of the
Jews!" The Wise Men
opened their treasures
and offered gifts of gold,
frankincense, and myrrh
to their Infant King.
How different, on a time,
it would be when heart-
less men would make
ready for Him the cross,
the nails, and the sponge
soaked with vinegar and
gall!
To flee the danger
of King Herod's mad
jealousy, Joseph sped
into Egypt with the
Child and His Mother;
an hour would come
when the frenzied jeal-
ousy of His own fellow-citizens would nail this
same sweet Babe to the Cross of shame. The Wise
Men did not ask: "Where is He that will be the
king of the Jews?" But they demanded to know,
with a confidence accounted for only by supernatural
inspiration "Where is He that is born King of the
Jews?" Thus in no uncertain terms did they pro-
claim the royal blood of the Babe of Bethlehem;
thus they were the first to declare the truth, which
Pilate was to publicly flaunt before the eyes of the
Ingratitude
"K"
Those fools in garbs of scarlet d^es,
Poor sinners flashing lustful e$es,
Incant a prayer of Kate and glee:
"Wkat have we to do witk Thee,
TKou wkite robed Christ?"
But let ill-fortune freeze their lust,
They seek the hem that skirts the dust
Where sinners slouch and beggers grcpe
They" snatch at Him, their passing hope,
Their White robed Christ.
They take from Him the cure implored,
They revel in their strength restored;
They1 slink away, for they are free:
"What further need have we of Thee,
Thou white robed Christ?"
They strip Him of His seamless dress,
They mock His modest nakedness,
And shrieking nail him to the tree:
"What have w>e to do with Thee,
Thou pale faced Christ?"
world, against the protest of the chief priests, by
affixing to the Cross the official sign : "Jesus of
Nazareth, King of the Jews."
^^=^HE Strangers from the East came to Judea,
^SJ seeking the King of the Jews; because, said
they, "we have seen His star in the East,
and are come to adore Him." A star is the recog-
nized symbol of Judaism
and is displayed above
every synagogue, i n
much the same manner
as the cross surmounts
every true Christian
church. Judaism is the
religion of the Old Tes-
tament, the worship of
God as commanded in
the Law, the Psalms, and
the Prophets. Now, St.
Luke tells us in the last
chapter of his Gospel
that these were the very
books which Christ Him-
self quoted, when in-
structing His Apostles
concerning His Passion
and Death.
The Jews, therefore,
were not without a star
of heavenly origin, a star
which, had it been heed-
ed, would have led them
to the Cave of Bethle-
hem. This star was none
other than the luminous
testament of their own
holy books — the Law,
the Psalms, and the Pro-
phets. This star vouch-
safed to the Jews would
not have forsaken them at Bethlehem ; it would have
guided them on through all the stages of the Savior's
life, even to His death upon the cross. In the light
of this star, they would have seen the truth of the
Governor's proclamation: "Jesus of Nazareth, King
of the Jews." They would have beheld in the riven
form of the Nazarene the Descendant of the royal
house of David, the Desired of the Prophets, the
Expected of Nations, the Savior of the World.
Epiphany denotes a revelation of the attributes
THE + SIGN
of Christ's Divinity. Such there was in Bethlehem;
for when the Wise Men found the Child, they knelt
before Him in adoration and worshiped Him. Such
there is, but in a larger measure, in His Sacred
Passion. Here the Divinity of Christ shines in full
effulgence. His silence, His patience, His modesty,
His meekness, His humility, His obedience, His
whole demeanor, proclaim Him more than man, and
so superior, in sooth, that the pagan governor Pontius
Pilate is constrained to ask: "Whence art Thou?"
So strong is the suffering Christ's manifestation of
His Divinity that even in the midst of His dereliction
on Calvary, His Eternal Sonship is declared by the
voice of the centurion: "Truly this was a Just Man.
He was indeed the son of God!"
Tradition pictures the Wise Men, who adored
the Divine Child in Bethlehem, as Kings, who
returned to their domains to preach the salvation and
peace, which the Savior brought to earth. Like unto
them, three men were privileged to stand on Calvary
and by openly professing their belief in the Man of
Sorrows attained to the kingship of Christ. Dismas,
the Good Thief, who was crucified with Him, spoke
out in defense of His innocence and prayed: "Lord,
remember me, when Thou shalt come into Thy
kingdom." Thus did he offer to his Savior the
incense of his prayer. When the dying Jesus cried
out with a loud voice, with a cry such as might
have gone forth from a man in the full vigor of
strength : "It is finished" the Roman centurion,
amazed, exclaimed: "Indeed, this was the Son of
God!" Thus did he proffer his Redeemer the gold
of a generous faith. The wealthy Jew, Joseph of
Arimaihea, went boldly to Pilate and demanded
the Sacred Body of Christ and reverently taking it
from the Cross, placed it in his own newly hewn
monument. Thus did Joseph of Arimathea truly
give to his Crucified Lord the gift of myrrh.
HAITH teaches that for the Wise Men, who
Raveled to Bethlehem, as well as for the
staunch disciples, who stood beneath the
Cross, there took place yet another Epiphany — an
Epiphany, which shall be never-ending — the glorious
fruition of God, "face to face," in Heaven.
Their mission of faith accomplished, the Wise
Men evaded the enemies of the Child, going back
to their own country by unfamiliar but less hazard-
ous roads. Many there were, who in idle apathetic
mood swelled the throng on Calvary, and who
returned to their homes shrinking contact with the
ribald mob to live their lives anew. No man can
witness Christ's manifestation of Himself either in
the Crib or on the Cross and withstand the appeal,
without being endued with a new spirit of aloofness
from the sordid things of time.
Close not your eyes, ye who yearn for light and
peace, to the Epiphany which Christ Jesus vouch-
safes at every step of His earthly sojourn. Would
you be wise ? Ponder much the counsels which
radiate from the Person of the Word Made Flesh.
Flee the old, accustomed haunts of sin. Seek out
the new and safer paths, which upward lead to the
ecstatic joy of the beatific vision of The Eternal —
the Epiphany of "The King of Kings, and Lord of
Lords."
Violets
Placidus M. Endler, C. P.
Tkis is the history, and it is true,
Of the sweet little Violets' heavenly1 hue:
Blithe Baby Jesus once placed hide — and — seek,
— This was at Nazareth xtfhen He could speak. -
Played vJith His playmates small, — O it was fun
Hiding in corners avJay from the sun!
Each time He waited His bright ej)es of blue
Laughed tiny tears and they fell and they grew.
Hilaire Belloc
Defender of the Faith
Louis H. Wetmore
^^^^HE stout and magnificent Gilbert Chester-
m C} ton, Hilaire Belloc's boon companion of
^^^V the old fighting days in London, those
days which brought the two into promi-
nence and touched them in the eyes of the British
public with the unfading light of high romance, has
said that when he first met Belloc, the friend who
introduced them remarked that Belloc was in low
spirits. But Belloc's low spirits were and are much
more uproarious and enlivening than anybody else's
high spirits. He talked to Chesterton far into the
night and left behind in it a glowing track of good
things "When I have said that," comments
'G. K. C.,' "I mean things that are really good
and certainly not merely bons mots. I have said
all that can be said in the most serious aspect about
the man who has made the greatest fight for good
things of all the men of my time.."
My own experience in meeting Belloc was the
same as Chesterton's. Whenever one meets Belloc
one stands on the brink of high adventure. With
him the unexpected always happens. Theologically
speaking, it would not be correct to say that with
him the miraculous always happens; but certainly
things extraordinary occur to him and to you when-
ever you are in his company.
As Gilbert Chesterton is the laziest man on earth,
so Belloc is the most active. He does not simply
go from place to place. He flies from one place to
another. I have suspected him of a power like unto
that wielded by Joseph of Copertino in getting rapid-
ly from place to place. He is always where he
isn't expected. He often turns up when you do not
expect him. And, be it said in mild criticism, often
does not turn up when you do expect him. There is
no doubt that he has walked over most of Europe
and part of Africa — proof of this is in his books,
"The Path to Rome," "Esto Perpetua," "The Pyre-
nees," "The Four Men," etc. Yet in all my experi-
ence of him, I never saw him walk anywhere.
Whenever I saw him outside the four walls of a
house he was taxi-ing at reckless speed hither and
thither. Chesterton professes love of the hansom-
cab, and the leisurely gait of the cab-horse; though
since the morning he was hurled into space from
one of these doubtful vehicles, his devotion for them
has waned. Belloc has written feelingly of the
virtues of hansom cabs. But he moves in taxis. I
suspect at times that he lives in taxis. If I had not
with mine own eyes seen him in his house in Sussex,
I would believe that delightful mansion a mere myth.
XHAVE said that Belloc always moves "in"
a taxi. I should, perhaps, have said "out"
of a taxi. He is always out of a taxi in the
sense that he is always hanging out of the window
urging the driver to greater speed or advising him
expertly as to shorter cuts through the twisted ways
of London. He is an expert in finding short cuts,
through the twisted ways of London. He is an
expert in finding short cuts, through philosophical
tangles as well as through the streets of the English
metropolis. There is driving force in the man that
gets him to a place while others are painfully strug-
gling on the way.
Now what is this Belloc, this half of that weird
Catholic animal dubbed The Chesterbelloc by
Bernard Shaw (to indicate the inseparableness of
the two friends and their continued agreement
through long years on most fundamentals and acci-
dentals of thought) ? He is a poet. He is an
historian. He is an artist in black and white. He
is an essayist. He is a critic of wars and military
tactics and affairs. He is or has been a soldier, a
Member of the British Parliament, editor of the
daily and weekly press, a University professor,
lecturer on private and public platforms, writer of
books of history, biography, travel, pilgrimage, art
criticism, literary criticism, books for children in
verse and prose, etc., etc. There is hardly a field
of human endeavor he has not touched and, in the
touching, glorified.
Let me sketch briefly his origins and career. His
career is the story of a swift, dogmatic and intense
life.
There is a plentiful amount of soldierly blood in
Belloc's veins. Four of his great-uncles were
generals under Napoleon I. One of them was lost
on the retreat from Moscow. Another died at the
age of thirty-three at Waterloo. To turn back to
THE + SIGN
the father of his grandmother, we find an interesting
person in Colonel Swanton of the Irish brigade in
the service of France. Belloc thus has Irish blood
in him as well as English and French, though even
Swanton 's Irish descent must have been remote at
the time he fought with Marshal Soult at Corunna,
and secured as "spoil" after the battle the two
pistols of Sir John Moore (immortalized in English
verse through Charles Wolfe's poem). This inter-
esting man was
certainly unique
in this : that while
he wore the red
coat of the Brit-
ish army (which,
oddly enough, the
Irish brigade in
French service al-
ways clung to),
he wore also the
Croix de S. Louis
which he had won
under the Bour-
bons, as well as
the Legion of
Honor which he
had won under
Napoleon as Em-
peror! His son,
by name Armand,
was wounded as a
captain at Water-
loo fighting Prus-
sians and English.
His daughter in
turn, Louise Marie
Swanton, was well
known in Anglo-
French society,
and her great ling-
ual gifts made her
the natural trans-
later into French
of Moore's "Life of Byron," "Uncle Tom's Cabin,"
and some of Dickens' novels. Louise Marie Swan-
ton's husband was an artist, Hilaire Belloc the
elder, son of a planter of Martinique. There is
a portrait of him in the Louvre, and there is a bust
of him as artist and curator in the Luxembourg
gallery.
At the age of nine this elder Hilaire saw
HILAIRE BELLOC
Robespierre on the way to the guillotine! Their
sori, Louis Swanton Belloc, a lawyer by profession,
married at the famous Catholic church in Spanish
Place, London, in 1867, the very year of her conver-
sion to the Faith, Bessie Raynor Parkes, daughter
of Joseph Parkes, a well known figure among the
group of philosophic Radicals of the time of Lord
John Russell and John Stuart Mill. As grand-
daughter of the famous Joseph Priestly, the dis-
coverer of oxygen,
she was welcomed
by a high circle
of literary and
Catholic culture,
and was the friend
of Montalembert
and Dupanloup on
the one hand, and
of Browning and
Rossetti on the
other. A great
part of her life
was spent travel-
ling in Europe
seeking health for
her husband, who
died when
Belloc was
years old.
"Hilary1
jilbert Chesterton
always calls him,
insisting on the
Anglicization of
his name), was
born at Marly-le-
Roi, a little town
near Paris, on
July 27th, 1870.
Thus he was born
in the year of
French degrada-
tion and defeat.
One of the greatest consolations of his life, as I
well know, is the fact that he has lived to see that
year's disgrace fade into the glorious victory of
1918. His mother was forty-two years old when he
was born, and after her husband's death two years
later, she moved herself and her son and family to
England, where she settled in Sussex, the county of
all beautiful English counties which Belloc loves
our
two
(as
THE 1* SIGN
best, and where he still lives; the county of which
he has sung so rhapsodically in many of his poems.
(I quote but one verse from many:
"But the men that live in the South country
Are the kindest and most wise.
They get their laughter from the loud surf,
And the faith in their happy eyes
Comes surely from our Sister, the Spring
When over the sea she flies;
The violets suddenly bloom at her feet,
She blesses us with surprise."
aBSORBED in the beauties of Sussex during
his youth, when Belloc became of age for
schooling, he was sent to the Oratory School
at Edgbaston over which Cardinal Newman paternal-
ly "presided" and whom Belloc well remembers.
When he left the Oratory School, it was a moot
question whether he would announce the retention
of his French citizenship by serving his three years
in the French army, in which so many of his an-
cestors had fought. This was not of obligation.
Being the only son of a widow, the French law on
military service did not bind in his case. But there
was little hesitation. That interest in and instinct
for military affairs, which had been one of the
supreme canalizers of his life, sent him across the
Channel to serve under the Tricolor. He served his
three years in the Gallic military machine as a
gunner, and not a very good gunner at that according
to his own confession; years wherein he lived rough
and had for companionship but his nine companion
gunners and the gun. He was free in 1890; yet
his military experience tinged his whole life. What
man who has served three years under military
discipline and in the companionship of arms can ever
live the same life as before or be the same man?
With his discharge of 'service rendered' in his hand,
the ink but dry, he went up to Oxford to complete
his education, where he gained by way of entrance
examinations the greatest of scholastic prizes, a
Balliol Brackenbury Scholarship.
There was nothing of the wan, pale, aesthetic
bespectacled student about Belloc. This man, whose
scholarship ranks with the ripest of our time, rode,
walked, sang, fought, debated, made a great deal
of unnecessary noise and indulged in many unneces-
sary pranks; expressed admiration for crowds of
friends, a good dinner, good wine, and especially
Washington ale. He also expressed an extreme
dislike of Dons. He was the most prominent of
Balliol men; that is, the most prominent undergradu-
ate in Oxford. His sharp criticisms of his teachers
and his fellow students — he fought the redoubtable
Jewett in his lair — his witticisms, were tossed with
delight from one college to another and were the
intellectual stimulus of the undergraduates and the
pain of the Dons of his four student years. Yet
amid all this popularity and clamor he found time
to carry off a "First in History" and other important
prizes and scholastic awards.
ON graduating he devoted himself to putting
to immediate use the historical knowledge
he had gleaned at the University, coupled
with that extraordinary knowledge and appreciation
of European topography, culled while tramping over
all Europe and part of Africa. He sprang historical
"surprises" such as explaining adequately for the
first time the real reason for the French Revolution-
ary armies at Valmy. He wrote his great bio-
graphies of "Danton," "Robespierre," and later
"Marie Antonette," the quintessence of which is
concentrated and wonderfully composed in his suc-
cessful and ever popular history of the French Rev-
lution IE the Home University Library. He became
in time literary editor of the "Morning Post," the
great Conservative and later "Unionist" and Ulster-
supporting daily of London. (An odd place to find
this democrat and staunch defender of Irish republi-
canism) ! He contributed to that journal in great
part those gay and irrepressible essays that were
later gathered together in such volumes as "First
and Last Things," "On Nothing," "On Everything,"
"On Something," etc. He published satirical novels
on the corruption in English political life — such as
"Mr. Clutterbuck's Election," "Emanuel Burden,"
and "Pongo and the Bull." He was later on to
become Member of Parliament from Salford and
to denounce the politicians in brief but pithy
speeches in the Mother of Parliaments itself.
I cannot dwell on all his books — space and
the editors forbid — but in passing, I must mention
those wonderful little historical vignettes gathered
under the title of "The Eye-Witness," which no
other historian in England could have given us. Nor
must I omit those delightful books of travel and
pilgrimage, by which he is most popularly known,
the exquisite and gay "Path to Rome," "The Four
Men," "Esto Perpetua," "Hills and the Sea," and
"The Pyrenees." There are also his series on the
historic landways and waterways of England, "The
THE 1* SIGN
Historic Thames," "The Old Road," and "Stane
Street." Not to pass over lightly (for how can one
omit anything since all are important?) his volumes
on Paris and other cities, mingled with his study
of the Bayeaux Tapestry and his volume of critical
essays on the poetry of the early French Renais-
sance. In this country he is now, perhaps, best
known by his recently published volume "Europe
and the Faith" in which the gift of historical detail
and perspective, coupled with a militant Catholicism,
are best shown, especially in the ending to the
volume: "Europe is the Faith and the Faith is
Europe. Europe will return to the Faith or Europe
will perish."
^^=^HE post-University and pre-marital period of
K^J his life ended in his voyage to America, and
out to California, at the age of twenty-five,
where he met the charming Californian lady who
became his wife; and his settling in the parish of
Shipley, near Horsham, Sussex. From this home
he has planned and executed those fierce raids
against the atheist and Protestant Dons of the
Universities, against the politicians and literary
quacks and perverters of European history; raids
and a warfare which have aroused the bitter ire of
the "authorities" in schools and press and the bull-
ring of politics, and led to frequent attempts to
suppress him. But Belloc is irrepressible. He
waved aside their conspiracies and attacks and
raided their territories again. (Certainly he deserves
the title of Fidei Defensor more than the present
King of England!) He has brought the Ages of
Faith, their creed and philosophy, into the Twentieth
Century — an unpardonable affront to modern jacka-
nape learning! He attacked in book and in the
columns of his weekly paper "The Eye-Witness"
(later "The New Witness" under the editorship of
the late Cecil Chesterton, "G. K. C.'s" younger
brother) religious quacks and professorial blunder-
ers in the science of history, corrupters of politics
and still more corrupt newspaper editors, the nou-
veau riches (his particular bete noir) and others of
the like ilk. The men and women in power—
these suicidal modern thinkers and would-be states-
men who pervert the past, corrupt the present and
endanger the future — did all within their power to
destroy his reputation with the public as historian,
editor, and economist. Yet he swept them all aside
and himself into a still more public fame and popu-
larity in 1914, when he appeared on public platforms
throughout all of England, and in the columns of
"Land and Water," as the premier military critic
of the late war.
He did not want to be a mere critic of the war.
He wished to take part in the war. He tried to be
sent to the front as a combatant, though above
serviceable age. But "they" would not have him
there. He knew too much ; had too sharp eyes and
too sharp a tongue. Those in authority love only
the blind and the lame around them. I have in my
possession a letter of his in which he says : "I am
trying to be sent to the front. But some enemy is
preventing it. But I may be able to go through
the French Embassy here." That wish was never
granted
The first time I met Belloc he arrived in a taxi.
I believe that he had taken that taxi all the way
from his house in Sussex up to London — a matter
of a mere forty or fifty miles, you know! He came
into my room at a London hotel. The door flew open
and he was there. He was (this in 1914) strongly
built, almost stout (he has lost in later middle age
the handsome features and the slim figure of the
early days) — with the forward lunge of the orator,
full of gesture and animation. He has a round
French head pillared on a thick neck, denoting
energy. His expression is open, generous, serious
and determined. The mouth has evidently been
closed with a snap. Wide eyes, of the type that are
called "direct." In his dress there is a certain
negligence, yet it fully indicates his social position.
Nothing "Bohemian" about him or of that picturesque
sloppiness manifest in the portly Chesterton; a
man of the upper middle class or the lower upper
class, as you will. Cavalierly but decently dressed.
He looks better in morning dress. In the high hat of
fashion and the striped trousers and long coat of
London afternoon teas, Sunday mornings in Hyde
Park or luncheons at the Ritz, he is unimpressive.
(I once saw him dressed in this manner, and irresis-
tably yet oddly enough he reminded me of an
undertaker!) He gives the impression of mature
self-respect, which appears also in his conversation,
though at times he gives way to irritation and bit-
ternesses in talk, end even vulgar phraseology when
aroused by sham or hypocrisy or anger. Save
when suppressing an adversary in debate, public
or private, which he does with an irony that hurts,
his speech has little violence, though much anima-
tion and vigor. There is a tang as of salt in his
character. He cannot hide his vigor, his opinions
THE 1* SIGN
or his determination. He gives no sense of repose.
His voice is loud even when he himself is subdued.
It is of the kind that fills great halls, deep and
almost hostile.
His faults are manifestly on the surface. He
is at times too idealistic (though fundamentally a
pessimist in mental make-up), too much absorbed
in the immediate matter on hand. Being an idealist
he is naturally intolerant, especially of stupidity
(a great many people are d — fools, apparently!).
He is too full of an emphasis and energy that
produce sudden oaths, over-strained action, a
rhetoric filled with ferocious adjectives. Nervous,
high strung, splendidly witty and amusing, full of
laughter and fun, loyal to friends and with intense
love of them and their company. Who can doubt
that latter statement who knows him or who has
read his poem to the Balliol men in Africa during
the Boer War?
At that meeting we grasped hands, expressed
mutual pleasure at being acquainted, and arranged
to meet again in a few days time at his country
house at Horsham. He was out of the room a
moment later — downstairs : a few seconds later a
taxicab whirred away from the hotel door.
(That man's taxi bills must be enormous!)
X VISITED him in due course at his country
house. I went much in the spirit of a pil-
grimage. I owe much to Belloc. To him
and to Gilbert Chesterton I really owe my conver-
sion to the Faith. I wondered what this Bellocian
home would be like. I could not imagine. I was
not disappointed. A low-lying house hidden in trees
yet rather abruptly on the road. A hard house to
get to — miles away from any railroad station. I
had to taxi some ten miles from the nearest station
to reach it. It is different in all respects from
Chesterton's house at Beaconsfield, Buckingham-
shire, which is but a few hundred yards from his
station. But then Chesterton would never reach
his station from his house if any distance away.
He would be too lazy to start, or if he did start for
it, he would lose his way. Fortunately for Chester-
ton, one merely rolls down a hill from his back door
and one hits the station. (The station at Beacons-
field shows splendid dents where "G. K. C." has
literally rolled down from his back door in gigantic
haste to catch a train for which he was, as always,
very late.) The Chestertons' house is a brick house,
too small for him (possibly because he dwarfs the
rooms thereof by his great size.) Belloc's is an
old Elizabethan house — at least in appearance — and
just the right size.
ON arrival one tumbles out of a taxi and into
the "hall" by way of the front door. (At
Chesterton's house I always went in through
the back door: it was the first door I came to.)
Here mine host greets one with an offer of "a glass
of really good wine — bottle it myself — from France."
The wine is good. The "hall", a large square room,
is also the library, filled from ceiling to floor with
books. There are hundreds of books. Belloc lives
on books and with books, makes his living writing
books; yet is in no way a bookish person in the
bookwormy sense.
We pass into the study, a small room on the left
of the hall, in which a woman typist is very busy
typewriting. There is a profusion of papers and
manuscripts all over the desk. Belloc offers me the
services of his stenographer should I care to write
an article or so during the few hours I shall be with
him! But I am not there for work; and articles do
not "happen" to me so spontaneously and inspira-
tionally as they do to Belloc, who will dash off a
few by dictation before breakfast. I refuse the
offer. We go upstairs, and he shows me his wife's
room, untouched since her death. (There is a tragedy
here.) Next comes the quaint chapel with Our
Blessed Lord present in His Tabernacle; for Belloc
has the great privlege of reservation of the Blessed
Sacrament in his home. Belloc is above all else a
Catholic — a thorough-going, militant, devout Catho-
lic. And his home is a Catholic home, blessed with
children. (His boy was away at school at Down-
side Abbey, but two charming daughters of nine or
ten were there.) The whole house with its Elizabe-
than architecture and Jacobean touches reminded me
instinctively of the homes of the Catholic squires of
the times of bad Queen Bess, when Catholic men
and women lived in terror of pursuivants and where
hunted priests sought refuge. There may not be
priests' hiding holes in Belloc's house — I saw none.
But the whole atmosphere of the place suggests
them emphatically
I have not space in this article to do more than
give this brief personal sketch of "H. B.", with a
resume of his antecedents and his surroundings. I
cannot delve into criticism and appreciations of his
literary style or his economic and philosophic views.
One could easily write a volume of five hundred
THE t SIGN
pages about Belloc and still leave much unsaid. Nor
can I here narrate some of the adventures I have had
with him and brother Chesterton — such as the extra-
ordinary adventure of Chesterton's hat, which was
lost and searched for all over London, only to be
found at last on its owner's head!
The difficulty is : to sum up Belloc in a phrase.
To sum up in a phrase is to emphasize the dominant
note in a man's work: it is to select the salient
point of his philosophy. When you say that Belloc
is a Catholic in all his writings and in all his doings,
you say much and explain much. But you can say
the same thing of many writers. Belloc's work is
too diversified to be expressed in a few concise
words. To attempt to appreciate him at all
adequately, it is necessary to analyze every one of
his writings.
^tt^ITH this warning, I shall attempt to find — if
\ll it can be found — the central and dominating
interest of his life, the prime key to his
activity. I think that this can be found, with
modifications, in the fact that he is primarily an
historian. History is his dominant passion and the
most important field for his work. To him history
is the touchstone to life. If one knows the history
of the world, one knows the way out of present
difficulties through judging the experiences of men
in the past under more or less similar circumstances.
History does not repeat itself. But a sufficent
number of almost similar occurances recur through-
out the historic ages to warrant using them as a
criterion of present conduct. The impartial historian
is the great democrat. He allows the dead to vote
with the living on every question that occurs for
modern solution.
The guideposts of modern men are all too often
but question marks. Too many modern philosophers,
like William James, Bergson, and Balfour ask more
questions than they give answers, and suggest more
difficulties than they give solutions. God to the
Modern remains mute to Man's queries, and assumes
fantastic shapes in the writings of Shaw and Wells.
Tradition and authority, which are based on true
historical knowledge, and which are respectively the
taking of the ballots of the dead and of the living,
are ignored in modern philosophical and historical
writings. But Belloc has complete Catholicity of
outlook. His reverence for tradition and authority
are cardinal points in all his approaches to the
troublesome problems of the day. By way of
history Belloc stands on the mountains of the great
achievements of the past and sees and criticizes the
molehills of present day achievements. He is no
friend of "re-action" in the vulgar sense. But he
maintains solidly that the future must contain the
results of the great achievements of the Roman and
Middle Ages, which achievements can be judged and
applied to present wants only through the medium
and use of history.
Even a casual glance through a book of his
essays will reveal what I am here emphasizing. In
his collection of essays entitled "On Anything"
appear these lines :
"History may be called the test of true philoso-
phy, or it may be called in a very modern and not
very dignified metaphor the object-lesson of political
science, or it may be called the great story whose
interest is upon another plane from all other stories
because its irony, its tragedy and its moral are real,
were acted by real men, and were the manifestation
of God."
The Catholic historian in Britain has always
lived under intense suspicion. Lingard is not read
in Protestant Universities, and is ignored by the
mass of educated Protestant people. Even poor old
Acton, that pathetic figure, who secured much of his
historic learning through Protestant and especially
Lutheran folios, is vaguely suspected of being in
some dark manner allied with the Jesuits. Acton
was partially admitted into Protestant intellectual
circles because of his smug Whig bias and the sus-
picion that he wasn't a very good Catholic after all.
Lingard, as I have said, was ignored. Belloc they
have tried to ignore, these Protestant and atheist
Dons and Professors. But the real triumph of the
man has been this: that in spite of their effort to
ignore him, they have been unable to keep silence
about him. He has forced them into the open and
has forced recognition of his historic genius from
the darkest dens of Oxford "learning." He says
frankly on every page of his writings: "I am a
Catholic. I believe in the dogmas of the Church of
Rome." This would have killed enthusiasm and
reverence among the English public for any other
historic writer. Belloc almost alone among modern
English Catholic writers has caught the attention of
Protestant England and America and held it.
Saints and Sinners
Luis Coloma, S. J.
Copyrighted 1921, by The Sign
Chapter 1
"^^^>HE two towers of the College were like
d (T\ arrows piercing the serene sky, of that blue
^l J which spreads over Madrid during the first
^^^days of the
month of June. The
greenness of the Col-
lege garden made it
seem an emerald fal-
len in the sand of a
desert, an oasis of li-
lacs starting to wither
and of lilies commenc-
ing their bloom, all
lost in the arid plain
that stretches on all
sides around the Col-
lege to the Court of
Spain. One could
hear the happy voices
of the children inside
the buildings, and the
chirping of the linnets
in the trees, mingling
with the sound of soft
fountains playing.
Outside the College
gates there was nei-
ther water nor chil-
dren; only the bleak
plain and, far away on
the horizon, Madrid
and the Court of
Spain, the towers of
the city just appear-
ing in that faint mist
which gathers on dis-
tant horizons, a vapor
which arises from
great cities like the
haze that comes from
a stagnant pool.
JI/ITH this issue of THE SIGN begins
yy the first installment of SAINTS
AND SINNERS, a novel by the dis-
tinguished Spanish lesuit, Father Luis
Coloma.. In SAINTSAND SINNERS, the
author draws for us a picture of contempor-
ary Spanish life. It is the peculiar merit of
this novel, a merit which stamps it at once as
one of the great works of the period, that in
giving a picture of social conditions in Spain,
it is accurately mirroring conditions that
exist in the whole of Western Civilization.
The scene might have been set in New
York or London, as well as in the Spanish
metropolis. Beneath Spanish features and
Spanish names are to be found both Saints
and Sinners, such as we meet at our own
door. Father Luis Coloma, S. J., is a mem-
ber of the Royal Spanish Academy. He,
not Ibanez, is Spain's greatest novelist. He
is something more than a romancer. He is
pre-eminently the missionary, whose know-
ledge of the human heart is such as is had
only by the priest. He writes not merely to
entertain, much less to debase, but to con-
vey a wholesome lesson, which will save
the unwary from the many snares that are
set for their feet.
The singular charm of the original
Spanish has been retained in the English
translation, owing to the good fortune of
THE SIGN in having Thomas Walsh as
translator. Mr. Walsh is the official trans-
lator of the Spanish-American Society.
Mr. Louis H. Wetmore, former literary
editor of The New York TIMES, is editing
the translation.
J^rllS day the Col-
IJ lege was clos-
^■"^ ing. The distri-
bution of the school prizes had taken place, and the
time had now come for leave taking. On every side
were heard gay good-byes, congratulations and mess-
ages; mothers and fathers and children moving
hither and thither in great confusion, invading all
the rooms of the College; everything mingling in
that tumultuous delight gathered into the magic
word " Vacation" wh ich
awakens joy in the
student of all ages.
The Commence-
ment had been most
brilliant. A platform,
set at the lower end of
a long hall, was occu-
pied by some hundred
students of the Col-
lege, in their blue and
silver uniforms; they
were searching with
bright eyes and red
cheeks for fathers,
mothers, sisters, bro-
thers, who were in
other parts of the hall
as witnesses of their
triumphs. The plat-
form was dominated
by a splendid picture
of the Mater Dolorosa,
Our Lady of Sorrow-
ful Remembrance, pa-
troness of the College.
Presiding over the
ceremonies, the Car-
dinal Archbishop of
Toledo sat at the right
surrounded by the
Rector and teachers of
the College.
The rest of the
hall was filled with
parents and relatives
of the children, Gran-
dees of Spain next to
the merchant's wife,
all contented and hap-
py and taking in the
scene with manifest
enjoyment. The orchestra opened the ceremonies
with the overture from "Semiramis." The Rector
of the College, the glory and honor of the Society
to which he belonged, commenced a short speech,
THE *f SIGN
which he could not conclude. Looking at the mass
of little brown and light haired boys, crowded to-
gether like the angels of a Murillo masterpiece,
he began to stammer. Tears broke in upon his
speech : —
"I am not crying because you are leaving but
because so very many of you will never return,"
he said.
The little heads shook vigorous negatives, and
spontaneous applause came from two hundred little
hands, as a protest against his words, which forced
the old man to smile through his tears. The Prefect
of the College now read the list of the pupils who
had received the coveted prizes. These, bashful,
blushing, yet proud, rose and went forward to
receive their medals and diplomas from the hands
of the Archbishop, while their companions applaud-
ed loudly, and fathers' and mothers' eyes lighted
up with love and pride in the triumph of their
children.
DOW the exercises seemed to have reached a
logical conclusion and the Archbishop was
about to rise to give the blessing, when a
child as exquisite and fair as one of Fra Angelico's
angels, came forward to the center of the platform.
In the splendor of his youth and innocence was
achieved that aristocratic and delicately shaded
quality which in the children of fine families attracts
and subjugates.
Amid a profound silence all movement ceased.
The boy then turned toward the picture of Our
Lady of Sorrows and in an angel's voice commenced
to recite:
0 sweet remembrance of the past,
Thy blessing on thy sons departing;
O Virgin Sorrowful, at last
Receive our farewell tear-drops starting,
And pray remember me!
A movement as of applause came from the
group of children as though they would give assent
to these sentiments. The parents did not applaud:
they listened immovable. The boy took two steps
forward and lifting his little hands before his
breast, continued quietly:
The world, they say, a garden fair,
Conceals an asp beneath each flower;
In sweetest fruit lurks poison there;
Mid earthly tides the sharp rocks glower.
And why should such things be?
They say for gold and idle fame
Men's hearts grown faithless, cold and mean,
Dry up their springs of love, in blame
To God and country traitors seen, —
And why should such things be ?
They say that for life's painful thorn
They would embrace but joy and feast :
That hence thy sorrow there are born
The tears thy lovely eyes released —
And why should such things be ?
QMONG the mothers some blushed as though
their consciences spoke through the boy's
lips. Several men bowed their heads, and
one old man said to another: "Quite true! Yes,
yes!" The child himself seemed moved as an angel
might be stirred at the sight of so much human
misery. He shooked his head, folded his hands and
continued slowly:
The while I turn unto thy call,
Ennobled in the love I bear,
The burning love that holds my all,
The love so often I declare, —
Thou wilt remember me!
Yea, thou, Sweet Mother, when the hour
Shall call me to thy fond embrace,
Within the heavenly lighted bower,
Keep me forever at thy face,
Forever in the heart of thee!
The child stopped. There was no applause,
only a sob as though from a thousand breasts
through a single throat, expressing mingled feelings
of shame, tenderness, love, repentance, which the
sweet voice of the boy had stirred in those hearts.
At a signal from the Father Rector all the boys
on the platform rushed down to their parents, and
a confusion of cries and kisses was heard. Only
the lad who had recited the poem remained quietly
in his seat, without mother or father to welcome him.
He cast a short glance at the happy groups of
parents and of children, slipped from the platform
with the prizes in his hands, and went down the long
hall slowly, out to where the servants and carriages
of the children leaving for home were already
gathering.
On top of a large globe marked with the
initials "F. L.", the boy sat down, silent, cap in
hand. As the happy clamor of the crowd in the
great hall reached his ears, his throat swelled with
sorrow, and he wept bitterly and tragically without
sound, as cry those who weep from the bottom of
their hearts. Groups of parents and children ad-
vanced moving down the hall amid a joyous clamor
and confusion. None noticed the lonely child;
although now and again a boy companion in passing
smiled at him as the lad smiled back through his
tears.
a LADY, large and good-humored, found her-
self near the child in the crowd. She held
the hand of a small, plump boy who carried
a prize for athletics. Her boy noticed the silent
tears of the lad, and pulling at his mother's skirts,
whispered to her: "Mother, Luis is crying!"
"Why are you crying, child, "asked the lady.
THE 1* SIGN
"You recited so well. Didn't you get any prizes?"
Luis blushed; then looking at her proudly, he
showed the prizes he had with him: "Five, and
two excellents."
"Five prizes, and yet you cry!"
The lad did not answer, but hung his head and
began to cry again.
"What is the matter, child?" cried the lady.
"Are you ill? Tell me why you are crying so."
With clenched teeth, with eyes filled with tears
of bitterness, the boy at length replied : "I am alone.
My mother did not come to see my prizes."
The lady understood then all the bitterness
hidden in the boy's heart. Tears came to her eyes
also; stroking the fair head of the lad, she said:
"My poor boy! Maybe your mother was unable to
come to see you, or perhaps she is waiting outside.
What is your mother's name?"
"The Countess of Albornoz," he answered.
A quick expression of horror passed over the
lady's face on hearing this name. She turned
round hurriedly to the woman who stood behind her,
and cried with more impetuosity than common sense :
"Did you hear that name? What a mother! While
this angel is crying here, she is there scandalizing
the whole of Madrid."
"Be careful! Be careful!" answered the other
warningly, glancing at the boy Luis.
"But what a mother for such a son!" Then the
lady, noticing that the boy had understood nothing
of what had been said, spoke to him: "Take these
chocolates, little one, one for you, and the other box
for your brothers and sisters. You have brothers
and sisters?"
"I have Lili."
"Take one to Lili, and take this, too," and the
good woman gave the lad two loud kisses in which
she tried in vain to put a mother's warmth and love.
A groom in green livery with the crest of a noble
on the buttons, advanced and joined the group.
"When the little master is ready, the carriage is
ready," he said respectfully. The lad sprang up
with a bound, and with a hurried embrace to his
friend lan to the door. At the gate the Rector, who
was there bidding farewell to his boys, stopped him.
Luis kissed the old Father's hand, who embraced
him in return and whispered something in his ear.
The boy blushed and his tears came again while he
affectionately kissed the priest's hand a second time.
The carriage moved slowly away, and at last
the cries of good-bye ceased.
"Good-bye! Good-bye!" cried the old man
again.
A few small hands appeared out of carriage
windows in the distance: "Good-bye! Good-bye!"
At last all had disappeared around a corner of
the road and the College was left silent and solitary,
while in a distance lay Madrid, that stagnant pool,
in its evil haze. The old man let his arms fall
heavily to his side, and with bowed head entered
the Chapel murmuring sadly: "Ah! Virgin of Sor-
rowful Remembrance, how long will they remember
thee?"
CHAPTER II.
HEW people were present that same afternoon
in the drawing room of the Duchess of Bara.
The Duchess herself lay languidly upon a
sofa smoking a cigarette. She complained that she
had a headache. Carmen Tagle sat not far away
also smoking a cigarette, which proved somewhat
rebellious in the handling.
The fat wife of the banker Lopez Moreno, as
heavy and majestic as the money bags of her hus-
band, was likewise indulging in a cigarette, and
laughing now and again with a maternal air over
the efforts of her daughter Lucy, who had recently
returned from school, to take small puffs from the
cigarette of Angelis Caspardo. The girl coughed
and made wry efforts, while Angelis encouraged her
by himself indulging in vast puffs.
The young girl seemed to find the pastime
amusing, and was manifestly pleased at having a
Grandee of Spain as her teacher in the gentle art of
smoking, while she attentively studied the chic ways
of these great ladies, whom her mother had impressed
upon her as models upon which to form herself.
But her innocent schoolgirl eyes saw in them many
odd things. Even the Duchess seemed irritated at
the raucous mirth of the banker's wife, though she
maintained a cautious patience and amiability in her
attitude toward her, which was wise, considering
that Senora Moreno held mortgages amounting to
over two million reals upon the Duchess's broad
acres.
Leopoldina Pastor, a lively old maid of over
forty, with a smattering of cleverness and learning,
was eating a goodly portion of sugared toast, arguing
violently the while with Don Casimir, a literary
celebrity and a former minister of public instruction.
Studying her and joining in her arguments stood the
Marquis of Butron, who had a very hairy face, which
had caused the ex-Queen Isabella to give him the
name of Robinson Crusoe, since, she claimed, that
were it not for having seen the face of her dear
Minister Plenipotentiary, she would never have been
able to guess the appearance of that famous explorer
clad in his skins of wild animals on his desert island.
iy^HEN arguments lapsed for a moment, Butron
vl/ irowned in a majestic manner and said, as
^*s though pronouncing ex cathedra "The situa-
tion is going to pieces. We should have had the
Restoration six months ago."*
Butron's remark touched a sore spot in the con-
science of his audience. To be-little the possibility
* To understand this Spanish nobleman's remark.
the reader must know something of the strange state of
Spanish politics of that day. A few years hefore our
story opened, Queen Isahella II had so scandalized her
countrymen that she had heen forced to flee to Paris with
her family.
13
THE + SIGN
of the Restoration of Alfonso and the Bourbons
to the Spanish throne was rank treason in the eyes
of the great ladies of Madrid, since they lived in
continual expectation of this restoration which would
restore them their form-
er power in the country
and former prestige in
the Spanish court. So
the dear women were
excessively indignant at
Butron, and to tease
them, the Marquis who
was the prime director
of the efforts to restore
Alfonso to the throne,
continued his speech.
This hairy diplo-
mat knew full well that
there was no question
but that all the ladies
present that afternoon
were in favor of the
Restoration, and it was
his work to keep their
party feelings inflamed
and to direct their zeal
into those channels
which would give the
greatest return to the
Alfonsist cause. For
these women with their
social power as scions
of Spain's oldest fami-
lies and their devotion
to the Bourbon house,
had practically succeed-
ed in isolating the un-
fortunate Italian Ama-
deo in his Spanish
palace, where he lived
surrounded by "rich
shop-keepers" as the
Duchess of Bara called
his followers, or by
"arrant good-for-noth-
ings" as the facetious
Leopoldina Pastor in-
sisted on calling them.
There she renounced all claims to the Spanish
throne. Confusion fell upon her unhappy country when
she went into exile, and finally the dominant political party
chose a foreignling in the person of Amadeo, Duke
of Aosta and relative of Victor Emanuel of Savoy. This
Italian "usurper," as he was generally known in Spain,
received scant homage from the Spanish aristocrats, who
clung tenaciously to the idea of Restoration of the Bour-
bon Royal family in the person of Alfonsa, son of Queen
Isabella.
To add to the complication of this already compli-
cated political situation, there were some Spanish noble
houses and many of the Spanish people, especially in the
northern part of the kingdom, who clung loyally to the
Whenever the Alfonsist ladies assem-
bled in public they always wore conspicuously the
Alfonsist symbol of the fleur-delis, whether at
opera, dance, or driving through the boulevards
of the city. Even at
this little gathering
at the Duchess of
Testament
J. Corson Miller
When I ha^e come to that far gate,
Wkere every man at last must wend,
I shall rejoice, and count it great
That I made every foe my friend.
I shall look up with frankest face
To those great stars that may" endure,
Knowing that in my" humble place
I held respect for all God's poor,
And when the Vast doors open v?ide,
Where Judgment sits on right and vJrong,
Be sure it shall not be denied
I drank of love, and courted song.
Then shall I speak with all my power,
If power of voice be left to me,
That in life's desolation-hour,
I praised God's magnanimity.
Before His judgment-seat I'll stand,
Nor fear to meet His steadfast gaze,
For I have touched a babe's hand,
And walked down evening's still, green ways.
For that I spurned earth's pride and shov?,
And kept my soul from lust and strife,
Perhaps the Lord-God shall bestow
On me His gift — Eternal Life.
Bara's the banker's
wife, Moreno, wore an
enormous one, set in
great diamonds, while
Leopoldina Pastor and
the others wore less
conspicuous ones of
solid gold.
©
'HE Marquis drew
a dark picture.
Spain was in
a ghastly condition.
Ministerial crisis after
ministerial crisis played
havoc with the plans of
King Amadeo. In the
provinces, many of the
troops and of the peas-
a n t s had rebelled
against the government.
Even the shopkeepers
of Madrid had revolted,
and but five days be-
fore, a mob had rushed
through the streets of
the city, throwing
stones at windows and
shattering the beauti-
fully illuminated lamps,
hung in celebration of
the anniversary of Pius
IX.
"The Restoration is
a certainty," said the
Marquis sententiously.
"But, my dear ladies,
it can be secured only
at the cost of much
blood. It would not
surprise me to see
another French Revolution enacted in this unhappy
country."
The ladies were shocked at this outburst, and
discussed among themselves the possibility of Revo-
lution as though they were Marie Antoinettes, gazing
through her prison windows at the heads fresh from
the guillotine carried past her on the revolutionary
pikes. The idea of death terrified them. Did they
know how to die? Death to them was only some-
restoration of the Pretender to the throne, Don Carlos,
descendant of the brother of Ferdinand VII, father of
Isabella, who had prevented Carlos from his succession
at his death and placed his daughter on the throne.
THE t SIGN
thing they had seen acted by great artists in tragic
scenes at the Royal Theatre.
The Duchess of Bara in a low voice said that
she herself had seen in Madame Tussaud's famous
museum in London the very guillotine upon which
the unfortunate French King had been beheaded.
The fat wife of the banker Moreno cautiously
smoothed her large neck as though she already felt
the cold steel upon it. Leopoldina Pastor cried out
that she was not frightened; on the contrary she
would die like Charlotte Corday assassinating a
dozen worthless Marats. Carmen Tagle sighed
heavily, and asked if the guillotine would hurt much.
"You would feel but a slight coldness," came
a gloomy voice from the distance.
All jumped to their feet frightened, expecting
to see Robespierre's ghost behind them. But they
saw only Don Casimir smilingly squeezing with one
hand the windpipe and with his other breaking the
tail off a small china rabbit which adorned with
hundreds of other china knick-knacks the little tables
scattered throughout the room. This good gentle-
man had the unfortunate habit of being so absent
minded that he constantly picked up and broke
whatever came within reach of his long and agile
fingers, and from these raids of his upon the bric-a-
brac he had secured the nickname of "the literary
cyclone."
Recovering their composure, everyone laughed,
and the joke of the literary cyclone brightened the
somewhat dreary note of the assemblage. Isabel
Mazacan with her most impertinent air appeared
like a whirlwind in the doorway, and kissing the
Duchess, pulled off her gloves and helped herself to
some tea. Then, with a quick glance at the ladies
and gentlemen around her, she said explosively:
"The first lady-in-waiting to the Queen has been
appointed."
All, men as well as women, started in surprise,
while the headache of the Duchess instantly disap-
peared.
"Who is it? Who can it be?"
Who indeed could it be? The chief idea of
those noble ladies of Spain had been to insult the
Italian King and his wife Maria Victoria, and there-
fore to leave unfilled the great position of first lady-
in-waiting to the Queen, a position which requires
the wife of a great Grandee of Spain, and which is a
post so high and delicate that it gives rather than
receives authority to the Queen herself.
"Ugh!" cried the Duchess, "some shop-
keeper's wife from Alcolea."
"Or perhaps some distinguished circus-artist,"
cried Carmen Tagle.
"Both wrong," said the imperturbable. "She is
a great lady of Spain."
"But that is impossible," cried the hairy diplo-
mat Butron.
"Some provincial little noble," guessed Leo-
poldina Pastor.
"Wrong again," said Senora Mazacan. "She
is a lady of the former court, of the old stock.
Indeed, I am rather surprised not to find her here."
"Here," shrieked the Duchess threateningly.
"Who is it? Who is it?" cried all those present,
searching suspiciously in all directions, as though
the newly appointed lady-in-waiting was hidden
beneath a nearby sofa or chair.
Isabel Mazacan smiled maliciously, handed her
tea cup to Peter Velez to refill, emptied it at one
swallow, and threw the name like a bomb into the
center of the assemblage.
"The Countess Albornoz."
a CRY of absolute unbelief came from all, while
the Duchess sank back on her sofa, crying
that the very idea was absurd.
"It is utterly ridiculous," exclaimed Butron.
"But I know this on the best authority."
"I do not care who told you, I do not believe it,"
said the Duchess. "I will have to see her in the
Queen's carriage before I can believe such a thing."
"Well, you will see her there soon enough,"
retorted Isabel Mazacan sharply. "Don't you re-
member that Curra Alborijoz was in Paris when
Queen Isabella abdicated? Don't you remember
that no one thought of inviting her to the ceremony?
There is the whole thing in a nutshell! She, and
that husband of hers, Villamelon, never forgot that
slight and have decided on a fitting revenge. So
prepare for the worst, my friends! For I know that
the Usurper did not merely offer her the position,
she even went so far as to ask for it herself!"
"Outrageous!" cried Leopoldina Pastor; while
the hairy one muttered in his beard words that
sounded like treason.
"The position will pay her well, for she will
receive six thousand dollars a year for it — "
"That is pure nonsense : there is not a post in
the paiace that pays more than three thousand
dollars."
But Isabel insisted. "Curra will get six thous-
and, for she has asked — " ■
Here the narrator gave a malicious smile and
continued slowly: "She has also asked that her dear
friend John Velarde receive the post of private
secretary to the King."
"Velarde?" asked a voice in surprise. "Why
I did not know — "
"You people know nothing," said Isabel.
"But, my dear," said the Duchess, "I have often
seen John Velarde with Curra's husband Villamelon.
Still, I had no idea — "
"What better sign do you need than that?
Isn't Curra's confidant of the moment always Vil-
lamelon's best friend?"
All laughed maliciously at Isabel's sarcasm,
while the fat wife of the banker Moreno said graci-
ously: "How sweet little Isabel is! She always
crucifies everyone so delicately!"
15
THE + SIGN
The hairy Marquis, who had remained silent
during the last few remarks, here intervened fearing
a feminine dispute: "Be careful, dear ladies; we
are playing with fire." Then cautiously looking
round, he continued: "We are all friends here, are
we not? If what Isabel says is true, we are in the
midst of great complications. It is true that there
was an oversight in the matter of inviting Curra to
the ceremony of the Queen's abdication. The Queen
herself was sorry about it. For that very reason,
and noticing Curra's anger, I wrote to the Queen and
advised her to make some kind of reparation. Only
recently I heard from Her Majesty that she had
written Curra asking her to attend the first Com-
munion of Prince Alfonso in Rome. Imagine now,
dear friends, what a position I am in! Imagine if
as first lady-in-waiting to the Italian usurper she
attends the ceremony in Rome. I shall be ruined.
I must speak to Curra at once. This must be stopped
immediately."
"She will be here soon," ventured Isabel softly.
"Here?" queried the Duchess.
"Yes, here. I have asked her to meet me to
go to visit the patients at the Foundling Hospital.
She is on the committee."
"Ah, yes," said Carmen Tagle devoutly, "Curra
always has such a great affection for those poor little
children."
"Maternal affection," said someone sarcastically.
Burton threw himself headlong into the conver-
sation to restore peace to troubled seas. "Please be
sensible, dear ladies. I beg you let no one say as
much as a word to her until I have myself spoken
to her."
"Never," said the Countess Mazacan. "Noth-
ing in the world would make me give up the pleasure
of making her lose her temper."
"But," protested Butron, "you will spoil every-
thing— "
"All right, you arrange your affairs, but do let
us enjoy ourselves."
/g^VUTRON wished to expostulate further, but at
vlfTj that moment there came through the door a
^*-^ slender lady who walked with careful steps
on her high heels, tapping the floor as she advanced
with the end of a lace parasol. She had conspicu-
ously beautiful red hair and her eyes of light grey
were indeed so light in color that they seemed to see
but a short distance and gave at times the impression
of being like the dead eyes of a marble statue.
Seeing this dainty vision approaching the irre-
pressible Leopoldina Pastor ran to the piano, and
began to play the hymn of the Italian Queen of
Spain, while certain gentlemen of the party leaped
upon sofas and chairs, and as Curra approached
bowed to her slowly and stiffly, without a movement
of the head, thus making a pretty imitation of the
Italian-Spanish king's method of salutation.
Curra hesitated a moment in the doorway with
that timid school-girl air which she always displayed
in public. She took in with a quick glance the
ironic salutes of the gentlemen, the sarcastic play-
ing of the hymn. Then she suddenly bowed with
an air of complete distinction and gave in return
to the salute of the usurper King, yet another salu-
tation, a long deliberate bow to the right, left and
center, playing in turn a most clever caricature of
the Court ceremony common to the King's wife,
Dona Maria Victoria.
CHAPTER III
ON the twenty-first day of June, Anno Domini
1832 some years before our story opened,
Ferdinand VII, King of Spain, and his wife
Maria Christina, were respectively godfather and
godmother of a baby named Fernando Christian
Robustiano Carlos Luis Gonzaga Alfonso de la
Santisima Trinidad Anacleto Vincente, in the local
church of the regal country-seat at San Ildefonso.
This baby was the first son of the Marquis of
Villamelon, one of the greatest grandees of Spain.
He was also the last baby for whom King Ferdinand
was godfather on this earth. Fifteen months after
this event the King was carried to his tomb in the
palace in Madrid, carefully living up to the simile
of the bottle of beer to which he had slily compared
his subjects, himself representing the cork which
popped out; the revolution which followed him, the
foaming beer which spread down the bottle on all
sides.
The afternoon of the baptism Ferdinand desired
to inspect his godson more closely, and taking the
baby to his room, he placed himself comfortably in
a chair and complacently surveyed the boy lying
on his knees. He opened the child's mouth with
his finger and thrust his large Bourbon nose inside,
as though he wished to examine the little one's
throat. What he saw was marvellous and Ferdinand
withdrew his nose promptly. The baby Villamelon
had been born with a complete set of teeth.
It is said that Henry IV of France was born
with two front teeth and that Mirabeau had two
molars at birth, and it was evident that anyone
who so far surpassed these two famous personages
was destined for great things. The Queen also
desired to examine the infant prodigy and placed
the tip of one of her little fingers in Baby Villame-
lon's mouth; while Don Calomarde, who had entered
the room, wished also to examine the phenomenon.
He placed an ink-stained finger in the infant's
mouth which the baby promptly nipped, causing
the King's Minister to cry with anguish.
"That baby is no fool," quoth the King.
The King's remark caused much laughter and
passed through the Royal Court; while all, very
much astonished, commented on the phenomenon,
and later made bold to declare that when he was
but three days old the baby had recited to his royal
godparent the Our Father, Hail Mary, the Litany
of Loretto, and a fable from Don Tomas Iriarte.
All this was most extraordinary and doubtless
THE 1* SIGN
gave rise to the reputation for great cleverness and
precocity which the future Marquis of Villamelon
was always to enjoy until his continual absurdities
destroyed that reputation forever.
y?<E entered the Military Academy at the age
J I of twenty, and in '59 went to the African War
■^~^J under General Herrera. He was eager to
land on African soil and dye his virgin sword in
Moorish blood. He landed at the Black Cape with
sufficent courage to travel through all the lands of
the Moor to the gates of Tunis itself, where his
grandfather had achieved fame by capturing the
Alcazaba under John of Austria.
But as he landed there suddenly appeared from
among the dense brambles by the shore a band of
natives who commenced firing on the Spaniards.
Villamelon did not hesitate a second. He turned
rapidly round, and forgetful of anticipated deeds
of valor, of the heroism of his ancestor, he flew
back to his boat, where he hid himself under the
bed in his room and did not appear again till the
boat sailed back to Spain, pleading excessive sea-
sickness as an excuse.
On his return he promptly asked to be retired
from the Army, and then he entered Madrid in as
triumphant a manner as Napolean entered Paris after
his Egyptian campaign, with the fame of his martial
achievements in the great battle of the Black Cape
preceeding him.
During the next few years the Marquis, without
becoming a spendthrift by any means, became a sort
of libertine, not with that aristocratic libertinage
which sets gracefully upon the shoulders of the
Lauzuns and the Frousacs, who were gentlemanly
even in their infamy. His libertinage was that
libertinage all too common in Spain among the
younger men of good family, a hybrid mixture of
sportsman and low gypsy. At last fatigued by the
unceasing round of bull-fights, of champagne and
pate-de-foie-gras suppers, he determined that he
would end it all, and at once — namely, that he would
marry !
The selection of a fitting bride was not at all
a difficult feat for Villamelon, for he was not at
all particular in his choice or ideas. He believed
vaguely that God was doubtless a good person for
whom he discharged all necessary duties by now
and again leaving a card on Him in His Church.
To him Man was but a superior species of digestive
tubing; life but a pilgrimage which could be made
conveniently provided one had a full stomach and a
well-lined purse; marriage was but the amalgama-
tion of two incomes and for the prolongation of the
great family which bore his honored name.
It was surprising that Villamelon, who had been
so hopelessly terrified at the wild natives of the
Black Cape, should ask in marriage and without
fear the hand of a noble savage without a soul.
Just as one meets in the depths of wild forests
savages who offend by their physical nakedness,
one meets in the best drawing-rooms of our best
modern society savages, dressed exteriorly, but
naked and shameless of soul.
This illustrious savage was no other than Her
Excellency Francisca de Borja Soliz y Gorbia, Coun-
tess of Albornoz, grandee of Spain in her own right,
and now Marchioness of Villamelon by marriage
to the former infant prodigy. Yet this savage queen
had a modesty quite individual and all her own;
what could be described best, perhaps, in saying
that she possessed a perfect modesty of her husband.
This strange couple, unlike other couples who are
conspicuous by constantly pulling apart like two
unfriendly dogs attached to the same leash, were
always seen together, the husband affectionately
teasing his wife, while she in shameless cynicism
adopted the timid airs of a schoolgirl.
However Villamelon had achieved his desire.
Curra presented him with a son and daughter to
carry on the line, and his income, which he had,
previous to his marriage, described as only sufficient
to furnish his dinner, joined with hers was able to
furnish him with supper as well. Villamelon dined
and supped with art. He was a human tunnel into
which was poured incessant quantities of food, heed-
less of the warnings of indigestion which endeavored
now and again to preach a sermon to his stomach.
His wife lived happily and shamelessly, with com-
plete audacity and infinite cynicism, managing that
all tongues and all people should do her homage.
It was possible to say of her as a great writer said
of another: "If she goes to a wedding, she wishes
to be the bride; if to a baptism, she wishes to be
the child; if to a funeral, she would be the corpse."
QO one could explain exactly how she came to
enjoy supremacy at Court, yet all subjected
themselves to her in almost abject homage.
Others might equal her in wealth, others in beauty,
others by birth, yet none was her equal in effrontery
and audacity and in that air of assurance with which
she dominated all her adventures. Was this the
real reason for her dominance over others? Could
it be that certain circles are so used to the delicacy
of vice and the constant aroma of scandal that they
instinctively pay homage to her who achieves the
most perfect refinement in her villainies ?
The Duchess rose from her seat as Curra
entered the room, amid the homage of men's bows
and the sound of the Queen's hymn, crying with
her hard little laugh: "Many thanks, dear friends,
many thanks."
"Delighted, my dear, delighted!" said the
Duchess as she kissed her.
Everyone now gathered around Curra, while
she seated herself comfortably and helped herself
to a small glass of whiskey and soda; for it was
obligatory at that time among these women to smoke
and drink with as much grace as possible.
After a gentleman had secured Curra a cigarette,
the Duchess leaned forward and lighting it, said :
THE 1* SIGN
"Tell us, my dear, all about it!"
"But what is there for me to tell. You seem
to know everything already."
"But it cannot be true!" cried the Marquis
Butron.
"It is absolutely true," answered Curra em-
phatically.
Butron raised despairing hands to heaven while
Isabel Mazacan swept the assemblage with a tri-
umphant glance; and the Duchess exclaimed furi-
ously: "And you dare come to my house and tell
me this?"
Curra appeared much surprised at this outburst
and glanced hastily around with perplexed eyes,
exclaiming in her timid child's voice: "But what
is this, my dears ? Tell me what it is that you have
heard."
"That you have asked for and accepted the
appointment as first lady-in-waiting to the Queen,"
said Isabel Mazacan.
Curra gave a perfect imitation of pretending
to faint.
"And you believed this of me!" she asked
with all the indignation of a lady whose virtues are
called in question.
"Not one of us believed it," cried Burton,
gasping as though a mountain had been lifted off
his chest. "No one here has doubted your complete
loyalty for a moment, my dear — "
Curra wiped a tear from her eye. "I must
explain, "she said simply. "It was only yesterday
that at Court they were talking over the appoint-
ment of the first lady-in-waiting when the Minister
of the Interior took it upon himself to propose that
the position should be offered to me."
"The wretched good-for-nothing," cried Leo-
poldina Pastor. "And your husband has not killed
him?"
"He deserves it," said Curra. "But it is really
poor Ferdinand's own mistake. He was much
interested in securing the private secretaryship to
the King for his friend, John Velarde, and spoke
to the Minister about him. The Minister, astonished
and filled with daring at this request, went too far:
give these dogs a foot and they will take a yard.
None other than the President of the Council came
to offer me the position. I would not see him, but
my husband did, and there was no end of a scene.
I nearly died of fright, but finally the Minister left,
and heaven knows what tales they are telling about
me now to get revenge. I thought," she added,
"when I heard the hymn, that you were playing a
little joke on me."
^^UTRON expressed assent, while the Duchess
vJCj now completely satisfied, kissed her affec-
^-^ tionately.
When the Countess had finished speaking,
Isabel Mazacan excitedly whispered to Burton:
"This is all a lie. It is a lie, Butron, a vile lie, I
was told the tale by Garcia Gomez, and he knows
everything that happens at Court. The Minister
of the Interior told the King's Council at its meeting
that Curra had asked to be appointed and that the
post was then given to her. It must have been this
very morning that the President of the Council saw
Curra to tell her about it."
Then, turning round, she said aloud: "You see,
my dears, did I not tell you the truth? Garcia
Gomez told me the very same thing that Curra has
just told you."
Now Curra must have known that what Garcia
Gomez had said was something considerably dif-
ferent from what she had just said herself, so giving
her cigarette a little puff, she remarked gently to
the Countess Mazacan: "Look here! I have a com-
plaint to make about your Garcia Gomez. For while
he may be a Minister of State he amuses himself
far too much inspecting the mail that comes to
us from Paris. For that reason he was able to
announce to the Council that I had received a letter
from Queen Isabella yesterday, which would surely
prove to the Ministry how foolish were their pre-
tensions."
All understood to what letter Curra referred,
above all Butron, who had spoken of it. All ex-
claimed enviously: "So the Queen has written you?"
"To invite me to the first Communion of Prince
Alfonso in Rome."
And Curra looked Isabel Mazacan over from
head to foot for it was well known that that lady
wished to go with the Queen to Rome. That lady
was about to reply with some biting sarcasm, when
Butron, who did not want to see his little diplo-
matic game interfered with, led Isabel over to a
window and engaged her in conversation.
XSABEL MAZACAN finished her chat with
Butron by the window, and making some
excuse to Curra to avoid going with that lady
to the Foundling Hospital, made her adieux and left
in a disgusted state of mind. Curra also announced
her intention of going home, while the Marquis of
Butron said farewell to his hostress at the same time.
"Have you a carriage here, Butron?" asked
Curra.
"No, I haven't," replied the hairy diplomat
eagerly, intent on seizing the occasion which offered
of having a confidential talk with the Marchioness
of Villamelon.
"Come with me, then, in my carriage. Where-
ever you wish."
"To the Calle of Isabella the Catholic : I must
go to the German Embassy."
They descended the steps together, Curra
leaning on Butron's arm, and entered her carriage,
a delicate affair lined with blue satin like a beautiful
casket for some priceless jewel.
To sweep everything with his conspiracies
against the present government was Butron's aim,
irrespective of personalities and of the refuse which
might be gathered by such an all-including process.
THE 1* SIGN
He therefore stuck firmly to the subject and demand-
ed, as head of the Feminine Army, an explanation
of all these rumors and alarms. Curra merely
opened wide her timid eyes and behaved like a
frightened child called to correction, repeating with
protests and tears the story she had just told. For
what kind of person did Butron take her ? What had
this detestable Isabel Mazacan been telling him
that caused him to suspect her, who hated the very
mention of the name of the Italian King? Didn't
Butron know that the Mazacan was but an intrigante
who would stop at nothing to secure an invitation
to go with the ex-Queen to Rome, in order to drown
in that company any suspicions which might have
been aroused by her far too close intimacy with
the revolutionary Minister Garcia Gomez?
m
[EANWHILE the carriage moved on rapidly
through the streets until it reached the Calle
Turca where a strange, sullen murmur reached
their ears. Curra and Butron looked at each other
with surprise, and then saw that the porters of the
School of Engineers were hurrying to close the doors
of the building. This was of frequent occurence
during these days of constant riots, and so Curra's
carriage moved on without hesitation until movement
became no longer possible. They came up against
a solid wall of people filling the Calle Alcala from
one end to the other. This was a peaceful demon-
stration on the part of the proletariat who marched
along demanding an appointment with one of the
Ministers of the Government.
Curra's enormous English coachman, Tom
Sickles, robed in his cockaded hat and powdered
wig, pressed on with the mob, seeking to force a
way through. But he was too late and was brought
to a halt opposite the Veloz Club amid a gathering
of other carriages.
"Isn't this delightfully amusing," cried Curra
in childish happiness. "Look, Butron, how funny
they all look in their pink ribbons ! Ah, look at that
hunchback — what a rascal with his banner of Re-
form! Well, he needs some reform, especially his
back."
At that moment another equipage blocked
Curra's view. It was that of the Civil Governor of
Madrid who rode, pompous and fat, on his way to
the palace. Yet even he could not force a way
through the crowd.
"There goes that creature," whispered Butron.
"He will mark us as conspirators, Curra, if he sees
us together — the devil!
This exclamation of Butron's aroused in Curra's
eager brain one of those mad ideas which dominated
her mind, and leaning out of the window as though
she wished the Governor to see her, yet paying no
attention to his respectful bow, she then darted her
head back into the carriage and covered her face
with a handkerchief as though she wished to be
hidden from his observation.
"The democracy smells unpleasantly, Butron,"
she remarked, as though to excuse her odd man-
oeuvres." They breed pests everywhere."
QT length the carriage of the Governor was able
to extricate itself and work into the middle
of the street. As it did so, Curra with an eye
on the windows of the club filled with members
who watched the antics of the mob, suddenly gave a
wild pull at the rope which connected with Tom
Sickles' finger, and leaning out of the window
screamed frantically: "Quick, Tom, be off! Go
on — head them off!"
Tom Sickles did not wait for a repetition of the
command. He drew in his reins with terrific force
and screaming at his horses, lashed them with his
whip, at the same time suddenly loosing the reins
so that the horses sprang forward as though shot
from a catapult and dashed headlong down the
street.
A horrible cry of anger and of terror came from
the mob, who fought desperately to get out of the
line opened up by the carriage. People scattered
from one side of the street to the other terrified.
Police hurled expletives at the vehicle to stop. But
Tom shook the reins and with hideous grimaces
sought to give them the impression that his horses
were runaways. Butron, horrified at this proceeding,
hastily drew down the carriage curtains, while
Curra screaming with delight leaned out of the win-
dow to see the people struggling from under the feet
of her horses.
In the Calle of Isabella the Catholic, Tom
Sickles performed a second feat by pulling up the
runaways with perfect ease just in front of the
German Embassy. Madame's wishes were perfectly
obeyed, and the illustrious Sickles wore the laurels
of the Olympic games
When Curra finally reached her house, there
were three other carriages at the door. She got out
of her carriage at the stable, and entered the house
by the servants' entrance, reaching her room with-
out being seen by anyone. There she rang her bell
and Kate, her English maid, came in answer.
"Who is downstairs with my husband?"
"The Minister of the Interior. Don John
Velarde and the Duke of Bringas are playing
billiards."
"Tell them downstairs that I can see no one.
I have a severe headache."
Kate paused a moment before leaving and said
timidly: "Not even Don John Velarde?"
"No, no. I will see no one."
Again Kate suggested timidly: "The little
master comes home from the College to-day."
"So he does. Poor Luis!"
"He will naturally want to see Madame."
"No, No! He can amuse himself with Lili.
I will see him tomorrow. To-night I have too bad
a headache." (To Be Continued)
Current Fact and Comment
OUR "FINEST
>— T"DMnTING that the crime of murder is less
1 I prevalent in England than in the States vari-
ous causes are submitted in explanation. One
alleged is that in England there is much greater
probability of the criminal being caught and punished
than here. If this is intended as a reflection on the
effectiveness of our police service it is not fair.
Naturally the so-called sleuth has an easier task in
tracing the lawbreaker in the "tight little isle."
Here it happens that a policeman is not on hand
each time a crime is perpetrated, or if the appre-
hended criminal ultimately evade the penalty, that
is not the fault of the police. As a class the average
of delinquency among them is so low as to be
negligible. Because of the high standard of honesty
and courage required of them any such delinquency
is the more sharply noted and criticized. As a
result of their keen knowledge of criminals and their
habits comparatively few crimes really pass into
insoluble mystery. We properly appraise the police
force and extend to it due measure of gratitude
only when we fancy it as a. bulwark withdrawn — if
only for a single day: how promptly would not
every manner of criminal sally forth to ply his
cruel craft upon our persons and our homes.
OUR "GIVEN NAMES"
CATHOLICS generally know the reason for
giving a name at baptism. If it were merely
to distinguish us afterwards from our fellows,
as one liner or Pullman car is distinguished from
another, any mellifluous term might be attached to
us. A sort of superstition often causes a proud
father to name his son for one or more notables in
the vague hope that the son thereby would become
quite as distinguished as they. Sometimes such
vanity has been best met with ridicule. To the usual
question on the occasion of the baptism of a boy
the father submitted: "Grover Cleveland Parnell
Delaney." The old pastor sensing no canonized
saint in this array, rather impetuously rejoined:
"Why don't you call him the 'Baltimore and Ohio
Southwestern'?"
Ordinarily this sort of family pride is not
elicited by the daughters. According to a British
paper, a father and mother had brought their month-
old twins to an East London church to be christened.
All went well until the rector asked; "And what is
this child's name?" The father drew himself up
and replied "Haig Pershing Foch Marne Mons
Lloyd George Clemenceau Jones." The rector
gasped. Then taking a deep breath, he turned to
the mother, who was holding the other child. "And
the name of this?" he asked. The meek little
woman smoothed her dress and whispered, "Maud."
KEEPING IN THE GAME
STATISTICS show an increase in the chances
for longevity. On the other hand there are
startling figures compiled showing the major
diseases taking greater toll of the race than ever
before. There is a relation between these attained
averages. For example, mortality from cancer is
increasing rapidly because modern medicine and
hygienic practice are effectively eliminating other
fatal ills and thus leaving a larger number to
succumb inevitably to the diseases which still baffle
science.
Science should be thanked not so much for
helping men to live long as for enabling them to live
efficiently and happily. Recently published instan-
ces of longevity are Wrinkled Meat, an Indian,
claiming 134 years; Djour, the Turk, presenting a
birth certificate dated the year of the Declaration
of Independance; the Earl of Halsbury who has
just passed away in his 99th year. Though we admit
no error in the computation of Lo's age or the
Musselman's, there seems to be naught besides their
lengthy careers for which they can claim distinction.
THE 1* SIGN
Not so with the Earl. He was a foremost authority
on English law. His codification of that law reach-
ing to twenty-eight volumes he began only when
he was 85 years old.
We should not expect science alone to keep
us in the game. Too many people slow up and
swerve into the side-lines, some boasting that they
have done their share, some through mere loss of
ambition. And too many of them just take the
average meridien of life as the signal to quit. The
world would have suffered incalculable loss had its
geniuses so conformed. Few biographies contain
so vast a record of useful activities as that of
Cardinal Vaughn. About the time of his sixtieth
birthday the sense of the shortness of life brought
an almost paralyzing depression upon him. He had
many plans to complete and many important pro-
jects to inaugurate, but the motives that might
hearten him to the work seemed suddenly to be
withdrawn. Then on the feast of Ireland's Apostle
he was startled by the statement of the preacher
that St. Patrick was sixty years old when he under-
took the conversion of the Irish people. The Cardi-
naWerified the statement : it cheered and stimulated
him to fresh endeavor. On your bier they will lay
a floral pillow with "Rest" in purple immortelles.
Give no occasion to the mourners to think it irony.
SCRAPPING SOULS
B
POET invites us to the sinking of the Scrap-
ped, the Unborn, the Un-christened Ships.
In pathetic vein the old sea-mastiffs
lying dark in their docks are "whistled forth to die;"
"steam out to drink their death," we stand and
watch them "dour and silent, bow their heads and
go down, dying for a word and a vision : uncon-
quered, giving up the fight unfought" and "resting
on the floor of the ocean, grey with its ancient
slime.' There is fine imagination in all this and in
the line upon which the poem is built: "the scrap-
ped, the unborn, the un-christened ships." Anyone
familiar with the daily press will see at once the
source of the suggestion in this line and the oppor-
tuneness of it. It raises a question of comparative
values. Which is greater? — the battleship — that
mighty conglomeration of steel, fashioned and nicely
rivited, invulnerable in defense, unerring and irresis-
tible in dealing swift death, or the hand and brain
that designed and fashioned it? Yet there are those
who contemplate with dismay the deliberate des-
truction of these huge engines of war who utter no
protest against practices directly thwarting the
designs of the Creator, in fashioning the noblest and
most admirable of His creatures — The human soul.
There are those, and God forbid that Catholics
should be numbered among them, who with economic
eye view the horror of scuttling costly battleships
and who brazenly participate in the active disemina-
tion of knowledge the full purpose of which is to
scrap the unborn, un-christened soul.
IRELAND— A FREE STATE
^^=^HE Irish delegates brought more than half a
L\/ loaf back from Downing St. All the reputed
stubbornness of Irishmen was needed and they
displayed it in those trying days of negotiating with
the arch-charmer, Lloyd George. That they were
not haled on their return with tumultuous acclaim
did not signify that little had been gained. Loyalty
to the President forced a suppression of sentiment
until his decision and comment were heard. That
comment had the merit of consistency.
Quite promptly did the hierarchy approve the
results of the negotiations. Granting that none are
more conversant with Ireland's affairs and more
sanely devoted to her welfare than her bishops,
their example will suffice for those who prayed and
fought for an honorable peace. Consistency carried
to the extreme might mean not that Ireland would
win on a verdict of principle, but that she, despite
incomparable valor, would be utterly crushed in a
verdict of arms. This contingency reconciles many
to yielding to England the few shreads of honor left
to her in the covenant.
The Union Jack may wave over Irish soil : to
the English traveller it will cause no exultation, to
Irish eyes it will be at most an interesting relic.
Its title to wave there will be that bond of associa-
THE + SIGN
tion called allegiance to save the face of things.
It is a fair aurora despite the few thwarting
clouds. And as Ireland swings into her place among
the nations, it is gratifying to behold the talents,
the courage, the devotion of those who guided her
through those perilous times now applied to the
development of her material resources and the
liberation of her unique genius.
"HE FINDETH THE HOUSE GARNISHED'
OUT of the solemn reflections inspired by the
flight of time good resolutions are born. The
older we grow the more closely we note the
swift passing of time. The thoughts of youth were
"long, long thoughts," with every goose a swan.
Too soon the leaves turn brown, the sport grows
stale, the wheels run down, anniversaries and birth-
days are quickly bridged; not only the years, but
the decades of years seem so brief a span. With
less of the journey to go there is the corresponding
chance of going it more steadfastly. But even the
old have to deplore failure in keeping their good
resolutions. At this season, therefore, it is useful
to recall some of the practical rules for making
resolutions.
First, be definite. Nothing is more vapid than
a universal resolution to do better. Rather be
determined to combat one particular fault. You are
assured by spiritual authorities that there will be
concomitant improvement on all lines. What partic-
ular fault should you choose to combat? Inquire
what fault has recurred most frequently in your
confessions. Or take that which has caused most
pain or disedification to those around you. Use
their very observation of you to measure your pro-
gress. Give them occasion spontaneously to remark,
"How charitable, how meek, how unselfish he or she
has become of late!"
Secondly, remember that it is far easier to
resolve than to perform. "Your vows and perform-
ances are no kin together." The brave mood that
inspired us to resolve may not be at hand to support
us in the temptation. This is the commonest cause
of "chucking it up."
Thirdly, should you happen to fall don't con-
clude at once that there is no use in trying. Make
stepping stones of your very faults. The devil
takes little satisfaction out of a single fall. He
hovers near and follows up the fall with suggestions
productive of discouragement and despair. He
strives for your relapse into vicious habits.
Satan's insidious plans are made void by humble
acknowledgment of guilt and sorrow. With these
sentiments in heart we can advance again with
courage and high resolve.
TO LET: NO. 1 EASY STREET
fOMEONE has discovered a barometer of pros-
perity in napkins-rings. An increase in the
sale of napkin-rings indicates an increase in
the ranks of the middle classes. The upper class dis-
cards the napkin after each use of it. The proletariat
uses no napkin at all. All of which reminds us of
the great switching about of the classes as a result
of the prosperity immediately following the war.
Hundreds advanced to the millionaire grade, thous-
ands attained to comforts and luxuries never before
experienced.
Unfortunately the poorer classes were the most
improvident of the newly begotten gains. There
was an orgy of spending with no thought of the
rainy day. Then came the recessional. Many even
fell out of the napkin-ring class. Everywhere there
followed sales of used player-pianos, graphaphones,
Axminster rugs, automobiles. The girls salvaged
their furs and the young men their silk shirts as
they sought new jobs. The silk industry had en-
joyed a phenominal boom satisfying the new craving,
but such a manufacturer lately asked by a solicitous
friend how he was getting along, replied that he
was "on his feet again." He had sold his car.
True, a certain class in that brief, bright interval
moved up from Delancy Street to Riverside Drive
and will stay there. But our people are strangers
to their thrift. Perhaps the hard experience will
bear fruit and shrewder methods of economy em-
ployed in the era of returning prosperity.
BS^^B
1 is copyright-
ed in the Li-
brary of Con-
gress as Ve-
ronica's Veil; but the
newspaper men with
their swift perception
and remarkable ability
to compress a situation
into a caption have
rightly named it "America's Passion Play."
This impressive religious drama was written in
1910, by the Rev. Bernardine Dusch,
C. P. At that time he and the Rev.
Conrad Eiben, C. P. were- associated
as assistants in St. Michael's Church,
Pittsburgh, Pa. They were both in-
terested in amateur theatricals and
were actively engaged in producing
the local parish plays. In an idle
moment Father Conrad casually re-
marked: "Why don't we write a
play?"
"It's easy to write a play;"
Father Bernardine replied, "the dif-
ficulty is to get the proper theatrical
settings."
"You write the play," returned
Father Conrad, "and I'll look after veroni
the settings."
This was the genesis of Veronica's Veil.
It had its premier in St. Michael's Casino in
1912. Its success was so evident that it was repeated
the following year. In 1914, the Very Rev. Clement
Lee, then rector of St. Mary's Church, Dunkirk,
N. Y., had it staged in the Dorhen Theatre of that
city. It was later produced in Baltimore, Md. : and
is now produced there annually under the able direc-
tion of the Rev. Maurice Kantzleiter, C. P.
CONVINCED of the permanent value of the
play, Father Conrad had long cherished the
hope of staging it in such fashion as to bring
out all its possibilities not alone as an interesting
spectacle but also as an object lesson in practical
religion. The opportunity of realizing this hope
came on his assignment to the pastorate of St.
Joseph's, West Hoboken, N. J. — a small parish
numbering less than 1000 souls. Some years since
heavy trials came to try the loyalty and courage of
the devoted parishioners. A neighborly hand was
sought and a neighborly hand was extended to save
the parish in the day of its difficulties. The veteran
Father Bernardine was called to the scene and
though he suceeded in rallying all forces to the task,
his health was undermined in the
effort. It sems more than a coinci-
dence that, while in another field of
lighter labor, the writing of the Pas-
sion Play was suggested to him by
his present successor. For in later
years the proceeds of the play were
to lesson the huge debt of St.
Joseph's and at the same time justify
the erection of a much-needed school
building. An auditorium, with a com-
fortable seating capacity of 1400,
occupies the ground floor. Its lines
are quite simple and severe, in har-
mony with the chief purpose it was
to serve — the staging of America's
_ VFn Passion Play.
The play is performed during
the Lenten season only. It is now entering upon its
eight year. Some idea of its drawing power may
be gained from the fact that in the past seven
seasons 200 performances have been given with an
attendance of over 300,000. The play has an appeal
not limited to the devout Catholic. A large number
of Non-Catholics — Jews as well as Protestants —
have witnessed it season after season.
©
HE dramatic critices have given it a large
measure of praise. The great American
dailies have regularly featured it not only in
23
THE f SIGN
TRIAL BEFORE PILATE
reading notices but also
in the color and roto-
gravure sections of their
Sunday supplements.
Flattering offers to take
it en tour and to film it
have come from promi-
veronica nent theatrical concerns.
These have been decisively rejected by the author
and management as they are utterly opposed to
commercializing this sacred drama. With the idea
of extending its influence, however, they cheerfully
give any priest or religious institution permission to
produce it and proffer their aid in effectively staging
it.
Veronica's Veil is a striking witness to what can
be accomplished by the every-day talent of the
average parish. It is altogether a parish product.
The author, Father Bernardine, was formerly pastor
of St. Joseph's. The present pastor, Father Conrad,
is the director. He is ably seconded by his assistant.
Father Bernard Hartman, C. P., as business manager,
The two casts, numbering 300, are, with few excep-
tions, members of the parish.
The West Hoboken play-
ers followed the Oberammer-
gau idea in the home manu-
facture of the costumes. The
designing and making of these
costumes took the greater part
of five years, during which the
libraries of various cities were
searched for correct data.
Jewish and Christian traditions
were carefully studied so that
each character might be accu-
rately attired. The young
women of the parish gener-
ously devoted their evenings to the working out of
the designs. Many of the costumes are of costly
material, richly trimmed and embroidered.
The same spirit of personal interest was mani-
fested by the men of the parish. Fourteen of these
have become expert stage mechanics. Others were
assigned to the electrical department, and have in-
stalled a very complex system of lighting. To obtain
the delicate effects of both artificial and day-light
required for the various scenes and tableaux, this
system was necessary.
Entirely from the parishioners has been recruit-
ed the splendid orchestra of twenty pieces which
furnishes the special musical programme.
The following have served as Chairman of the
General Committee: the Rt. Rev. John J. O'Connor,
Bishop of Newark; the late Chief Justice Eugene
A. Philbin; Col. L. D. Conley of the Fighting
Sixty-Ninth; the Hon W. Bourke Cochran; and
Edward I. Edwards, Governor of New Jersey.
©'
HE play is composed of five acts, seven
scenes and six tableaux. Its presentation
takes about three hours. Its argument is two-
fold: Our Lord's Sacred Passion and The Fruits of
His Passion. This argument is built upon the legend
of Veronica's Veil.
The legend is so well-known that there is no
necessity here to do more than recall how the wife of
Sirach, a member of the Sanhedrin, was so moved
by the recital of the sufferings of Christ as He
carried the Cross to Calvary that she heroically
braved the insults of the mob who surrounded Him,
and offered her veil to remove the sweat and blood
from His sacred face. When the cloth was returned
she found imprinted upon it the lineaments of His
countenance.
With this Veil Veronica
raises the dead to life, re-
stores the sight of a Roman
matron, thus winning her and
her family to Christianity,
shatters the statue of Jupiter
in the palace of Nero, and,
finally, by destroying the sight
of the villainess, Miriam, who
has been the arch persecutor
of the Christians throughout
the play, compels her to recog-
nize in Christ the true Messiah
and the Savior of the world.
THE f SIGN
With reverent and com-
mendable prudence the play-
wright has refrained from pre-
senting our Lord as one of the
speaking characters in the real-
istic and awesome scenes pro-
jected. In this, Veronica's Veil
is in striking contrast with the
world-renowned Passion Play
of Oberammergau. Yet by
ableaux of singular beauty, power and suitability,
and by the illuminating dialogue of the other
characters, the author of the American production
has Very deftly and with great dramatic skill pre-
sented and emphasized each and every vital point
in the Passion and Death of Jesus Christ. The
observer is spared the harrowing scenes of the brutal
flagellation, the shocking indignities of the Way of
the Cross, the revolting incidents of outrage, con-
tumely and blasphemy which the Evangelists them-
selves hardly more than suggest in the Gospel
narrative.
COMPLETE and haunting impressions of these
contributory episodes in the physical and
mental crucifixion of our Lord are conveyed
by the intervening tableaux. Thus the prelude is
a still, living tableau of the inhuman betrayal of
Christ by Judas Iscariot in the Garden of Gethse-
mane, with a supplementary
view of His seizure by the
Roman soldiery.
The curtain of the first
act rises upon the court scene
of the Sanhedrin in the
palace of the high-priest
Joseph Caiphas. The action
and argument proceed in
simultaneous and explana-
tory accord with the betrayal
episode already projected.
At once the spectator
is made aware of the over-
shadowing influence of the God-Man. A divine
presence is almost sensibly felt in every succeeding
scene. There is a consciousness of mystery, love,
wisdom and sorrow. These seem to envelop the
audience like an inspiring atmosphere.
Thus far the play has succeeded in exhaling
the rare, uplifting and mystical appeal of our Divine
Redeemer. Thereafter He is left to dominate every
word, motion and scene of the drama although His
Divine Personality appears no more except in the
successive, silent tableaux of The Trial before Pilate,
The Crucifixion, The Resurrection, and the idealized
Vision of the Glorified Martyrs which splendidly
serves as the sublimating postlude of this impressive
religious drama.
The six tableaux have been universally pro-
claimed as the equal of the finest scenic efforts
attained even on the metropolitan stage. No ex-
pense has been spared in perfecting the electrical
equipment. The tableaux are living copies of the
world's best paintings portraying the principal
scenes of the Sacred Passion. As a result of scrupu-
lous and patient study of these paintings no detail
of costume, pose or expression is omitted.
^^^HE Crucifixion tableau is, naturally, the very
^^/ heart of the drama; and, naturally too, exhi-
bits the most impressive realism. In it the
whole troupe of 150 performers take part. These
are so garbed as to represent accurately the various
classes who were accustomed to assemble in Jerusa-
lem during the Jewish Passover. As a matter of
strict fact no other American stage has presented a
dramatization of Calvary on such a collossal scale.
Perhaps the nearest approach to the realism of
Veronica's Veil in this particular was that made some
twenty-five years ago by
Salmi Morse. The New
York state law prevented him
from carrying out his plans.
The Crucifixion scene is so
admirably and reverently dis-
played that the audience, un-
wittingly forgetful of all else,
are swept back through the
intervening centuries and live
through the enactments of
the supreme moments in the
world's history.
THE *t SIGN
ec
'MINENT dramatic critics of the present day
have unhesitatingly expressed their warmest
admiration for Veronica's Veil. To them the
very simple, unpretentious and even amateurish act-
ing of the two casts is an added attraction in the con-
vincing and edifying qualities of the play. The
performers selected are, for the most part, plain,
pious, straight-thinking and believing wage-earners.
Amongst them there is not one professional actor.
Whatever may be the scope of their daily avocations,
they are all animated by that spirit which informs
the inspired couplet of Robert Browning:
"All service ranks the same with God,
There is no first or last."
While it would be entirely out of question to
demand or even expect in the Passion players the
produce the impression that they feel, know and
actually live the ordeals which they so ingeniously
portray.
XT is said of the Oberammergau players that
they try to live in their daily lives the parts
they play upon the stage. In the stress and
compexities of our hurried American life it would
be quite impossible for the West Hoboken players
to imitate their praiseworthy efforts. But they do
strive to make of their acting a religious exercise.
They make an annual retreat preceding Lent. This
is of obligation. They are all frequent and many of
them daily communicants. Their loyalty to Ver-
onica's Veil is evident from the fact that they serve
without remuneration and that 90% of the original
casts are still with the play.
TABLEAU OF THE CRUCIFIXION'
technical refinements of the professional performer,
the sympathetic auditor and even the surfeited
theatre-goer cannot but be impressed by the blunt
speaking and the awkward gesture which so quickly
express elemental passion and primal emotion. The
very crudities of the Passion players enhance for
many the suitability of their characterizations. Yet
it must not be thought that these players never get
beyond the mediocre range of the amateur. There
are those amongst them who lift their audience into
utter sympathy, understanding and admiration by
the sheer intensity, sincerity and virile simplicity of
their almost inspired acting. The despair of Judas,
the death of Caiphas, the banishment of Ruth, the
wrath of the venomous Miriam, are examples of
amazingly fine acting, the more inescapably effec-
tive for that the players' very gaucheries of techni-
que and lack of everything approaching affectation
So much does the religious element triumph
that the play succeeds in spite of its violating some
of the most elementary rules of dramatic composi-
tion. There are two distict plays in the one produc-
tion. The aim of the playwright is to delineate
the historical incidents of the Sacred Passion, and
to add to this, the spectacle of the successful preach-
ing of Christianity to the pagan world as the outcome
of the sufferings of the Divine Redeemer. But the
author's purpose — Devotion to the Sacred Passion —
would have been better served if in accordance with
dramatic technique the final curtain were dropped
on the last act of the Great Tragedy. One's soul,
like to the souls of the watchers on Calvary, would
in this event be more than taxed in contending with
the surging emotions of grief, pity and repentance.
Even as a separate play, the second part,
despite its many beautiful and clever settings, scat-
THE + SIGN
ters its iorces time and agaki by piling up climaxes.
In both plays one constantly marvels how the per-
former, charged to express the deepest emotions the
heart can know, can escape embarassment when
the lines of the playwright unexpectedly stop short.
Perforce he must have recourse to the semophore
devices of the 'silent' drama.
w
HATEVER may be the defects of Veronica's
Veil, and friendly criticism will help to
remove them, the play stands out as being
the notable religious dramatic productions of the
world. Already it attracts patrons from all parts of
the United States and Canada.
The St. Joseph's production differs from the
pageants and historical plays that have attained
popularity in all parts of America within the last
few years because it is planned to maintain it as an
annual institution indefinitely, and to gain for it a
reputation which will put it on the same plane as
the Oberammergau passion play. That production,
however, has been repeated only every tenth year,
THE MIRACLE IN
simply epochal in the development of the religious
drama in America. The evident success it has so
far met with is ample proof of its general appeal
and points to its value as a permanent institution.
The editorial comment of the New York Sun is more
justified today than when it appeared in the issue of
March 10, 1919:
"Since the passion play "Veronica's Veil" was
presented for the first time in 1914 by the parish-
ioners of St. Joseph's Church in West Hoboken it
has achieved a national fame which gives promise
of permanence and may in time establish it among
THE MAMERTINE
in accordance with the vow made in gratitude for the
cessation of the Black Death in 1633. The Oberam-
mergau play has enlisted the services of 600 persons
as actors and actresses; St. Joseph's is not so ambit-
ious in numbers, but the spirit of reverence in which
the participants approach their personations is deep
and true. The experiment has already achieved
more than momentary success, and its development
will be interesting to those who regard it as a
spectacle, as well as to those who look upon it as a
significant incident in the evolution of religious
activity in America."
More Laborers for the Harvest
First Colony of American Passionists Leave for Ckina
Gabriel Francis Powers
SCENE never to be forgotten, and a cere-
mony solemn and beautiful as those of
the red-letter days of one's life, was that
of the departure service for the young
Passionist Missionaries leaving for China; an event
that will be historic in St. Michael's Monastery
Church at West Hoboken, New Jersey.
. Long before the hour appointed, the noble,
rather sombre edifice was filled already to the total
extent of its seating capacity, with a swarm of
people standing below the pews, in the vain hope
that they might perhaps get a seat later on. The
crowd extended at last not only to the vestibule
and stairs, but spread even over the sidewalk. And
the attitude of this vast gathering was not merely
curiosity, but much more, and very noticeably,
sympathy. Sympathy with the young men who were
going, sympathy with the Order and the relatives
who were giving them up; and a deep, unspoken
sympathy with this wondrous thing that has grown
up in our midst almost unnoticed: the enthusiasm
for the foreign missions.
Many persons had tried in vain to obtain
tickets at the last moment by applying at the Mon-
astery; but one woman obtained admission as by
magic. She stood on the threshold with her brave,
bright face aglow: "I want to get in. I've got a
boy at Maryknoll, and he's going to China, too."
She got in so quickly the mere spectator was left
breathless. The atmosphere of kindness and gener-
osity was abroad like sunshine in the air. In the jam
of leaving, one woman was crushed against another
and saw the souvenirs in her hands. "Where did
you get them? I could not see any." — "Right near
the door; but take some of mine — do take them — I
have quite a few of them." Strangers one to another,
but some spirit of open-hearted giving seemed to
have emanated from those six black-robed figures
of sacrifice.
^^^HE long preliminary wait was borne with a
V/y quietness and patience that spoke volumes,
and noteworthy because it is not common,
even in church. A little after four o'clock, the organ
prelude for the processional pealed forth, and the
entire congregation came to their feet in sharp
expectancy.
From the vestry, across the sanctuary, down the
north aisle and up the nave, the stately procession
advanced, the solemn escorting, by all the orders
of the Church, of these young envoys, to be sent,
like her missionaries of old, with the glad tidings
of the Gospel, to Gentile nations sitting in darkness
and in the shadow of death. The gleaming Cross
first, borne high, and with a special fitness, before
these Sons of the Cross and Passion. Nearest to it
the little children, tiny boys in white cassocks, with
the faces of cherubs and big, bright eyes roaming
in wonder; next the taller boys in scarlet; then the
acolytes in black with red sashes; and the long
lines of the Passionist Fathers and students in plain
linen surplice; then those six who wear no surplice,
but only the habit of their Order, austere and noble,
with, ever the heart, the badge upon which are
stamped the memorials of the Passion, and, driven
into the leathern cincture, the Crucifix which they
go forth to preach.
The long black robe, which they wear as an
emblem of their incessant mourning for Him who
died these nineteen hundred years ago, falls over
bare feet strapped in sandals. In their wake follow
religious of other Orders, and the secular clergy in
surplice and birretta, grave, reverend ecclesiastics,
most of them grown grey in the long years of toil
and service. The prelate of the Missions, Monsignor
Dunn, another friendly and noted figure, passes in
the fresh splendor of the recently assumed, and, if
a secular voice may presume to say it, so well
deserved episcopal purple. Then the deacons and
subdeacons who are to officiate at the pontifical
compline service, in violet dalmatics; and last the
venerable white haired Bishop of Newark, Monsig-
nor O'Connor, with his attendant priests and six
small pages in white satin and silver, bearing his
train, an added touch that seems to make the picture
more complete, as, the procession melting away
into a series of well-ordered groups in the sanctuary,
the component elements of it take their respective
places around the altar. The Diocesan Bishop upon
his throne at the Gospel side; the visiting Bishop at
THE 1* SIGN
the Epistle side; just behind him, the five missionary
Fathers and the good co-adjutor Brother, their com-
panion; the reverend clergy and the religious, in
the stalls
and in
ranks be-
yond the
miss ion-
aries.
Com-
pline, the
evening
prayer of
the Church,
is sung im-
m e diately
by finely
trained
voices in
the choir,
and the
short
psalms are
succeed e d
by one of
the most
beauti f u l
of the Anti-
phons of
Our Bles-
sed Lady,
that won-
drous song
of Advent
— and how
appropriate
here to-
ri i g h t! —
"Alma Re-
d e mptoris
Mater,
quae per-
via c o e l i
porta
manes, et
stella
maris." Well may they call upon her: "The Gate
of Heaven open, and the sea's star!"
gT the close of the Divine Office, Monsignor
Dunn ascends the pulpit, and announces as
the text of his impressive sermon those
INTERIOR OF ST. MICHAEL'S MONASTERY CHURCH
words which throughout the centuries, have been
sending men from native land and fireside to the
extremest confines of the earth. "Going therefore,
teach ye
all nations,
bap tizing
them in
the name
of the
Father and
of the Son,
and of the
Holy
Ghost."
And he
adds the
con tinua-
tion of the
m e s sage,
the last
verse of
the Gospel
of St. Mat-
:hew, which
is not al-
w a y s
quoted, but
which
should
be always
quoted, for
it is the
promise of
eternal
truth,
strengthen-
i n g the
fearful and
staying up
the weak
in immor-
tal hope :
"And be-
hold I am
with you
all days,
even to the consummation of the world." Had the
orator uttered no other word, and he uttered many
others both eloquent and wise, that one alone would
have been a staff in the hand of each of the depart-
ing pilgrims, forevermore.
THE + SIGN
XN the course of the sermon the speaker calls
attention to the importance of the event in
which we are participating : the first departure
of missionaries of this diocese for the foreign field,
and he expresses his own strong faith that it was
the martyr blood of Christians shed in China during
the Boxer rebellion of 1900, that has brought about
the flowering of Christianity there in the present
day, and the generous readiness of our America to
respond to the call of the field afar. He rejoices in
the marvelous new impulse, a very breathing of the
Holy Ghost amongst us, which is carrying so many
splendid young men to the sublime vocation of the
Foreign Missions. The world, for their reward, will
style them fools, but they will be fools for Christ;
and it is the image of the wayfaring, preaching, self-
forgetting Christ, that he holds up as the model of
all missionaries and as their leader: "The First
Missionary: Christ."
ONE could have listened longer with pleasure
to so earnest a speaker, but after the final
exhortation to the missionaries to build
schools wherever they go, Monsignor Dunn, yields
the word to the Reverend Father Provincial, who,
standing before the altar, presents a large Mission
Cross to his departing sons. The six young men
kneel at the altar step to receive this last public
exhortation of their Superior, and there is something
both striking and touching about the mingled manli-
ness and humility of those kneeling forms, the habit
and cloak, at that moment, calling to mind the
pictures of the saints of the Order, in just such a
garb and posture as this.
In his clear yet subdued voice, the Father
reminds them that all missionaries, under the guid-
ance of the Church go forth to carry the selfsame
message of light and faith to the nations afar, but
that they, Sons of St. Paul of the Cross, have a
special added task to fulfill. On the day of their
religious profession they made a promise, nay,
more, a solemn vow, to further and to spread, where-
ever they might go, the knowledge and remembrance
of the sufferings of Christ Crucified.
In the long hours of meditation at the foot of the
Crucifix, they have been schooled in this knowledge
and remembrance themselves, and this must be the
special teaching of salvation which they carry to
others. They have often contemplated in spirit the
Sorrows of the Mother who stood at the foot of the
Cross, and her remembrance, too, Mary in anguish
and desolation, they must teach to others, while she
will be their consolation in troubles and adversities,
when perchance their tears may be mingling with
hers. The name of the Holy Mother of God, as he
utters it, seems to fill all the sanctuary with fra-
grance. "Thy name, 0 Mary, is as sweet oil poured
forth. Thy servants have loved thee exceedingly."
In conclusion he invites the young men to approach,
and to kiss Our Saviour's feet, as a token of their
fidelity and attachment to Him.
After this they go over to the venerable Bishop
and kneel one by one before the throne to receive
his Blessing, and to kiss his ring in homage. Then
to the Bishop Director of the Propagation of the
Faith, and the eyes and the hands of this great
friend of the Missions, as he slowly and reverently
blesses them, seem to be conveying some message —
wordlessly — out of his heart.
^^^0 the bystander, the most affecting portion
I J of the remarkable ceremony is unquestionably
the farewell of the clergy and religious to
the departing missionaries. The six young men
ascend the altar step and stand, facing the congre-
gation, while the long line of priests, religious, and
students, passing in front of them in single file, greet
each one of them individually.
The first to pass, the officiating deacons, simply
offer them the "Pax" of High Mass, the ceremonious
laying of hands upon the arms and the inclination;
but as the ecclesiastics keep coming, and still com-
ing, it is easy to recognize, in spite of the dignity
and decorum observed, the old, valued friend, the
cherished companion, the brother in religion who
has drawn more tenderly near, the class-mate of
long ago. Some in haste, struggling with the heart-
break they will not show; some lingeringly, reluct-
ant to part; here the robust handshake, gripping
hard, eye to eye; there the kiss upon the cheek, or
even upon the lips, like a parting of lovers. And
again the cheery word and the clap on the back,
right there, in front of the altar, before the Friend
who will understand.
One saintlike aged priest pauses before each
of the young priests, bending his hoary head, white
with the snows of many winters, and to each whis-
pers the selfsame words, perhaps a humble request
for prayers; seeing, near the end of the course in
which he has spent himself, these new athletes
vigorously entering the career for God. And in the
midst of it all, some flash of a friends glance, some
THE + SIGN
secret murmured in his ear, suddenly brings a smile
to one of the grave young faces, and, in a moment,
one of the missionaries has laughed outright. The
line in front of him keeps passing, passing, men
stand dumb in the pews, gripping the wood under
their hands in the effort not to show their soul;
over the faces of women tears are pouring down
silently, unrestrained; but that face at the altar
laughs out its farewells, head up, bright as though
the sun were shining upon it, not with any flimsy
mirth of amusement, but with the high, shining,
magnificent joy of this thing which is the leaving
of home and tongue, of father and mother, of bro-
ther and sister, for the sheer love of Christ!
^^=^HE prayers for travellers about to set forth
V_J upon the road, the "Itinerarium" of ancient
days, come last before the Benediction of the
Blessed Sacrament. And it begins by the chanting
of the Benedictus, the canticle which will be said
over the bodies of these young Passionists when
they lie dead. But there seems to be a wonderful
fitness about it now, as it so often happens in the
prayers of the Church; for are not these words true
of the missionaries today as they were of the Pre-
cursor in the day of Zachary ?
JJND thou, child, shalt be called the prophet of the Most
High: for thou shalt go before the face of the Lord
to prepare His ways.
To give knowledge of salvation to His people, unto
the remission of their sins.
Through the bowels of the mercy of our God, in
which the Orient from on high hath visited us.
To enlighten them that sit in darkness, and in the
•hadow of death: to direct our feet into the way of peace.
And the voice of the officiating Bishop, distinct-
ly and sweetly, intones the prayer :
fll^ AY the almighty and merciful God direct us in the
way of prosperity and peace, and may the Angel
Raphael be our companion in the way, that with peace,
health, and gladness, we may return to our own homes.
Then, alternately with the choir, the verses and
responses are chanted :
g\VE thy servants, O Lord, for they hope in Thee.
Send help, O Lord, from the holy place, and from Zion
be our protection. Be to us a tower of strength against
the face of the enemy. Let not the enemy win any gain
over us, nor the son of iniquity be able to work evil
against us. May the Lord be blessed every day, may God,
who is our salvation, render our going prosperous. Show
us, O Lord, thy ways, and in thy paths be our leader.
May our ways be directed to the keeping of thy com-
mandments. The crooked paths shall be made straight
and the rough places smooth. God shall give His angels
charge over thee, that they may keep thee in all thy
ways.
Then alone the faint, soft voice of the Bishop
lifts up those marvelous prayers of the ancient
Roman liturgy, many of which go back to the sixth
century, and some point, as with the finger, to the
frescoed images of the Catacombs in the fourth :
^ God, who didst cause the children of Isreal to pass
dry-footed through the midst of the sea, and who, by
the guidance of a star, didst lead the three Kings unto
Thee grant us, we beseech Thee, quiet times and a pros-
perous journey, that thy holy Angel being our companion
we may safely attain the end of our travels and at length
happily enter the port of salvation.
^ GOD, who having led Abraham thy servant out from
Ur of the Chaldeans, didst through all his peregri-
nations keep him from every harm, deign to keep us, too,
who are thy servants. Be to us, O Lord, our aid while
we gird for starting, be our comfort in the way, a shade
n the ardor of heat, a shelter in rain and cold, a vehicle
n fatigue, a refuge in mishaps, a staff in slippery places,
n shipwreck our port; that, led by thee, we may come
safely to our destination, and return unharmed to our own
homes.
The service ends with the singing of the sweet,
familiar hymns we know so well, 0 Salutaris, and
Tantum Ergo, and that last crowning glory and
radiance of the Host, uplifted above the sea of
kneeling forms and lowly bowed heads, as the
Eucharistic King imparts His Blessing, after so
many other blessings asked and received. Before
Him, in final silence, lie all the prayers, all the tears,
all the hopes, all the farewells. Then the congrega-
tion stands, like the ministers in the sanctuary, for
the brief "Laudate," and the procession forms once
more and majestically descends the main aisle, to the
strains of the recessional.
There is one more detail. The Master of Cere-
monies announces that as it will be impossible,
cwing to the greater number of persons present, for
the Missionaries to meet their friends individually,
they will give their blessing to all collectively. Thus
for a moment we see them stand again upon that
memorable altar step, one clear voice intones
"Benedicat vos Omnipotens Deus," (curiously they
seem to have taken refuge at the altar, grouped to-
gether, as in times past the martyrs sometimes did —
the thought comes strangely to mind!) and the five
consecrated hands rise to trace slowly in the air the
Sign that has mysteriously conquered the world.
It will be right and fitting to recall here the
names of the little band of heroic and devoted
young men. Father Celestine Roddan, C. P., Superi-
or, Father Agatho Purtill, C. P., Father Flavian
Mullins, C. P., Father Raphael Vance, C. P., Father
Timothy McDermott, C. P., and Brother Lambert
Budd, C. P., who will valiantly second the apostolic
labors of the Fathers.
THE t SIGN
^^^HE writer of these lines has asked permission
V/J of the Reverend Editors of the Sign to make
one last earnest appeal to the readers of it,
in favor of the Missionaries. Not so long since, we
used to cross the street to shake hands with some
unknown soldier and say to him. "Good-bye — good
luck — God bless you!" He was going overseas and
in our hearts was the pain and the fear that he might
never come back. Some have not come back. And
here are other young men going overseas, to the
front without question; we trust and pray they will
come back. But we could not cross the street to
say: "Good-bye, God bless you?" They have not
sailed yet, though they are on their way West
already, and we can still reach them with some
word of greeting, some token of appreciation, some
offering to help them in their work.
No doubt the Passionist Congregation can take
care of its members, but the send-off should be the
spontaneous tribute of the laity. These six men
have to be equipped and conveyed to their distant
field of action. They must have some kind of a
lodging; a tiny chapel, if possible. And if we put
the means in their hands the works of their Mission,
and its fruits, will be multiplied. The first China
Mission of the Passionists! How the heart of St.
Paul of the Cross, that great Apostle, must thrill
with joy of it in Heaven!
Men, women and children, if you have a dime
to spare, or a quarter, or a dollar, or one hundred
dollars — or a thousand — say good-bye with it to the
Missionaries, and wish them good-luck. Shake
hands with them, for they are going over a wider
sea than the soldier went, and:
"Give them a cheer boys For God's sake
Give them a cheer!"
Note: Anyone wishing to address the Missionaries
may do so. THE SIGN, West Hoboken, N. J.
Winnoxtfings of Wisdom
Don't try to censor the films, censor the audiences.
— Collier's
Where one saloon is closed, three speak-easys open.
— N. Y. Tribune
Vanity is a centipede with corns on every foot.
— Lord Roseberry
If you will not go through the stage knowing or
doing a thing badly or imperfectly, you never
will know it or be able to do it well.
— Jos. Rickaby, S. J.
I would not give much for that man's faith that did
not make the man dangerous to every dishonest
trade and every dangerous tendency.
— Rev. Home
Better swallow your good jest than lose your good
friend. — Pittsburgh Dispatch
Our deeds go before us to open or to bar the way.
— Bishop Spaulding
Without sorrow life glares:
merciful shadows.
it has no half-tones or
— Anna R. Brown
Thou shalt not let thy senses make a playground
of thy mind. — Voice of the Silence
Succeed and you have simply laid another pole
across the hurdle. — Geo. Ade
With the Greeks the women of the house sat at the
loom, with us they sit at the piano. But it may
be doubted whether our lives are more filled
with music than were theirs.
— Bishop Spaulding
The Supreme courage of life is the courage of the
soul. — Wm. George Jordan
ONE day, at a most inconvenient moment, just
as Father Monsabre, the famous preacher of
Notre Dame was preparing to enter the pulpit,
a lady came to him with many airs and redundancies,
told him that her conscience troubled her
greatly, because she had that morning admired
herself in the looking-glass more than usual,
thinking how very pretty she was. Whereupon he
answered : "Go in peace, my child, a mistake is not
a sin."
The Wkite Rose of Lucca
Tke Stop? of Gemma Galgani
MATTHEW KUEBEL
5 — Sweetness and Strength — (continued)
^^^^HE King of Heaven, besides granting her
a w\ other favors such as those already referred
^^^V to, often accommodated Himself to her low-
liness and came to her as a little infant,
either in the arms of His Immaculate Mother or
alone, and would permit Himself to be taken up in
the arms of the seraphic girl and to be showered
with her ardent caresses.
The Queen of Heaven, for whom Gemma cher-
ished an ardent filial love, favored the devoted child
with her visible presence. At one time the Virgin
Mary would come and speak to Gemma with maternal
tenderness ; at another time she would take Gemma
into her lap and pressing the sweet child to her
immaculate bosom, would instruct her in the love
of Jesus. At such times Gemma would be enraptur-
ed at the unspeakable beauty and graciousness of
her Heavenly Mother and would be almost beside
herself with joy. "Oh! Father," she once said to
her director, "how beautiful Our Heavenly Mother
is! Though I have often seen her, yet my desire
to see her again, remains."
gNOTHER heavenly privilege Gemma enjoyed
was the constant and visible presence of her
Guardian Angel. The holy Guardian was
wont to come to her and pray with her; hover over
her with out-stretched wings as if to protect her;
would dictate, while she sat and wrote, a message
to someone in this world or an important lesson
in the spiritual life. If, forgetful of the lapse
of time, she happened to remain too long in church,
he would come and remind her that it was time to
go, and would then accompany her home. Gemma
on her side was most grateful to the angel. "Dear
Angel," she would say, "I so love you. . .because
you teach me to love Jesus." Having unbounded
confidence in him she talked to him familiarly;
gave him messages (sealed letters)' to the blessed in
heaven, especially to heaven's Queen, and sent him
on missions to people in this world. More than
once it happened that whole troupes of the blessed
spirits came to celebrate with her the holy praises
of God.
It will be well not to omit another touching
expression of Gemma's charming simplicity. For
a long time her idea of the marvellous favors just
described was that they were the usual thing in
God's service, and that Our Lord, the Virgin Mary,
the angels, were quite ready to give visible audience
on demand to any other of God's servants. Thus
in writing by command of Heaven to her director
about any matter, if she feared that she had not
been quite clear, she would add: "Ask Jesus about
it and make Him explain it to you better," and
once, when in order to try her the angel was "a
little severe," she prayed "that the others would
not see him so angry; for if they did, no one would
come near him."
How truly were Our Lord's own words to
Gemma verified in her, namely, that He loves to
be with humble and childlike souls. The sweet
odor of her virtues — a fragrance that is destined
to fill the whole world, — penetrated into heaven and
attracted its blessed inhabitants to our sin-stained
earth.
Though so simple and so lowly of heart, we
must not forget that Gemma possessed, as I have
said, the opposite trait of high moral strength,
which, regulated, sanctified, augmented by grace,
she used solely for the noble end of self-conquest.
Such were the vigorous earnestness and constancy
of her efforts for self-mastery, that very early she
became crucified in body and soul, — an adult in all
the virtues and fitted for the sublimest gifts of
heaven.
eEMMA began to strive for self-mastery at the
very dawn of reason at which time she com-
menced to lead the spiritual life. Beginning
with the humbler forms of detachment, she subdued
every inclination for worldly pleasures and amuse-
ments, and for all finery and vain show — a great
sacrifice in a woman, and one that requires a deter-
THE +SIGN
mined will to achieve. Then bringing one by one
all her senses into perfect control, she never relented
in her declaration of war on her natural impulses :
"I will give them no rest until I find them dead
within me."
She labored with unwearying industry to con-
quer the natural craving for food; and so many
and various were the sacrifices to which she resorted,
that she managed to hide to some extent her tem-
perance, and at the same time to lead a life of almost
unbroken fast. Not satisfied with what she could
accomplish with a firm will sustained by ordinary
grace, she prayed to be deprived of the sense of
taste — a request that was no sooner made than
granted. Henceforth, food and drink gave Gemma
no more pleasure than so much straw and water.
Her eyes and tongue came in for a share of
this salutary discipline. She was as reluctant to
indulge in idle talk as to listen to it. although she
was ready and pleased to speak to a few intimate
friends about holy things. Very rarely did anyone
see her eyes, for on all occasions, but without any
suggestion of affectation, she kept them lowered.
Gemma's spiritual advisors seldom allowed her to
practise severe bodily penances, such as the use of
the hair-shirt, the iron chain and the scourge; but
when the coveted leave was granted, for ever so
short a time, she rejoiced as at the reception of a
very great boon.
Gemma was wisely restrained from practising
severe corporal penances, for the physical and
spiritual sufferings of which she was the recipient
direct from the hand of God, were more than suf-
ficent to make her a martyr. The cruelty of the war
that, with God's permission, Satan waged against
her, more than compensated for the penances she
was forbidden to practise. During several years
Gemma was made the victim, often for whole days
and nights together, of the most savage assaults of
the Evil One, whose rage and hatred for her eminent
virtues knew no bounds. The welts and bruises,
the black hair scattered on the floor, the loud noises
heard in her room, were terrible witnesses to both
the reality and the fury of these attacks.
There is no need here for more than a passing
reference to the excruciating martyrdom, a hundred
times endured, of her participation in all the pains,
internal and external, of the Savior's Passion. It
is pertinent to remark, however, that such was the
heroism of the delicate young woman, that she
welcomed the periodic returns of these torments
with eager anticipation and keen joy. More excru-
ciating than even the crucifixion of her bodily
members, was the internal martyrdom she endured
from the cessation, intermittent at first, but after-
wards complete, of her supernatural gifts — a cross
that was the instrument of such intense bitterness,
that the sundown of her life was dyed in the deepest
possible crimson of sacrificial grief.
aS has ever been the case in God's service, so
it was with Gemma — sacrifice was in many
ways its own reward. With painful industry
she sowed the seed of virtue, and, rejoicing, she
harvested the golden sheaves of precious spiritual
treasure. Sacrifice and suffering were the source
whence she derived the ease with which her soul was
able at all times to make sublime flights in realms
supernatural ; whence she drew that perpetual peace
and joy that nothing, except the fear of sin and of
the secret judgments of God, could disturb. But her
stainless purity and burning love were the most
precious spoils of her victory.
To acquire in an eminent degree and to pre-
serve immaculate, the adorable virtue of purity
was an object of Gemma's life-long concern. This
virtue was the inspiration of her heroic constancy
in the practise of penance of mortification and of
prayer; of her anxious care to avoid the most in-
'nocent liberty that might discolor this beautiful
flower; of the ardent devotion she cherished for the
Immaculate Virgin. The eminence she acquired in
it seems to have been reflected in her physical form.
Her body appeared as though fashioned from some
crystalline material, which only half concealed the
resplendent beauty of the soul. To Gemma's ex-
cellence in the holy virtue, God bore witness when
He said to a holy soul : "I have always guarded the
purity of this child's heart... and have preserved
her as a spotless lily of paradise in My pure love."
He permitted the fragrance of this lily to be per-
ceived even by the children of earth, for we are told
that, whereas she would never use perfume of any
kind, her room and the things she touched often
exhaled a heavenly fragrance.
The fire of divine love that the wood of the
cross enkindled in this privileged soul was seraphic.
Only the immeasurable force and earnestness of
her own words can suggest how great was that inner
fire. Love was the power which taught her that
fiery eloquence which she lavished in burning
prayers upon Jesus Crucified and in the sacrament
THE 1* SIGN
and attention to prayer as religious do. But from the
Passion of Our Lord they will learn to love the
practice of prayer. By remembering now and then
the sorrows and sufferings of the Sacred Heart of
Christ, thoughts arise in their minds that become
fervent prayers. At the beginning of His Passion,
the Divine Master said: "Pray, lest you enter into
temptation." If members heed this advice, they will
pray for protection against evil; they will pray for
strength and help to be virtuous, to be obedient to
God's law, and to keep their souls unstained by sin.
If members recall the sufferings Our Lord went
through to make reparation for sin, then when
tempted to do wrong, they will pray until the tempta-
tion is overcome. Instead of yielding to their unruly
desires or the suggestions of temptation, they will
resist all sinful inclinations for the sake of Him
Who suffered so much for them. If members have
the spirit of their Archconfraternity, they will pray
that no sins will be committed, because sin renews
the Passion of Christ. They will pray in reparation
for the offenses that caused the sufferings of Our
Lord.
Our Divine Savior teaches prayer to the mem-
bers of the Archconfraternity by His example in
the garden of Gethsemane. Again and again He
repeated: "Father, not My Will but Thine be done."
He prayed when it was hard to pray. He prayed
with reverence, with confidence, with resignation, and
with perseverance. This prayer of Christ at the
beginning of His Passion should encourage the mem-
bers to recommend to God their troubles and suffer-
ings. As Our Lord did, so let them do; they should
have recourse to God in prayer when they desire
to accomplish some good work, or to obtain some
blessing.
At the end of His Passion, Jesus taught men to
pray in the spirit of charity. Agonizing on the Cross
and tormented by His enemies, He prayed for His
tormentors: "Father, forgive them; for they know
not what they do." The members of the Archcon-
fraternity thus learn to pray for others, to pray even
for those who cause them suffering or injure them.
And the last prayer of Christ Crucified, "Father,
into Thy hands I commend my spirit," shows the
members how they ought to place themselves and
their affairs in the hands of their Heavenly Father,
so that when the end of life draws nigh they may
give themselves to God's keeping for eternity.
The success of missions and retreats and meet-
ings of the Archconfraternity lies in the spread of
true devotion to the Sacred Passion. In the degree
in which the members have the spirit of their society,
they will pray that more and more of the faithful
will come to know and gratefully remember the
Sufferings and Death of Christ Crucified.
Prayer and penance go hand in hand. The Pas-
sion was Our Lord's prayer for the redemption of
mankind. It was also the supreme sacrifice, which
He offered to God, for the redemption of mankind.
y^^HE spirit of penance, which the members of
V/J the Archconfraternity imbibe from the know-
ledge of Our Lord's Passion, is self-sacrifice
and self-control. They know the Divine Master's
reproach "Could you not watch one hour with Me?"
would be said to them also, were they to consider
their own desires rather than their duties. It means
fidelity and generosity, no matter what the suffering,
in doing those things, that God wants them to do.
When the members keep in mind how willingly and
how generously Christ suffered for their sake, it
becomes easy for them to sacrifice their own opin-
ions, to ignore their own wishes, to despise their
own feelings, to please Him, to serve others, and to
sanctify themselves. Very often however this is
real penance. Very often it is known to God alone.
He appreciates and blesses self-sacrifice even when
others return evil for good and ingratitude for bless-
ings received.
Another view of penance is that of reparation
for sin. "Weep not for Me, but for yourselves and
for your children," Jesus said to the women of
Jerusalem. St. Paul the Apostle practiced penance
to keep himself free from sin and because of the
Crucifixion of Christ: "I crucify the flesh," he says,
"with its vices and concupiscences." And again he
says: "With Christ, I am nailed to the Cross." The
self-control which Our Suffering Savior asks of the
members is the control of their thoughts, their
speech, and their temper. Thus they do penance,
and make reparation for sin, and show the true spirit
of the Archconfraternity, when for the sake Jesus
Crucified, they imitate Him, and sacrifice them-
selves, deny themselves, and carry the cross with
Him. "I thirst," cried Our Lord on the Cross. So
it should be the ambition of members to suffer with
Christ, to share in His Passion, "to fill up whatever
may be wanting in them" of the Passion.
This is the spirit of the Archconfraternity, to
pray and to sacrifice that Jesus Crucified may be
known, loved, and glorified.
39
Index to Worthwhile Reading
THE SOCIAL MISSION OF CHARITY. By
William J. Kerby, Professor of Sociology, Catholic
University, Washington, D. C. New York: Mac-
Millan Co. Price $2.25.
This volume is the second of the series which
is beir.g issued by the Social Action Department of
the National Catholic Welfare Council. The day
is at hand when every one will know what N. C.
W. C. means. This volume and others to follow
represent the desire of the Department to study the
relations of the Church to proverty and the bearing
of our new insight into social conditions and pro-
cesses on the principles and methods of Catholic
charity. Doctor Kerby's educational work, of which
this book is the testament — not his last, We may
hope — justly entitles him to a very high ranking
among the noblest benefactors of the poor. His
book will revolutionize the public attitude and out-
look towards the problem of poverty and by conse-
quence t.'wards the problem of charity. The pitiful
evil of poverty is so widespread that it must be
spoken of as social. It is inseparable from the con-
dition that prevails in society and so must be spoken
of as social. The consequence is inevitable.
Nothing shoit of the converging efforts of all the
forces of the State will ever effectually deal with
this problem. An evil which is social imposes upon
charity a social mission. Newer methods, newer
systems are required. "Modern conditions force us
to deal with poverty in the aggregate as a problem
of society and the State and of Christianity no less
than as a problem of the individual. Only when we
look upon poverty as organic can we comprehend
the pitiable inadequacy of relief alone. Only then
can we gain insight into its real nature, only then
can we feel the stirring impulses that lead us to deal
with processes, institutions, conditions and relations
in our effort to conquer it. This organic view forces
us to study the ethical codes that prevail in life, the
relation of the social classes, the property system,
the social philosophy of the strong, the ineffective-
ness of the discipline of religion, the conduct of in-
dustry, the process of legislation and the tyranny of
conditions in the lives of the weak. . . .It is possible
to see nothing in poverty except the plight of the
individual and to see no duty except that of relief,
comfort and advice as cases present themselves.
It is possible to shut one's eyes to the wider bearings
of poverty but it can be done only in defiance of
scholarly standards and at the cost of perpetuating
the misery of the poor."
One need but read the chapter on The Back-
ground of Poverty to realize how far-reaching the
scope of Christian effort must be if the axe is ever
to be laid at the root of the tree which sends forth
the ever-multiplying fruit of poverty. Our present
social fabric accounts for a condition that, according
to some, leaves ten million persons but one week
removed from destitution, to say nothing of what
such a condition brings into the whole life of men,
women and children in the form of crime. Truly,
as we gain insight into the forces which make the
poor dependent and as we grow in understanding
of the process that keeps them so, we find need of
foresight, strength and system. If we look upon
poverty as a state of society rather than of the indi-
vidual we become convinced of the necessity of
organizing the forces which can act upon society,
awaken its conscience and remedy existing con-
ditions.
The N. C. W. C. is nothing if not practical and
that they are efficient every man who reads the work
they are here sponsoring will readily admit. They
are to be congratulated on having the services of
Doctor Kerby than whom there is no abler sociolo-
gist in the country. He is at his best in this particu-
lar work. With the great mind of the scholar and
the great heart of the priest he voices the social
aims' of the N. C. W. C. It remains for Catholics
the country over to correspond generously in the
great work of social reform herein proposed. Our
hope is that the keynote sounded by Dr. Kerby may
be carried to the ears of the country for it must
compel the mind and heart to realize that the
country's energies have to be enlisted, have to be
won and marshalled to heal this social sore. The
wider the circulation of The Social Mission of
Charity the sooner will amelioration of the poor
be brought about.
"JESUS CHRIST, THE KING OF HEARTS."
By Rev. A. Lepicier, O. S. M. Bensiger Bros. Price
$1.50.
This is a devotional study of The Sacred Heart
by the well-known theologian, Fr. Lepicier. Called
to preach a sermon on The Sacred Heart, induced
the author to make a closer study of the inner
meaning of this beautiful devotion. His attention
centered on a particular phase of the subject: the
regal dignity and sovereignty of the Heart of Jesus
over our hearts. The book is a beautiful com-
mentary on the invocation in the Litany of the
Sacred Heart, "Heart of Jesus, the King and Center
of our Hearts."
A NATIONAL Sj> CATHOLIC
MONTIiLY MACAZ1NEX
3 VOL. I.
FEBRUARY, 1922
Ho. 7
^ft^^l^.lifttrcw^
BENEDICT XV.
ON January 22, Benedict XV. died, the 259th. successor in a direct line from St. Peter.
His demise was quite sudden. Particularly did it seem so to us who recall the
earnestness with which he addressed us on the quite recent occasion of the
canonization of St. Gabriel and the animation with which he participated as the
central figure in that splendid ceremony.
His was a short reign in that heroic line of Christ's Vicars — the first fifty of whom
were every one a martyr. Yet who dare say that his predecessors defying the Neros, the
Julians, the Henrys, had to exercise greater fortitude than he. Into his pontificate were
crowded the years of unparalleled warfare and acrimonious readjustment.
Benedict's pontificate is reviewed with glowing sympathy and sincere gratitude by the
press of all nations and by leaders of every creed. Belated credit is yielded to him for the
best points for peace adopted in the Conference and for the most practical phrases echoed by
Mr. Wilson. In the prospective the world marvels at the justice, firmness and impartiality
with which he responded to the partisan pleas of his children throughout the world conflict.
To the enormous strain all this entailed can reasonably be attributed his apparently prema-
ture demise. Briefly may it be said of him that he measured up fully to the ideal the world
has formed of the Holy See as the most potent and far-reaching influence in civilization.
While most of the encomiums dwelt upon his useful life we must be grateful to
God for the rare edification the Holy Father imparted to us all in his last hours — his
oblation of himself to secure peace for the world, his ardent yearning for the fortifying rites
and sacraments of the Church, the consolation he found in the presence of the sacred
mysteries. Thus is a writer in the Washington Herald inspired to say: "The last hours of
Benedict were quite exquisite in the sense that they were delicately beautiful, quite what
we like to imagine and so seldom find in reality.
"He was himself the first to realize that he had but a little way to go and that his
race was nearly run. And he was not afraid that it was so. He looked out into the unknown
as some tired traveler coming to the crest of a hill who admires the grandeur of an inspiring
valley spreading out before him. The years rolled back and he was content as when a boy
he dreamed of greatness in the pleasant meadows and hills of his home land.
"He was neither afraid nor unwilling, and took the last sacrament of the Church
while conscious. His regret, if any, was expressed in his last words, 'Peace, peace, I would
willingly give my life for the peace of the world.' He did."
In and Out of Umbria
A Franciscan Pilgrimage
By Louis H. Wetmore
X APOLOGIZE at the commencement of this
article — if it can be called an article — to
whomsoever among its readers is offended
by its lack of form, its tendency to meander
and its lack of purpose. I am altogether in agree-
ment with the offended reader. As a literary critic
I am for the balance and proportion in writing, for
an artistic presentation of the data of a pilgrimage,
and I attempt to achieve these things when I write.
But in this case there is no use in attempting the
impossible. It is impossible in this pseudo-article,
because I have in my mind an impression of Umbria
that is neither balanced nor proportioned; I have
but an impressionistic memory of things seen, vague
changes of scene and points of view which take no
definite outline and which make it extremely difficult
to give a clear impression of my Franciscan pilgri-
mage. I am depressed, and have a feeling that an
unkind critic will arise and say that all that I write
is but an unpleasant mist arising from the ditch of
my egoism; in other words that I think things
important simply because I have seen them, and not
because they are really important of themselves.
Perhaps this critic would be right. Yet I am sure
that I have some things to describe which are of
vast significance however inadequately I may des-
cribe them. If I can only begin
Umbria is Italian but primarily Franciscan land.
Seven hundred years have passed, yet the ghost of
the Little Grey Man still haunts the streets of Assisi,
and wanders through that country of blue skies
and the grey sheen of olive trees, of gayly colored
frescoed churches and bleak grey hermitages.
The tale of Francis needs no repeating here.
The life of the Poverello of Assisi is well known to
all true Catholics. Nor is it untrue to say that above
all other Catholic saints Francis has caught the
imagination and love of Protestants. Protestants
have misunderstood and perverted the life and
ideals of Assisi's foremost citizen; but they love
him. And that is much. There are tales to be
gathered in Umbria of strange conversions among
Protestant travellers, even among those who flit
through that beautiful province with the rapidity
typical of Cook's Tourists. Take Joannes Jorgensen,
the great Danish convert, as an example. The life
of the Little Poor Man of Assisi plays havoc with
the smug piety and muscular Christianity of modern
Protestantism. Protestant intellectual pride has
bowed low before his tomb in San Francisco on the
hill, or in the garden of roses at Our Lady of the
Angels below in the valley.
XT is related in that exquisite book, The Little
Flowers of St. Francis, that one of the earliest
acts of the Saint after his conversion to godly
living, was to perform penance for past sins by
rebuilding with his own hands a chapel near Assisi
which had fallen into disrepair. This chapel was
of Saint Damian. The priest of that little church
rejoiced in the aid given him; and in turn gave
food and shelter to him who labored for the resur-
rection of God's fallen house. So Francis worked
for many days, collecting the materials for his build-
ing throughout his city and the surrounding country.
Day by day in the rags of his poverty Francis
walked through the city's streets singing his song
after the manner of the troubadours :
Who will give stones for the building of St.
Damian's ?
Who gives one stone shall have one reward ;
Who gives two stones shall have two rewards;
Who gives three stones shall have three rewards.
The townsfolk ran to hear him. It was such
an odd sight to see Francis Bernardone, the Beau
Brummel of his town, once clothed in fashion, now
in beggar's rags. Many jeered; some threw stones
at him in anger; others gave him stones in charity.
Thus he returned to Saint Damian's heavily ladened.
With the aid of the first disciples and friendly
neighbors the walls of the church rose again and
a roof again kept the rain from God's altar. Francis
would stand by the roadside when human aid was
lacking, and cry to the passers-by: "Help us with
your aid, good people. For the chapel of San
Damiano will one of these days be a church for holy
women whose lives will be given for the glory of
God."
Now this was a prophecy; because not so long
after the place became the first convent of Poor
THE f SIGN
Clares, who by prayer and fasting aided God's
Church and the Order of Friars Minor.
[AN DAMIANO exists to-day almost as it did
in Francis's life-time. This little place is the
real cradle of the Franciscan Order. Rever-
ent hands have kept it in repair. No false restoration
has played havoc with its simplicity. A wee place
this convent, no longer that of Poor Clares, who have
moved to the larger convent of Santa Chiara on the
hill above, but a convent of the Friars Minor of the
strict observance.
I have made two pilgrimages to Assisi. It is
a medieval city to-day. Houses and churches are of
the medieval time. The ruined castle on the highest
of the Assisian
hills crowns the
ancient walls
and houses of a
city scarcely
changed since
the 13th century.
But there is
nothing that so
" medievalizes "
one in this
peaceful Umbri-
an village on the
hills, than to
hear the quiet of
a street broken
by the tap of a
friar's sandles, and to see some son of Francis
bearing his basket in hand or on head, begging the
community's bread from door to door. Success
does not always crown the frair's begging. Not all
doors in Assisi open to give the mendicant food.
I have seen him met here with scowls, there with
cuises. At other doors, the good man (so very
brown; brown habit, brown legs, bare brown arms,
tanned face, and long brown beard) will meet with
more success. Here he will secure a crust of bread,
there a half loaf of the bread of yesterday or per-
haps of the day before that. A window will open
and someone tosses a piece of corn into the filling
basket. But the basket is never filled. I have never
seen it more than a quarter full when he, dear son
of a blessed father, strode back to San Damiano
to carry the day's food to his brethren. And that
kind of thing goes on day by day in Assisi, in rain
as well as in fair weather. Each day the community
at Saint Damian's is fed with the scraps from the
poor man's table. At times they have enough to
eat. At other times they have not enough to eat.
But at all times the Friars praise God for His gifts.
When I visited San Damiano, I was welcomed
with Franciscan simplicity. A portly friar (how did
he achieve it on the husks?) would talk in a deep
bass when he spoke Italian, and in a high falsetto
when he spoke English (such English!), acted as my
guide. He was a gentleman of leisure that morning,
having the by no means arduous duty of spending
the morning in my company showing me the convent.
At least I hope he did not find the duty arduous.
Certainly he seemed much amused at me, and
laughed a great deal, confessing, as we got to know
each other bet-
ter, that he
thought Americ-
ans" very queer
people."
These Ameri-
cans were al-
ways in such a
hurry. And did
Americans ever
say their pray-
ers? He didn't
think they did,
because he had
taken many of
them through
the convent, and
left them alone in the chapel for a few moments of
devotion; and when he came back he always found
them hopping around the place like grasshoppers.
They were never still ! Now the Italians were dif-
ferent. Once they got on their knees in the chapel,
or even in the refectory, one simply had to drag
them away by the scruff of their necks and bustle
them outdoors again. Or else no work would ever
be done at San Domiano. But he supposed most
Americans were heretical dogs — why was this?
And his blue eyes twinkled, and he laughed and
chattered on like a magpie, happy in the possession
of a Catholic Americano who would laugh with him
and let him do the talking, and who (wonder of
wonders!) had a real Catholic devotion for the
Blessed Father.
©
HE chapel of the convent is small and dimly
lighted. Nor did I find many of the relics
THE + SIGN
which I had hoped to find there. They still have,
however, the bell with which St. Clare was in the
habit of calling the Sisters to prayer, and her brevi-
ary, written in the small, clear handwriting of
Brother Leo.
And choicest of
all the relics, the
tabernacle made
of alabaster in
which Clare car-
ried the Host
the day when
she held it a-
loft over the
Saracens, who
were besieging
her city, and
drove them back
in confusion and
terror.
Once at San
Damiano there was kept a precious ring of St.
Clare's. But in 1615 a Spanish Franciscan vicar-
general Game to visit the convent with his secretary.
This gentleman had a great reverence for all relics
of the Seraphic Mother and a great devotion to her
memory. The good Fathers took particular pains
to let him see all that they had, and to linger over
them as long as he wished. He left much satisfied
with their kindness and hospitality. But, alas, the
next time that
the relics were
shown to a
visitor, it was
found that the
ring was miss-
ing. There was
anger and a
miniature riot in
the convent, and
a great disturb-
ance in the city
when the news
of the theft got
abroad. Angry
letters were sent
after the Span-
ish father on whom suspicion had fallen. He would
not affirm that he had taken the ring, nor would he
deny that he had taken it. All that he would con-
descend to say was that the ring was now on its
way to Spain, and that it would be well taken care
of there. The Friars of San Damiano still regret
the visit of that Spanish Vicar-general.
©
FRANCISCAN HERMITAGE ON AIT. SUBASIO
Y going
through
the little
chapel of the
Crucified, where
God wrought the
great miracle of
the crucifix of
Brother Innocen-
zo, painting the
crucifix Himself
while the artist
brother slept,
one enters the
choir of St.
Clare. The pho-
tograph printed
on page 7 gives a far better picture of this choir
than I could give in many paragraphs of descriptive
writing. A plain, bare place with white-washed
walls and with worm-eaten stalls against the walls.
A rickety lectern stands in the center. Here it was
that Francis hid from the wrath of his father, while
the irate parent searched for him throughout the
city.
From here one mounts a flight of crazy stairs
to the little ora-
tory of the
Seraphic Mother,
which connects
with her cell,
and where at her
request the
Blessed Sacra-
ment was reserv-
ed during her
last illness. This
is all of the con-
vent that women
can see. The
rest, since the
day when the
generous convert
Lord Ripon, ex-viceroy of India, bought the convent
from the Italian government and restored it to its
rightful owners, is "clausura." Even the refectory,
that bare, bleak dining hall with its fading frescoes,
THE 1* SIGN
where His Holiness Innocent IV witnessed the
miracle of the loaves, is shut off from feminine eyes.
For not the first time in my life I thanked God that
I was not a woman! I saw the refectory.
On a level with Clare's oratory is, perhaps, the
loveliest sight in the entire convent. Out of her
oratory extends a small but dainty garden where,
traditions tells us, the Saint used to take her daily
exercise, looking over the broad Umbrian valley and
at Montefalco across the
way, while she tended the
flowers she loved so dearly.
Even to this day the friars
still garden a row of them in
her memory.
The differences of the
whole Catholic world are in
Assisi. There is the poverty
of San Damiano and on the
hill above the splendor of the
great church of San Fran-
cesco. In that great basilica,
in the lower church, sombre
with great pillars and lighted
but with lamps and the colors
of the frescoed walls, is the
shrine of // Poverello. How
strange the splendor of his
last resting place against
which he would have pro-
tested so energetically had
he anticipated the translation
of his body!
The story of the burial
of Francis is a commentary
on the loss of pristine pover-
ty in the Order in the very
first years of its existence.
Other Orders have decayed
in the process of centuries,
but their first years at least have been founded on
the example and the teachings of their originators.
Yet hardly was Francis dead when the Franciscan
world was plunged into disorder and schism. Elias,
Francis' dearest spiritual son, one of the first dis-
ciples, and apparently his devoted follower, seized
control of the Order soon after the Saint's death.
The prayers of Francis that Elias would follow
closely in his footsteps were not answered for many
years to come. Elias, the Franciscan, vowed to
poverty, installed himself in palatial state as General
The
INTERIOR OF THE PORTICNCULA, NEAR ASSISI
of the Order. His table groaned under luxuries; his
stable befitted the rank of a great baron; his servants
were without number. Vain it was for the remnant
of the Saint's personal disciples to protest. Poor
Brother Giles (was it not?) was scourged by order of
Elias for his protests against the General's luxurious
life. Other primitive followers of the Saint, who
remained faithful to Lady Poverty, were driven into
exile or into the hermitages of the Umbrian hills;
there to weep over the follies
of Elias and the destruction
of the Order.
AN DAMIANO and
the hermitages of the
hills were not for Elias.
Franciscan churches
must reign with the splendor
of basilicas. The Founder
himself must acknowledge
the power and value of earth-
ly glory and riches! So
Elias conceived in his fertile
brain the idea of the trans-
lation of the body of the
Saint from its first humble
burial place to a great church
that would dominate the
town of Assisi from the Hill
of Paradise. The story of
the basilica of San Francesco
is the story of Elias' ambi-
tions writ in stone.
In order to imitate the
humiliations of our Lord
Jesus Christ on earth, St.
Francis had chosen as his
burial place the "Infernal
Hill," at that time lying out-
side the city limits. There
great criminals were put to death and buried. After
his death his sacred remains were taken to the con-
vent of San Damiano, then inhabited by the Poor
Clares. There Clare, her sister Agnes, and tne
Sisters rejoiced at the sight of the miraculous
stigmata. The wound in Francis' side was like a
beautiful rose; the nails in his hands and his feet
were externally black, internally yellow; they could
be moved to and fro, but not separated from the
flesh. St. Clare wished to preserve one of the nails
as a precious relic of the Founder, but could not
THE 1* SIGN
detach if from his hand. The body was then
carried to St. George's Hospital; this was on October
5th, 1226. On July 16th, 1228, Pope Gregory IX
canonized Francis Bernardone.
The day after the canonization, the Pope
went in great pomp to the "Infernal Hill," the place
which Francis had himself chosen as his final rest-
ing place, and now renamed the "Hill of Paradise"
by Papal edict. Here Gregory laid the corner stone
of the great church that Elias
had decided to build over the
body of Francis. He had
resolved that while Francis
might have his wish of lying
in the polluted ground of the
Infernal Hill, he would rest
by Elias' order under a mag-
nificent shrine set in a
jeweled church, and not in a
malefactors' potters' field.
When the crypt of San
Francisco was finished, Elias
determined to translate the
body thither. A solemn (but
sham) translation took place
on May 28th, 1230. Sham,
because the Master General,
fearing a physical protest of
the Primitives, who fought
furiously against this perver-
sion of the Founder's wishes,
had resolved to anticipate
such a protest should it occur,
by himself in secret burying
the body three days before
the sham translation took
place. The fiery opposition
faded away for the moment;
only for the moment, for a
few years later it burst into
flame at a General Council of the Order in Rome,
and hurled Elias from his throne into schism and
ignominy at the court of the excommunicated
Emperor Frederick. But in the meantime the body
of Francis had faded away also. Elias had buried
the body deep in rock under the crypt, and no one
knew the place of the burial. It was not till Decem-
ber 12th, 1818, that it was discovered.
WITHIN THE CLOISTER OF ST. CHIARA
*Chapcl where St. Clare"s body was first laid
u
EAVING San Francisco happy in the posses-
sion of its Giottesque beauties, ripe with
colored walls and molten splendor of gold, one
wanders through narrow streets into a dim, cold
church, where no sunshine ever seems to penetrate,
and where only the chapel of the miraculous crucifix
which spoke to Francis, adds a little color to the
sombreness of its surroundings.
In front of the High Altar a flight of marble
stairs descends into a dark and gloomy crypt. Here
Clare following even in death the example of her
spiritual father, had been
buried; and so deep in rock
likewise that her remains
were not discovered until
excavations were undertaken
in 1850. Five bishops, in-
cluding Cardinal Pecci, after-
wards Pope Leo XIII, were
present at the opening of her
sepulchre. The iron bands
which bound the coffin were
filed through. Clare was dis-
covered clad in her brown
habit, as though but buried
yesterday. The wild thyme,
which devoted hands had
scattered on her body, though
withered, was still fragrant;
and a few green leaves still
clung to her veil. Spontane-
ously a procession was or-
ganized in honor of the
Saint; and the following
Sunday amid pealing of the
bells of all the Assisian
churches high Mass was sung
with great crowds in atten-
dance. Bishops, priests, con-
fraternities of lay men and
women, bands of children,
who scattered flowers as they
walked, filed through the narrow streets of the town
into the church to pay honor to the beloved Saint.
Feasants from the countryside, held in check by
Austrian soldiers, crowded round the body to pay
homage to Mother Clare. First to the Cathedral,
then to the great basilica of San Francesco, "that
the body of Clare might salute the body of her
great master," a procession wound in and out of the
torturous ways of the city, finally back to Santa
Chiara, where anxious nuns awaited the return of
the Foundress of their Order. Clare's body rested
THE + SIGN
awhile in the Chapel of San Giorgio, until the com-
pletion of a shrine of precious marbles and ala-
basters in the crypt of the church.
EEELING my way from pillar to pillar through
this dim crypt, I crept to pay reverence to her
whom Francis loved. I hesitated a moment,
hearing what seemed to me like the rustle of a nun's
dress. Then a curtain drifted away in front of me,
and I was face to face with
Clare. Behind a great pane
of glass, in a glass case,
lying on a satin bed in her
brown habit, with the Book
of the Rule in one hand and
in the other holding a lily set
with small diamonds, lay she
who had conquered both the
world and heaven. I knelt
in quiet reverence. There
was complete silence save
for the click of rosary beads
as they passed through the
nun's fingers. Clare lay
quietly on her couch as
though asleep; her features
as perfect as in life, save that
the skin seemed browned
with the passing centuries.
I rose reluctantly, and as I
turned to bid farewell to the
Seraphic Mother, the curtain
rustled into place and I was
left in the exterior darkness,
to find my way alone into the
upper church and the light
of the sunshine of Umbria.
Prom the piazza in front
of Santa Chiara one looks
over the broad valley and sees a mound in the center
of the plain, seeming at first sight but a gray hillock
of bare rock. Gradually one determines that this
hillock is in reality a building with a dome, a dome
of large size which dominates the Umbrian valley
as the dome of St. Peter's, in Rome, dominates the
Campagna. Descending the hillside, and finding
one's way by dusty roads through fields of grass
and grey groups of olive trees, one comes after an
hour's thirsty walking to the piazza of Santa Maria
degli Angeli (Our Lady of the Angels). This
special Papal rule, and the part outside the west
front was a Palace of Refuge and enjoyed the right
of asylum for criminals who sought safety from
arrest. It was forbidden, under pain of excom-
munication, to erect a building within two hundred
yards of the Basilica. The buildings with the colon-
nade on the Piazza were formerly a great guest-
house for women pilgrims to the shrine, while male
pilgrims were received in the monastery itself.
In 1860 the Piedmontese
government confiscated this
Church land; so the former
hostelry for ladies no longer
shelters pilgrims; it is the
home of the local tax col-
lector and the village doctor.
©
HE Portiuncula, which
Santa Maria degli
Angeli shelters under
her dome, was the great
shrine of the Franciscans
after the death of Francis in
1228 ;but it was not till 1569
that the great basilica was
begun. The basilica owes
its origin to the Great
Dominican, Pope Pius V, in-
spired with a great love for
Our Lady of the Angels and
the Order of Friars Minor.
One pushes aside the
mattress (what else can one
;all it ? ) that closes all church
doors in Italy. One's
thoughts are not for the
splendor of tne great church,
but for tnat small building
in the center of the nave,
under the cupola which rises above it like a royal
robe. The little church set within another church,
as a jewel within a casket, is the Mother Church of
the Order. This gem of holy poverty was built in
the midst of a forest in the time of Pope Liberius
(352-357) by four hermits from the Holy Land, who
placed therein a relic from the Tomb of the Blessed
Virgin; for which reason the little church was first
called "Our Lady of Josaphat." The name in
common use, however, was and is that of "St. Mary
of Portiuncula," or Utile portion; a name dear to
square in front of the great church used to be under St. Francis who loved to think of the spot as the
THE 1* SIGN
little portion which God had from all eternity as-
signed to him.
In the 6th. century the sanctuary passed to St.
Benedict, who restored it. It was here, toward the
end of the 12th. century, that the noble lady Pica
became the mother of Francis; on the night when
angels sang in the Portiuncula, and Francis was born
in a stable. Francis, after he had restored San
Damiano (of which I have already spoken) repaired
the ruins of this shrine, and here received the grace
of his vocation. Dom Pietro, Abbot of the Bene-
dictines of Monte Subasio, gave the shrine to Francis
and his followers. And there is a pretty story in the
Franciscan legend which tells how Francis in grati-
tude for his noble gift, sent each year to the Bene-
dictines a basket of fish (if any fish were caught
that year in the river!) and they in turn sent him a
bottle of olive oil as a sign of goodwill and friend-
ship.
The Portiuncula measures but 2iy2 feet in length
by about 13 feet, 3 inches, in width. Tis a wee
holy place.
Here also Francis died, and the birds, as St.
Bonaventura relates, "left their nests after sunset
at the death of the Saint and perched on the roof
of the little house to say a last farewell to their
friend."
The Portiuncula is covered with some ancient
and many modern frescoes of the German romantic
school. These are not impressive. But inside the
chapel over the altar, is an admirable statue of St.
Francis by Luca della Robbia from a cast taken
after the Saint's death. St. Francis' cord with its
three knots, on which can be seen drops of blood
from his stigmata, is reverently kept in a small
cupboard which originally contained the Saint's
medicines. On the outer wall of the cell is the lid
of Francis' coffin. The great pillar which stands in
front marks the spot where Francis met Clare and
gave her permission to leave San Damiano for a
short time that she might visit the Portiuncula, where
she said farewell to the world.
XN a wood close to this holy spot, Francis
built a hut, in which he generally lived. One
cold winter night, being tempted by the devil
to limit his austerities, the Saint threw himself naked
among the thorns of nearby briars. Instantly these
changed into thornless rose bushes, and their leaves
have since been marked with spots of blood, which
can be seen to this day, dull red spots on verdant
green. These roses bloom only in the month of
May, but the leaves are preserved by the guardians
of the shrine, and each pilgrim thither can receive
a few to carry home as a memento of his pilgrim-
age. The rose garden, where once nothing grew but
thorns and briars, can still be seen in a little cloister
of the monastery. Opposite the thornless rose-
bushes the Friars have planted a small figtree, in
memory of one now dead on which Brother Grass-
hopper came to sing to Francis.
In the Chapel of the Roses near at hand, Francis
lived in a hut at the time of the famous "Chapter
of the Mats," when five thousand religious gathered
about his little house in tents. Here it was that
Francis met Dominic and Antony of Padua. The
brethren told me that here at times a delicious
perfume could be traced. But, I must confess,
though I sniffed violently, I could smell nothing
but onions cooking in a nearby kitchen.
Three miles from the town of Assisi, on Monte
Subasio, is the Carceri, one of those hermitages
round which the early Francisans gathered before
a fixed rule penned them in monasteries. This
hermitage Francis kept as something outside his
daily life. Here he held isolated communion with
his Maker. Here he retired to rest and to gather
strength for his arduous work among the children
of men.
As in the case of the Portiuncula, so likewise
was the Carceri given to Francis by the Benedic-
tines. The principle monastery of the Benedictines
in the 11th. century stood on the top of Monte
Subasio. The Mount was Benedictine ground.
Slowly through the centuries the Monks have ebbed
away, and the Friars have usurped their dominion.
For those of the Benedictine Order who wearied of
the full monastic life, below their monastery, and
a little to the west thereof, lay the Carceri, where
in rude caverns these Benedictine cavemen sought
solitude with God. The great walls and columns
of what Was once the most celebrated monastery in
Umbria have crumbled into wreckage, and until a
few years ago, when some attempts at restoration
and preservation were made, the ruins were open to
the birds of the air and the wild creatures of the
mountain.
The hermitage of the Carceri was but huge
caverns cut out of the solid rock, with huts scattered
throughout a deep mountain gorge. The caverns can
still be seen, though ivy has grown thick across the
entrances. None go there now to pray.
THE 1* SIGN
The road from Assisi to the Carceri passes for
the first mile through rich corn fields and groves
of olive trees. Soon it changes to a mere mountain
track. Here the colors of the Judas tree, here a few
flowers alone break the arid monotony of the sun-
burnt rocks. Looking back along the road that
leads to Assisi, one sees below miniature forests of
oak and olive. Where we now are, on the crest of
the mountain, is a new type of Franciscan land. The
sunlight wavers over the city below, picking out in
rose-colored splendor the town's old walls, the
basilicas and churches, the ancient castle set in.
ruined pride.
jr M" HALF mile more, and one enters a narrow
3 l_ gorge. Nothing in sight but an ilex tree and
an arched doorway leading into a courtyard.
A few steps further on and one comes to a cluster
of cells hung from the bare rocks, as though threat-
ening to topple into the ravine. Through a doorway
a friar enters the scene.. Noting us as strangers,
he beckons and as we join him, plunges at once
into tales of every cell, and shrine, and tree and
rock. In this cave lived Brother This, and in that
cave Brother That; while this cavern was once
occupied by the great Bishop of So-and-so-opolis in
partibus infidelium.. These caves are the original
Franciscan convents : one man to each monastery.
Here lived the early poverty-loved brethren of the
Order, in rooms scooped out of rock and with a
piece of wood for their pillows. Nearby is a small
oratory, and here is preserved the crucifix which the
Saint always used. The doors are so small that one
must stoop to enter.
The little monastery where the twentieth century
Franciscans live is but a grotto; the rooms thereof
have for walls the naked rock, full of holes and
untouched by chisel. The rude ladder which leads
to the friars' dormitory is perilous to life in its
extreme shakiness. It would be well to commend
one's soul earnestly to God before making the
ascent. The refectory is but an excavation made in
the rock with a table by one solid wall. Here six
religious could eat comfortably; here twelve eat
uncomfortably. The common room is blacked with
the smoke that pours forth from the one fireplace
in the monastery. If you spend a night herein,
gentle reader, you will derive much spiritual conso-
lation; but you will find no temporal comforts.
In a small wooden cupboard in the chapel,
according to an inventory made some two hundred
years ago, were preserved many precious relics.
The wooden pillow of St. Francis and a piece of the
Golden Gate by which Our Lord entered Jerusalem
are still there. But the hair of Our Lady, and some
of the earth out of which God created Adam are
no longer to be found /
Reader: " I am getting very bored with this
article. Is the end near at hand?"
Author: "It is finished!"
A Smile
Nicholas Ward, C. P.
A little thing, a sunny1 smile,
A loving word at morn;
And all day long the sun shone bright,
And cares of life were made more ligKt
And the sweetest hopes vJere born.
My Master's House
A WKolesome Talk to Sign Readers
David S. Lawlor
^w^HEN the average observant man has passed
|l| the half hundreth milestone in life, he has
V^X learned many things which would interest,
instruct and be of value to those who have
not travelled so far along life's highway. How true
is Joyce Kilmer's simple poem:
"It's said that Life is a highway
And its milestones are the years
With here and there a toll-gate
Where we pay our way with tears.
It's a long road and a hard road
That stretches broad and far
But at the end lies a golden town
Where golden houses are."
In this great
highway we meet
many people as we
journey on. Sage
and singer, saint
and sinner, poet
and peasant, the
strong and the
weak, the proud
and the humble,
all hastening on
to "a golden town
where golden
houses are." I
have journeyed on
with many of these in many places in this great
country of ours, and from many of them I have
learned of things that were a help to me. Some of
these I will speak of in this article.
I, like many others who have traveled far, have
seen wonderful things, but you have only to look
about you to see the same wonderful things, — the
sky, the sea, the hill, the valley, the grass, the trees,
the birds and the flowers. "Nature," says the weak-
ling. "God!", cries out the strong man who has
been given the light to see Who is behind all these
truly wonderful things. Niagara, Grand Canyon,
the Rocky Mountains and the myriad of marvelous
things He put here for the pleasure of man. The
glory of His handmaiden, Nature, is everywhere,
and it seems to me that when we have passed many
of the milestones there comes to us a broader under-
standing so that we see Him everywhere and a
prayer of gratitude often swells from the heart to
the lips.
n
OW often when plucking a flower have I
thought of the beautiful tribute of that gifted
Irishman, Canon Sheehan:
rHIS is not a sermon. It is a heart-to-heart talk
of the Author with our readers. The sage
counsel here given has been learned in the
school of long and varied experience. Mr. Lawlor
is a man of the world in the best acceptation of the
term. He is an expert in business promotion and
commercial publicity. For a number of years he
was prominently associated with the Editorial and
Business Departments of several of the leading
newspapers in the Eastern States. As a lecturer on
religious and commercial subjects he is in much
demand. Mr. Lawlor is President of the Laymen's
Retreat Guild, Brighton, Mass. — Editors.
"Who made you, little one, who made
you are so lovely and so frail? In what
garden of Eden did He behold your proto-
types? Or was it from the secret of His
Own surpassing beauty He divined your
loveliness and made you another and a
meeker mani-
festation of
that undying
principle that
underlies any
operation of
H i s hand-
maid, Nature,
— the princi-
ple that all
things round
to beauty,
and that, in
the spiral of
a vast nebula
which covers
half the
heavens, and
in the curve of a little leaf that shelters a
tiny insect, order, and beauty, and propor-
tion, and harmony subsist — a reflex of the
Mind of The Eternal."
This is to be a heart to heart talk with you the
readers of The Sign on certain things in life that
are worth while.
If I can help you to be abler and stronger men
and women; if I can show you how to overcome
many of the things that are doing you harm and
show you how to strengthen the many things that
will do you good; if I can point out and warn you
against the road that will lead to trouble and pain;
and set you on the road that will lead you to health
and happiness and peace of mind then I have
THE + SIGN
delivered to you some of the wisdom I have gathered
from the many I have met on life's highway.
I believe that it will be of help to many of you.
I do not say all because I have in mind the gospel
that tells of the sower that went out to sow his seed :
"And as he sowed, some fell by the
wayside, and it was trodden down and the
birds of the air ate it up. And some fell
on the rock, and as soon as it had sprung
up it withered away because it had no
moisture. And some fell among thorns,
and the thorns, growing up with it, choked
it. And some fell on the ground, and
sprang up and yielded fruit one hundred
fold."
^tt^ONDERFUL are the works of man. He has
\I/ circumnavigated the globe; traced great
rivers to their sources; climbed the highest
mountains; discovered the two great poles; meas-
ured the distance to the stars and weighed the sun,
but no man has yet lived who has been able to
circumnavigate man. Today man is as much a
mystery as he was in the beginning, and he is as
little understood. It would seem as though the work
of the Infinite Mind was beyond the understanding
of the finite mind.
In' my prayer book is a little prayer at Com-
munion, "Lord prepare my mansion to receive Thee."
Well and good! Where do you live? What
kind of a house do you live in and where is it situat-
ed? How is your home furnished, and what kind of
a man is the master of the house you live in? Is
your home on an alley, or on an avenue? Is it a
cottage, neat and attractive on a country road, or
is it some abode going to wrack and ruin in some
evil neighborhood?
I hope it is a mansion on a broad avenue, the
house surrounded by noble specimens of the forest;
flowers and plants here and there that show the
owner's love for the beautiful.
In such a house I expect to find the rooms
large and high studded, the furnishings rich and in
good taste, beautiful paintings on the wall, a library
well stocked with the choicest literature of the ages.
I expect to find an atmosphere of rest, of com-
fort and of peace; and, when the master comes, to
find a man who has the air of a master, with mind
and bearing denoting to the manner born. There is
will on the throne directing events, and it is will
correlated to pure thoughts and high ideals.
Any of you may have such a home as I have
described. The body is the home; the broad
avenue is the atmosphere the thoughts occupy; the
magnificent trees are the good resolutions that have
been made and kept; the flowers are the beautiful
deeds done in life; the dwelling place with its great
rooms is the broadness of vision; the oil paintings
are the beautiful thoughts that come with right
living, and the well stocked library is the mind that
has been refreshed by contact with the great minds
of the centuries. Surely such a home is desirable,
and is worth any effort that it may cost.
> — r'OUR body is the mansion in which reside the
Nȣ/ heart, the mind and the soul. You have been
taught from infancy the care of this body.
It is well worth your care. Nature demands it be
cared for, and punishes severely any injury to it.
Respect your bodies, for usually with a clean body
goes a clean mind. I do not mean the soil that
comes from honest toil, but the stain that comes
from excesses and debaucheries that soil not only
the body, but which leaves their impress on the
mind and the soul.
I might liken the body to a ship; the mind to
the rudder of the ship that gives it direction; the
will to the captain, who directs the course; the consci-
ence, to the charts which show the channels through
which the ship may sail in safety, and mark the
rocks and the shoals upon which there is danger of
wreck and destruction. Let us very briefly examine
the growth of this mentality which gives us cha-
racter.
"Our body began as a speck of vitalized proto-
plasm that developed in dark and in secret," says
Dr. Openheim. "It came into the world with a cry
of pain, and then began the struggle of life; and
with the growth of the body came the growth of the
mind, less easily seen, but still developing from time
to time.
"This development of the body continues for a
certain length of time until maturity arrives, the
time for active work. Then growth ceases, and an
even level of strength is kept up until middle life
when the physical resources begin to decline.
Slowly weakness creeps on, and each year man finds
himself less able to withstand the wear and tear.
Thus old age arrives, and with a cry of pain and a
sigh of resignation we go to our reward.
"The mind during all this time does not keep up
an even space in its progression; it differs from the
11
THE +
body in being more influenced by environment than
by heredity. The brain starts out as a fluid whose
final crystalized form is the forces that have been
working upon it, good and bad, wise and unwise.
These forces are influencing it each day, each hour.
There is the same struggle between influences as
there is between animals in the primeval lands or
trees in the forests. Those that are naturally strong
and have most favorable environments grow briskly,
and those that are less favorably placed die out.
We are totally unconscious of being a battlefield
where one sort of victory
or another must be de-
cided."
QS those things
which so closely
influence our lives
are vital to us, let us
pause and examine them.
Heredity is not of our
choice Our fathers and
mothers are thrust upon
us, as we have no choice
in the selection. Proba-
bly we could not make
as good a choice as
Nature did for us. This,
strange to say, has but
very little influence on
our lives; at least, so
the best authorities de-
clare. The great moulder
of our character is envi-
ronment, and the greatest
of environments is the
home circle, the outlook of life that is given to us
by our fathers and mothers, and our home sur-
roundings.
Environment is more than the family circle,
more than the neighborhood in which we live. En-
vironment means association; the chums we associ-
ate with; the books we read, the schools we attend;
the pictures we see, and the thousand things that
come into our daily life. It is said that the mind
takes fifty thousand impressions a day. See to it,
we should, that these pictures are clean, inspiring
and elevating, if we would have a mind that would
guide us right, a mind that will be a source of joy
and pleasure to us, and to all whom we come in con-
tact with, a mind that will give a fragrance to
To the Face of Christ
Illuminet vultum suum super nos —
— terra dedit fructum suum. Ps. LXVI
Rise upon the wheat-fields of my soul,
Sun tkat bearest healing in Thy* wings.
Ev'ery' ear, made full and fair and wkole,
Shall adore Thee vJnen tke west wind sings
And Thine altars be the single goal
For the fine flour of my" harvestings.
SIGN
our whole being. Such a mind is a jewel beyond
price.
How is such a mind to be developed? By disci-
pline, by drill, mental drill much like bodily drill.
You witnessed a few years ago many young men
from your neighborhood taken in the draft, round-
shouldered, narrow-chested boys. They were sent to
the cantonments; and you have seen them some
months afterwards, their carriage erect, their chests
broad and their shoulders square. Physically they
were better men. What made this change? Drill,
drill, everlasting drill.
The mind may be
drilled much the same
way, but there must be
the will to do it, and that
will must come from
within. It cannot come
from without. An intern-
al treatment or influence
must stir it into life. We
must keep it awakened
by constant exercise, and
such exercise will win
health and vigor for our
will. When we have
done this, we will rec-
ognize within us a new
force capable of achiev-
ing much. Usually that
means that we have a
Sister Mary Benvenuta, O. P.
new possession in our
mind from which to work
and develope aright and
draw forth untold riches.
QVERY good, healthy concern from time to time
takes stock, and every good healthy man
should take stock of himself every so often to
find out his weaknesses and correct them before they
have become a habit; to see what his virtues are that
he may encourage them to even a greater growth.
The value of these introspections is worth while. A
good physician will never prescribe unless he knows
what is the ailment. There is first the diagnosis
and then the treatment. Let us find out in what we
are deficient; then bring up our forces and supply
the deficiency.
Do you swear? Stop it. Once a salesmanager
told me that he would give anything to give up
the evil. For twenty years he had been swearing
T
HE t SIGN
many times a day. I asked him why he did not stop
it, and he said that he could not. I told him that
he would cure himself if only he would follow my
advice; first make the resolution to stop swearing;
second write a memo each day as follows: "I prom-
ise that I will not swear today, and if by chance I
do swear, I will immediately write out this same
promise." He did so. He told me that the method
was wonderful, as the second day he was cured.
Have you a bad temper? Then cure it. Pro-
fessor James says that the way to cure a bad temper
is to deny it expression, and then it dies a natural
death.
A strong passion may be subdued by refusing
it freedom of action. Habits are made and grow
stronger by repeated acts; they become impotent, or
are made weaker by constant denial. Men who have
gone deeply into the science of the mind say that
the set teeth and the clinched hands are not symp-
toms but the cause of anger. When you are tempted
to be angry, instead of letting the corners of the
mouth droop, just smile, and the sunshine from that
smile will dissolve the angry feeling just as ice dis-
solves from the warmth of the sun.
As to the habit of drink, I will quote from Dr.
E. Boyd Barrett: "Suffice it to say that it poisons
the blood, and that the blood is no longer able to
nourish the nerve tissues. As a consequence the
healthiness and capacity for work of the inebriate
diminish. Just as vigorous health, full pure-blood-
ed fitness, is the optional condition for making voli-
tional effort, so the nervous debility consequent on
intoxication is the worst possible condition for such
effort making. He may think and his friends may
think that he could, if he tried, give up drink, but
when things have gone so far it is all but impossible.
Only extraordinary circumstances and the help of
God's grace can then save him.
"It is in presence of such considerations that
Professor James writes as follows: 'The hell to
be endured hereafter, of which theology tells, is no
worse than the hell we make for ourselves in this
world by habitually fashioning our characters in the
wrong way. Could the young but realize how soon
they will become mere walking bundles of habits,
they would give more heed to their conduct while it
is in the plastic state. We are spinning our own
fates, good or evil, and never to be undone.' "
XKNEW a man once who had gone into the
gutter through drink. He lost his job, his
friends and his money . He came back, and
he has stayed back all this time — and that was more
than twenty-five years ago.
"How did you do it, Ned?" I asked. "I re-
solved to cut it out; then made a vow that I would
not only cut it out, but would cut out every place
where it was sold, and cut out of my life every man
who drinks liquor." That was his answer.
This man, by the grace of God, used the same
method as is advised by the Church after the
accumulated wisdom of nearly 2,000 years — shun
the occassion, shun the place and shun the compan-
ionship.
The sick wills have been divided into eight
classes, all amenable to treatment. There are the
hesitating, the impulsive, the inactive, the "I can't,"
the over-active and the emotional will, and the over-
practical and the indefinite will.
If you are impatient and hot headed, and go off
at half-cock, try Dr. Barrett's treatment for such a
case. Each action ought to be done once a day
for ten days and occupy ten minutes in the doing;
and, at the end of each exercise, one is to write each
day his introspection —
1. To replace in a box very slowly
and deliberately one hundred matches.
2. To write out very slowly and care-
fully the words, "I will train my will."
3. To turn over very slowly and de-
liberately all the leaves in a book, about
200 pages.
4. To watch the movements of the
second hand of the clock or watch, and
pronounce some word slowly at the com-
pletion of each minute.
There are many other exercises, each of them
drilling the will much as the drill sergeant makes
over the bodies of our boys in army cantonments.
The great object of self-discipline is, in reality,
to brace the human will for the strengthening of
the moral life.
The education of the will must not be left to
fate, nor can it be left to others. It must be carried
out by ourselves. It must be carried out in accord-
ance with the knowledge we can ourselves acquire
of our individual self. Study, introspection, and
THE + SIGN
self-discipline must then go hand in hand. Effort
and patience are the price to be paid. There is no
mystery, there is no short cut; the goal to each is
self-mastery, personal power and force of character.
The way is long, the way is hard, but the goal is
worth the winning.
EIVE rules are given by Dr. Barrett, which
we ought all make part of our lives : —
1. We must make our nervous system
our ally instead of our enemy.
2. In the acquisition of a new habit
or the leaving off of an old one, we must
take care to launch ourselves with as strong
and decided initiative as possible.
3. Never suffer an exception to occur
until the new habit is securely rooted in
life.
4. Seize the very first possible oppor-
tunity to act on every resolution you make
and on every emotional prompting you
may experience in the direction of the
habits you aspire to gain.
5. Keep the faculties of effort alive
in you by little gratuitous exercises every
day.
Here then is given you a plan to build, decorate
and furnish your Master's house. You can build it
on any scale and make it as beautiful as your heart
desires.
In it you can have many of the treasures of the
world that will always be a source of joy to you.
You are the master of your own fate. You can
build as you desire, but you must pay the price in
work. You cannot pay for it with a smile or by
check.
Work, work, work! It was decreed that we
must win by the sweat of our brow, but oh, the joy
that comes from honest, well directed effort! Nature
royally treats her children who rigidly observe her
laws. To them she gives health, strength and power.
Our place has been called "the garden of life," and
it has been said by an unknown poet: —
"Beautiful thoughts make beautiful lives,
For every word and deed
Lies in the thought that prompts it
As the flower lies in the seed.
Back of each action lay the thought
We nourished until it grew
Into a work, or into a deed,
That marked our life work through.
Gracious words and kindly ways,
Deeds that are high and true;
Slanderous words and hasty words
And deeds we bitterly rue.
The garden of life, it beareth well;
It will repay our care,
But the blossom must always and ever be
Like the seed we're planting there."
Tke Blue La\\>s
^^s^HE legislation which certain zealots are at-
l) tempting to foist upon the community affect-
ing really harmless diversions and indul-
gences had for precedent the Blue Laws of Con-
necticut. Even as now these early legislators made
religion odious by claiming its sanction for their
astounding prohibitions. Judge of the wierdness
of their legislation from what is here quoted.
No one shall be a freeman or have a vote unless he
is converted and a member of one of the churches
allowed in this dominion.
No food or lodging shall be offered to a heretic.
No one shall travel, cook victuals, make beds, sweep
houses, cut hair or shave on the Sabbath day.
No one shall cross a river on the Sabbath but
authorized clergymen.
No one shall kiss his or her children on the Sabbath
or feasting days.
Whoever wears clothes trimmed with gold, silver or
bone or lace above one shilling per yard shall be presented
to the grand jurors and the selection shall tax the estate
£300.
Whoever brings cards and dice into the dominion
shall pay a fine of £15.
No one shall eat mince pies, dance, play cards or play
any instrument of music except the drum, trumpet or
jewsharp.
No Gospel minister shall join people in marriage.
The magistrate may join them, as he may do it with less
scandal to Christ's church.
When parents refuse their children convenient
marriages, the magistrate shall determine the point.
A man who strikes his wife shall be fined £10.
A woman who strikes her husband shall be punished
as the law directs.
No man shall court a maid in person or by letter
without the consent of her parents; £5 penalty for the
first offence, £10 for the second and for the third im-
prisonment during the pleasure of the Court.
Saints and Sinners
Luis Coloma, S. J.
Copyrighted 1921, by The Sign
Chapter 4
Vw^HEN Luis reached home, it was already
m I ^ dark and the house was lighted brilliantly.
ill The boy's troubles had vanished in that
^^S rapid transformation of mood which in
childhood quickly changes one emotion into another.
Impatience was the emotion which moved him at
the moment and' a longing for praise from father
and mother as he threw himself into their arms,
and those of Lili, that dearest of little sisters.
While entering Madrid they wasted ten precious
minutes lighting the carriage lamps, and the custom
officers delayed them at the city gates to register
everything in the carriage. How aggravating these
men were! And then, as they turned the corner of
the University, a carriage got in their way. After
that a large van. So another precious three minutes
was lost. At last the boy reached the street; and
his hands were on the door eager to open it; maybe
his father or mother or Lili, perhaps all three, were
waiting for him watching from some balcony. But
the balconies were empty and there was no one in
sight. Hugging his prizes the boy ran up the steps
of the vestibule. There was a strange figure at the
entrance, walking backwards and forwards with
arms behind his back. This was a hideous dwarf,
a fitting rival of that famous Roby who was pre-
sented to the King of Saxony in a venison pie. He
was but three feet in height, though perfectly pro-
portioned, dressed carefully in evening attaire. His
name was Don Joselito, and he received the muni-
ficent wage of seven thousand reals, with no other
duty than that of announcing visitors and of increas-
ing that reputation of Curra for oddity which she
aimed to possess in everything.
The dwarf bowed respectfully to the lad and
told him that the Countess had retired a half hour
ago with a bad headache. The boy's eyes suggested
tears; and savagely turning his back on the dwarf,
he ran to his father's apartment. Villamelon was
reclining in an armchair discussing some my-
sterious matter with one of the ministers of the
government. Luis ran to his father and threw his
arms about his neck, kissing him twice.
"Ah, little man!" cried Villamelon. "You back
already?"
Then seeing that the boy was bashfully present-
ing him with his prizes, he said without taking them :
"Well, well! Prizes! I am very much pleased.
Take this — er — and tell German to take you to the
theatre this evening."
Giving the child fifty cents, he turned round
again to the Minister and continued the mysterious
conversation. His eyes wide-open, the boy stood
perfectly still for a moment. Then he swung round
on one foot, and with face red as a pomegranate,
walked toward a table covered with knick-knacks.
Underneath this was a curious Japanese figure with
wide-open mouth, into which he threw the money
his father had given him. Running hastily out of
the drawing-room, he stopped for a meditative
second behind the curtains of the door, and then
with arms hanging by his side and with bowed head,
he slowly went back down the long hall which lead
to the nursery.
In the corridor there was a sound of a piano
considerably out of tune. Yet the music sounded to
the child like music of heaven. His depression
vanished, and joyfully he began to run in the direc-
tion of the music.
"Lili!"
"Luis!" _
A beautiful girl of nine years jumped down
from the piano stool and threw herself into the boy's
open arms. Their kisses, their joy, their laughter
mingled with the confusion of their golden curls
surrounding both their heads like sun's rays in a
auriole.
Soon the boy remembered the prizes.
"Look — look!"
Lili opened wide eyes. "Uy!" she said.
"I have five and two excellents."
"Please let me have one, Luis."
"Silly-billy! These are to be framed, not
given away. Look! This one is for mathematics,
and this one for — "
He stopped. A dry hand appeared from behind
the curtains, then a sharp shoulder, and finally a red
face as English as Bass Ale or Huntley's biscuits.
"Mademoiselle!" cried Lili frightened.
The dry hand seized Lili by the arm and pulled
her behind the curtains, while a metallic voice was
heard saying: How's this, Miss? You should be
practicing your piano lesson until eight o'clock."
The lad flew headlong to the nursery and flung
himself down on his little white bed with the des-
peration of a suicide who hurls himself without hope
into a dark abyss. At last sleep, the sole consoler
of unhappy children, brought his sobs to an end
and restrained his tears. He slept as he was, still
dressed, with his prizes in his hands
m
EANWHILE Villamelon was engaged in con-
versation with the Minister. The Marquis
was forty years of age and his face showed
THE + SIGN
the effects of the ravages of time. His nose was
red and pimply, his hollow cheeks showed promi-
nent bones, while his stomach developed a pro-
nounced arch, creating that caricature of youth
which appears in those who age before their time.
His figure had once been graceful, and still possessed
some signs of elegance, but his countenance resem-
bled that of the dwarf of Philip IV in Velasquez's
famous painting. He had a similar hooked nose,
the same twirled mustache, the same large and
thoughtful forehead, save that Villamelon parted
his few locks in the center with a backward stroke
that formed two little horns of hair over the ears.
This massive forehead, which brought to mind the
famous saying of the fox to the bust : "Your head is
handsome but without brains," possessed magnificent
attributes, especially at the moment when he bent
toward his Excellency Don John Anthony Martin,
Minister of the Interior, and said: "You are
deceived, Don Martin: Dr. Wood is all wrong.
You cannot prove to me that rat pie is better than
squirrel pie. You understand me, do you not?"
His Excellency Don Martin's gesture did not
indicate whether he understood or not. From the
time this unfortunate man had arrived at the great
tables of the Court after years of eating at a
peasant's table, he had passed through graphic
phases of indigestion, and had begun to feel a desire
for the garlic soups of his earlier years. What
terrible pains he had suffered from that pate-de-foie-
gras last Friday at the Palace! What indigestion
he had endured after that crou a la creme which
he had eaten two days before at the French
Embassy! For a brief moment he had imagined
that he had been poisoned; and from that time held
fast to Addison's saying; that whenever he saw
fashionable tables loaded with luxuries from all
corners of the world, he also saw gout, dropsy and
lethargy hidden under every napkin.
"You'll see, Martin, when I'll have both kinds
of pie served next Thursday without saying which
is which. We'll see which is declared the best. Do
you understand, Martin? Pardon me for believing
that I can count on your Excellency's vote?"
His Excellency's hair stood on end at the
thought of an attack of indigestion founded on
rat pie.
"All this," continued Villamelon, "is that
English eccentricity which totally ruins their cuisine.
You understand me, Martin? In cooking, the French
are ahead of all others. You can't deny that, Martin.
The English devour, the Germans gorge, the Italians
eat, the Spaniards nourish themselves, but the
French alone enjoy: there's the point, Martin — to
enjoy eating. Do you understand me?"
OON MARTIN did not understand, but took
offense at all these "Martins" and "do you
understands." He hastened to reply in an
exasperated manner : "What do you mean, Marquis ?
To enjoy or to burst?"
"No, no, no — Martin. That is a prejudice of
yours. You understand me? Man is a weak, frail
being who can barely support eight meals per day.
But indigestion does not come from eating too much.
It comes from eating badly. Give me a first class
cook and I can show you the way to perfect health.
In Paris, Prince Orloff, the Russian Ambassador,
held a public competition to select a cook. I was
on the jury. We tested one hundred and forty
dishes before coming to a decision. No, no, Martin.
Eating too much does not give indigestion. As my
blessed mother used to say : 'Stomach full : praise
be to God!"
And he adopted a pompous air over the quota-
tion; for it was one of Villamelon's little tricks
frequently to mention his mother, always calling
her blessed, and putting in that feminine mouth
odd sayings, many of them in exceedingly bad taste,
such as the one just mentioned.
At this moment John Velarde and the Duke of
Bringas, having finished their game of billiards,
entered the room. Shortly after their arrival, a
servant announced that the Countess would be
unable to attend dinner, having already had a con-
somme in her room and had retired for the night
with a bad headache.
This announcement did not have the effect of
upsetting the lady's husband or the Duke of
Bringas; but the Minister of the Interior showed
that it had a bad effect on him; and forcibly
brought the idea to one's mind that the absence of
Curra had completely upset the plan which had
originally brought him to the house. As Butron
had feared, the appointment of the first lady-in-
waiting was causing complications. John Velarde
also seemed disturbed. During dinner he ate little,
and talked even less.
Villamelon passed through his usual phases at
dinner; at the beginning of the meal completely
engrossed in the important business before him;
then toward the middle of dinner growing more
affable, though still staid and circumspect; at desert,
gay filled with charity toward all, as though his
dinner had loosed in him a stream of affability
which he never possessed while fasting. This was
the time to request favors with a certainty of their
being granted. It was also the time when he gave
way to an upleasant habit, of which neither his
blessed mother nor his dear wife had ever been able
to break him, of making little balls of bread and
shooting them with delicate aim at his guests, with
signs of affectionate regard and merriment
Meanwhile had an inquisitive imp lifted the roof
off the Countess Curra's boudoir, he would have
revealed an odd scene. Curra, seated at a low desk
lighted by a lamp in the hand of a life-size statue
of a negro with grinning white teeth, was completely
absorbed in an elaborate caligraphic study, while
a smile vague yet cunning flitted over her face. In
her large clear handwriting she was writing on a
sheet of paper: "What a strange animal man is!"
THE t SIGN
Then with clever facility she was copying the phrase
in different manners of handwritting. The phrase
multiplied itself, sometimes written in small letters,
at other times in large, firm outlines. Curra con-
tinued this odd employment for half an hour with
all the attention of a child laboriously copying a
school exercize, or of a forger trying to falsify a
signature.
She finally seemed satisfied with the result,
and in a small, constrained handwritting, that in no
way resembled her own, wrote a letter on a sheet of
plain notepaper. The letter was not long. On the
envelope was written :
To His Excellency the Civil Governor of
Madrid.
GURRA went into her bedroom and at the end
of some fifteen minutes reappeared com-
pletely transformed. She had changed her
beautiful street gown for a plain black wool skirt
and an old mantilla which partly hid her face. She
carried a lighted candle and a large key. Picking
up the letter, she left the room. Just then a distant
clock struck half past eleven.
Villamelon's house was one of those ancient
houses with long halls, large drawing-rooms and
spacious apartments, surrounded by small corridors
and private stairways for the use of servants.
Curra's apartment communicated with such a long
private pasage way. This ended in a narrow stair-
way which led down to a small garden. She
descended these stairs, and walked toward a gate
leading into the street with an assurance that showed
clearly that this was not the first of her nocturnal
adventures.
It was dark and the little plaza on which the
gate opened was lighted with only a few dim
lanterns. All was dark and deserted. The haughty
Countess, who so seldom left her carriage to walk
in the dust of which she was made, passed along
these dark streets, crossed many roads, deserted at
this late hour, and finally arrived at the little square
of St. Dominic. Passing through this, she sought
the shelter of la Costanilla de los Angeles. With
a wide circuit she passed the rear of the Ministry
of the Interior, and came to the Calle de las
Carretas. There she posted the mysterious letter.
If this lady was a criminal, she was a very careful
and practical criminal, who saw in every possible
onlooker a road that might lead to prison.
She then started on her journey homewards,
passing through the dark streets by which she had
come. On the way she met with but one interrup-
tion. An old man of decent appearance suddenly
stopped in front of her. He had mistaken her for
one of those unfortunate creatures who extend thin
hands for charity to passers-by in the small hours
of the morning.
So at last the Countess thought. She took the
money which the man offered her overcome with a
frantic desire to laugh in his face, yet not hesitating
to profane with her corrupt lips that beautiful
answer which Faith gives to her Sister Charity
through the mouths- of the poor: "May God reward
you!"
When she returned to her boudoir, it had a
strange and sinister appearance. The lamp in the
hand of the negro was flickering out, and his teeth
of white marble showed in the darkness with the
smile of some devil amusing himself in the regions
of Hell.
Three hours later, screams of terror came from
the other side of the house. It was Luis, who had
awakened in the nursery, numbed and terrified in
the darkness of the early dawn, deserted by father
and mother, and the seventeen servants engaged in
their employ.
CHAPTER V.
"^^^^HE Countess Curra laughed heartily the
d C~\ following day when her son Luis told her
^ ) of his uncanny adventure of the night
^^^ before, when, finding himself alone and
fully dressed on his bed in the nursery, he had
commenced to scream frantically for help. Mag-
delena, Lili's nurse, had heard his cries and came
to calm him, sitting by his little white bed until
he fell asleep again. The story produced in Curra
one of those spasms of maternal love which attacked
her in her moments of despondency. During these
brief spells of maternal affection, she would haunt
the nursery, playing with the children, buying them
costly toys, and amusing herself making fun of the
English governess; also reviling the good Fathers
of the College, destroying in these raids on the
nursery all the good which, with much labor, these
had sown in the hearts of the two children.
Her hailstorm of kisses and pettings always
effaced from Lili's mind the memory of previous
periods of neglect, but these miniature tempests
of affection did not effect the boy. In a corner of
his small heart an unfailing memory gathered a list
of the insults and tortures he had endured. As
yet he pardoned his mother's hypocrisies, though
he could not entirely forget them.
However, it was not a fit of despondency which
brought Curra to the nursery that morning. She
seemed preoccupied and restless. Lili had a happy
inspiration. She asked her mother to have Luis
photographed with his prizes. But the boy grew red,
and refused emphatically.
'Why, of course you shall!" cried the Countess.
"And this very second. German, tell the Marquis
we are coming up to his gallery to be photographed."
"No, no; not Papa!" cried Luis.
"Why not? cried Curra, grasping his arm.
The child pulled himself away. "He told me
to go away. He gave me two pesetas," said the
child, crimson and much effected, hiding his head
on his mother's breast.
Little did Curra understand. She saw in the
THE *f SIGN
boy but childish caprice, and with jokes and
caresses, tried to persuade him to have his picture
taken. He yielded finally, and with the two children
following her, Curra went up to the splendid
apartment where the Marquis of Villamelon spent
his many idle moments driving dullness and care
away by experimenting in the art of photography.
To eat, sleep and photograph everything that passed
before the lens of his cameras were the sole
occupations of the man whose ancestors had played
such a great part in the making of Spain.
VILLAMELON hastened, as usual, to comply
with Curra's request. He began without loss
of time to prepare his camera, his fingers
stained with nitrate of silver. Curra meanwhile
prepared the children in an artistic group, seating
them on a gothic settee looking earnestly at the
boy's prizes.
"Splendid!" she cried. "Look, Ferdinand; it
is like one of . . . ."
She hesitated, for the door opened and a
servant announced that the Minister of the Interior
was below and very anxious to see the Countess
at once. She turned suddenly on her husband,
who looked up, frightened, the black cloth which
he was using to focus the camera remaining on his
head. Curra walked a few steps toward her husband,
the anger in her bright eyes corresponding oddly
with the soft voice and deliberate tone with which
she asked: "Did that ox dine here yesterday?"
"He is a beast," and to hide his fright, Villa-
melon again disappeared under the black cloth,
playing at adjusting his camera.
"Listen to me, Ferdinand, when I am talking to
you."
Villamelon straightened himself from beneath
the black cloth even more embarrassed.
"Did the Minister say anything last evening
about the appointment?"
"Nothing," stammered Villamelon.
"Are you sure?"
Villamelon's lips trembled like those of a child
who was trying to tell a lie. Then, as though
thinking better of it, he thought that the ox of a
Minister had told him that rat pie was very indi-
gestible. A lot of foolishness! On the other hand,
the Minister had told John Velarde that he was
going to stop people making fun of the Government,
and that he intended to force Curra to accept the
appointment as first lady-in-waiting, supporting
himself with a letter with which — and this Vil-
lamelon thought most impolite — he had threatened
to rub Curra's nose.
"A letter?" exclaimed Curra-, really surprised.
"From whom?"
"From me! From me!" stammered Villamelon.
Curra advanced toward him, and with her voice
growing softer as she grew more and more angry:
"And so you wrote to him, Ferdinand?"
Villamelon bowed his head, overcome with
terror.
"And after I told you only to speak to him about
it? After I warned you that nothing must be
written? You see, Ferdinand — "
Villamelon retreated as Curra advanced. "And
he said that he was going to present this letter to
me and use it over me as a whip?"
"So Velarde said."
"You are sure?"
"Absolutely sure."
Again Villamelon retreated, as Curra came
nearer, repeating in a voice so soft that it seemed
but a caress : "You see, you see, Ferdinand ?"
And suddenly jerking the black cloth, she com-
pletely enveloped the head of her illustrious hus-
band in its folds. Turning her back on him, as he
struggled to free himself, she walked composedly
out of the room. Lili shrieked with laughter at her
father vainly struggling to fight his way out of the
bag, running to Luis to whisper a great secret in
his ear: "What a goose Papa is!"
^^^HE butler was surprised to hear Curra, in
I) passing, give him the order to light a large
^*"^ fire in the boudoir. It was well on in June,
and the heat was already intense. But he obeyed
without question; and when His Excellency the
Minister of the Interior, Don John Anthony Martin,
came into the room, he found a huge fire burning in
the grate, while Curra reclined nearby on a lounge,
covered with a large Scotch plaid, and wearing a
silk satin morning-wrapper. Holding out her hand
as he entered, she said in the weak voice of an
invalid: "How are you, Don Martin? You are the
only person I would have received to-day."
The visitor growled, a sure sign with him that
he was startled, and, glued to the spot, began to
perspire at the sight of the fire.
"But what is this, Countess? You are still
suffering from that headache?"
"I am indeed unfortunate," replied Curra. "I
am afraid that I have chills and fever."
She shivered as though with cold, and pointed
out a chair for the Minister, near the fire and within
reach of her hand. Martin seated himself cautiously,
prepared to be roasted like St. Lawrence on his
gridiron.
"I am very sorry," he said; and recollecting
the rustic remedies of his childhood, he added:
"Why don't you put two little potato plasters on
your forehead? An excellent remedy!"
"Potatoes!" exclaimed Curra. "What an idea,
Martin! I prefer the headache."
Curra settled her head comfortably on a
cushion, regarding Martin, who settled his glasses
on his nose after this interchange of civilities, and
menacing the lady with a fat finger, said to her:
"They are very angry at the palace."
Curra shrugged her pretty shoulders. "Why
tell me this?"
THE + SIGN
"Why you? Madame, the King and Queen are
very much displeased."
"But what, my dear Martin, have I to do with
their feelings?"
"What have you to do?" cried the Minister,
suffocating from the intense heat and exasperated
at Curra's calmness. "Does it mean nothing to you
to ask for the position of first lady-in-waiting and
then toss it lightly aside after it is offered to you?
Can one play with a Queen like that? You nought
as well know now that the Government has decided
to force you to accept the position you requested."
And the Minister, red and perspiring, and with
both hands firmly fixed on his fat knees, glowered
at Curra as though he would swallow her in one
mouthful. His intensity of expression did not
terrify the lady. She casually raised herself, and
much astonished, not to say offended, commenced
in her aggrieved voice: "But, Martin, don't get so
excited. You look positively ugly. There must be
a mistake somewhere. I, first lady-in-waiting to
the Queen! Where did you ever hear that
nonsense?"
"From yourself, from yourself!" cried the
Minister. "You dor't dare deny that you asked
before the minister of Ultramar for the post of
first lady-in-waiting, provided that John Velarde
became secretary to the King, and that you received
six thousand dollars."
"But I do deny it and emphatically," cried
Curra.
"Well, we will see if your husband can deny it,
then, when all the papers in Madrid publish this
letter." And Don Martin took a letter out of an
inside pocket. He unfolded it in front of Curra
carefully, and when she made a quick attempt to
snatch at it, held it back, saying brutally: "Don't
worry! I hold fast to this. But you shall hear me
read it from beginning to end."
With spectacles on nose, for he was near-
sighted, the Minister began. In it Villamelon in
conjunction with his wife asked for the position of
first lady-in-waiting for that lady, under the two
conditions just mentioned by Martin — the private
secretaryship for Velarde, and six thousand dollars
for the lady herself.
This was conclusive proof, and Curra now
understood all her husband's folly in letting such
a request get into writing. She did not seem effected,
however. As the Minister continued reading, she
gradually raised herself higher on the pillows, with
faint cries of protest; and then, suddenly, with the
quickness of a cat, she grabbed the dangerous
letter from the Minister's hands and threw it into
the fire. In an instant the paper was but ashes.
The Minister fell back into his seat with an
oath, while Curra sank softly amid her cushions, as
if nothing had happened, saying with her hard little
laugh :
"Well, well, Martin! You must really put two
little potato plasters on. They are most refreshing!"
CHAPTER VI.
^^=^HE porter at the door of Villamelon's house
I) received a tremendous fright the day follow-
^^^ ing Don Martin's visit to Curra. At ten in
the morning he was peacefully cleaning the antique
seats in the hall when a group of suspicious looking
individuals suddenly broke into the house. The
porter, terrified, slammed the glass door in their
faces, but a few terrific blows shattered two of its
heraldic and decorated panes. Balthasar fled up
the stairs, falling over the dwarf Joselito who was
carefully polishing the metallic rods which kept the
carpet on the stairs in place. The dwarf fled also,
screaming at the top of his voice. Before long the
seventeen servants were all rushing hither and
thither, opening and shutting doors, and alarming
the entire household.
Meanwhile the invaders reached a deserted
antechamber, and the leader of the party began to
knock on the floor with his stick and to demand the
Countess of Albornoz in the King's name. The
leader was the chief of police, who had come in
the name of the Civil Governor of the city to search
the house, and to seize all of Curra's papers for
purposes of inspection by the authorities. His
companions stationed themselves so as to guard all
the exits from the house, leaving the doors open,
however, so that anyone who desired might enter.
Villamelon was still sleeping peacefully. But
Curra, contrary to her usual custom, had been up
early, as though she was expecting something to
happen. She at once noticed the tumult, and though
pale, kept her head under the riot around her. All
exits being carefully guarded, she instructed a page
to scale a wall behind the house, and to notify the
Marquis of Butron as to what had occurred.
Villamelon's awakening was appalling. He
was ready to die of fright. He attributed this
invasion of the police to the letter which he had
written to the government requesting Curra's
appointment as first lady-in-wraiting. Curra had
prophesied the day before that something un-
pleasant would result from that incautious letter.
Here was something unpleasant. Shivering with
fright, he tucked himself firmly under the bed-
clothes; and all of Curra's demands that he go
downstairs and receive the police availed nothing.
He pleaded that he had a desperate cold, and that
he would have a spasm if he ventured into a draught.
Curra had started all this business. Let her extricate
herself as best she could.
(0 it was finally Curra herself who descended
with haughty mien to interview the invaders.
She demanded of the chief of police the
search warrant of the Governor legalized by a judge,
which alone permitted such an invasion. The chief
of police politely handed it to her, and after reading
it she tore it violently in half. She then made a
furious protest, in which she emphatically stated
THE + SIGN
her Alfonsist sympathies, and sending a flunkey to
escort the invaders through the house, she retired
to the billiard room, where she sat in queenly state
among her maids, clinging to Lili and Luis, who
had been brought to her.
The news of the invasion had spread rapidly
through the Court, and thence to the cafes and
plazas. A crowd gathered outside the house, await-
ing developements, and watching with stupid gaze
the long line of carriages which drew up in front
of the door, while ladies and gentlemen passed
rapidly in and out. the former arrived en deshabille,
fluttering around Curra with exclamations of horror,
surprise, enthusiasm and pity. This is exactly what
Curra had planned. With eyes raised to heaven
and with the air of a resigned victim, she gave
graphic accounts of the invasion. What would be-
come of her poor children? Here was Ferdinand
prostrated in bed, and his health needing every
attention! The ladies shuddered over Curra's mis-
fortune, all talking at once, attempting outwardly
to comfort the unfortunate lady, though inwardly
cursing that Curra and not themselves were under
the suspicion of the police, a suspicion which had
lifted her to the pinnacles of celebrity at a single
bound.
Several reporters arrived, and received full in-
formation about the event from Curra's own lips.
Leopoldina Pastor burst in out of breath, carrying
an enormous prayerbook in her hand. She had just
arrived from Mass, for she had been making a
novena to St. Paschal to beg of heaven to send a
stroke of apoplexy upon Don Salustiano de Olozaga.
She expressed amazement that Curra had not thrown
the chief of police out of the window. She made a
great fuss, sticking her tongue out at the police
agents who entered the room, pushing her way
through the crowd, and finally retired into the dining
room, for it was now nearly twelve o'clock. She
was very hungry, had had nothing to eat, and she
could not, of course, leave her dear Curra until this
lamentable registration was over. Many followed
her into the dining room eager to fall on whatever
provisions the house could provide.
^^^0 the astonishment of everyone, who was
C^) standing in a corner of the room but the
^*"^ dying Marquis, leaning over a sideboard,
swallowing hastily a cup of steaming chocolate,
hands crammed with buttered toast, as he gazed in
all directions, terrified. Having recovered from his
first fright, and not hearing any further disturbance
in the house, he had suddenly remembered that he
was extremely hungry. He called loudly for some-
one to bring him his breakfast. No one came to
answer to his call. Villamelon, preferring any death
to death by starvation, at last decided to get up and
to slip by private passageways to the kitchen in
search of his daily bread. Having secured it, he
had wandered into the dining room to devour it.
The sudden arrival of the uninvited guests sent
him scurrying for safety, chocolate in one hand and
toast in the other. But with much laughter the
aristocratic and hungry mob caught him, while
Leopoldina Pastor, clinging to the coat-tails of his
morning gown, cried out, helpless with laughter:
"Whither away, Ferdinand? Don't leave us! To
be able to commiserate with you, we must have
food. Get us something to eat!"
And from the maitre d'hotel to Joselito, all set
to work, barely able to supply a picnic luncheon for
the hungry and emotional crowd.
A True-Cross Sister
Vaughn Devlin
Lone gleams the arc-light's v?hite image
In the flood 'neath the old granite pier;
Firm, though 'tis lost in the scrimmage
Of waters that belly" and rear,
Soon comes a maiden belated,
O.er the bridge with a faltering pace;
The ball-room's gay sound has abated,
She — the queen of its beauty" and grace.
But the Stone that has gleamed on her bosom
To her heart sent its bright shafts in vain
For there whirled the Waters full grewsome
A dark svJeep of sorrov? and pain.
Where erstwhile the mad flood was tangled
Calm moved the stream and the air
So calm that the moon's image dangled
As though there were no waters there,
Again o'er the bridge came the maiden
Dark robes flowing full to her feet,
Some hovel with sorrow is laden;
Thither hastens sweet Soeur Marguerite
The Stone from her bosom's rejected,
For her heart is a glass chaste and true,
Where men see their sorrows reflected
And gather their courage anew.
Current Fact and Comment
ENERGETIC
^^^HE modern world is 'energetically' lazy. Men
\^_J think because they are always in a hurry,
they are always busy; they imagine that
restlessness is industry. The fact of the matter is
that they are lazy, and what they would have us
believe to be the exhaust of a high-powered turbine
is simply the whistle of a peanut stand. This is
an age of anesthetics: painless surgery, painless
dentistry, painless thinking. To be 'cultured' one
need not know how to think, one need only know
how to talk — and to be 'cultured' you know, is
everything. "Can you say: protoplasm, H. G.
Wells, advanced thought, feminism, social service,
Bernard Shaw, eugenics? Yes? My, my, how
learned you are!"
LAZINESS
Nothing is so insipid as the repetition of a
stale joke; the 'culture' stuff is nauseating. Every
place is infested by these funny, 'learned' folk,
these living mimeographs, walking echoes of the
Sunday supplement.
The world is intellectually asleep. But why
try to wake it by injections of morphean modern
thought? It does not need technical conferences,
it needs Catholic catechisms. But before men can
become less 'cultured' and more candid, before they
can appreciate their vileness before God and
their utter helplessness without Him, they must
have more thoughtful leisure and less slap-dash
laziness.
FRANCE AGAIN AT THE VATICAN
XN 1904 France broke relations with the
Vatican, closed the religious schools and
banished the Religious. This caused great
joy to the enemies of the Church. They saw her
end. Had not Italy robbed the Pope of his temporal
power? And now that France had turned against
her it was expected that Spain and Austria would
do likewise. The Church without government sup-
port must fast sink into decay. Such was the
prophecy of those who forget that the Church is
not built upon men or governments.
Ten years later we see the retribution of the
Hand of God. France is on her knees suffering a
cruel scourging, while the Vatican in all its ancient
glory looms brightly above the raging conflict.
Nations vie with one another in courting the friend-
ship of the Holy See. England and Holland which
had not been represented at the Vatican since the
Reformation hastened to send their envoys to the
Pope.
France was forced to deal with the Holy See
unofficially during the war. To her sorrow she
found that while she could not live without the
Vatican the Vatican could very well live without
her. So, in spite of the vigorous opposition of some
of the Anti-Clericals, France re-established relations
with the Vatican on December 29, 1921.
While French statesmen look to the new order
of things as a means of supporting French political
interests in Turkey, Syria and Central Europe, we
can confidently expect that the re-establishment of
diplomatic relations with the Pope will mean even
more for the religious and moral well being of the
French people.
A SHORTAGE OF PRIESTS THREATENS
CONCLUSIONS drawn from statistics are
notoriously misleading. Official figures for
the fourteen years ending with 1921 indicate
an average of 1 priest to 855 of the Catholic popu-
lation in the United States. From a superficial view
we might conclude that one priest could minister
to a flock of that size and have time to spare for
leisurely occupations. We might also conclude,
therefore, that no special efforts were required under
the circumstances to foster vocations to the priest-
hood. The fallacy of these conclusions is clearly
shown by George Barnard who analyzes them in
the Ecclesiastical Review.
First, we err in visualizing the average priest
as comfortably and conveniently installed in the
midst of a flock of eight or nine hundred Catholics
and ministering to their ordinary needs. There are
close to 6000 churches and chapels without resident
pastors representing the heroic efforts of bishops
and priests to stem the loss of faith in remote
districts. In the border diocese of Corpus Christi
over a hundred stations are attended from one
mission centre. Again, the priest is occupied not
only in a passive way with those who with a lively
THE + SIGN
faith seek his ministrations, but much more earnest-
ly and anxiously is he concerned about those who
have fallen or gone astray. And he may not neglect
any opportunity to bring in those who are not of his
fold. Moreover the Church in America is now
turning a corner and, confronting the new social
conditions, is providing more systematically and
directly for parochial, diocesan and national needs.
To carry on these projects and for educational work
a large quota of priests must be withdrawn from
the parochial ministry,
Secondly, an alarming feature of the aforesaid
statistics is disclosed when we inquire how the pro-
portion of priests to Catholic population has been
maintained. On the one hand there is the steady
increase in the population and on the other there is
the loss of clergy by death — 345 priests died in
1920. To maintain the proportion 770 priests have
been added to the total yearly. Now the startling
statement is made that America supplied less than
half of these. And, further, the countries, which
have for years regularly contributed to the ranks
of our clergy, can no longer do so. The war besides
depleting their numbers opened new mission fields
and responsibilities.
Similar concern about vocations to the ministry
has been manifested among non-Catholic bodies.
Almost invariably the reason given in their case is
that the clergy are underpaid. Such a motive does
not enter into our calculations. About one among
every four priests in this country tries to live con-
sistently with a vow of poverty assumed in a
religious order. Many secular priests uncomplain-
ingly feel the pinch of poverty more sharply than
they. The generosity of our people must now be
extended to the preparatory field. The necessary
expense attached to the long years of training while
not excessive, is prohibitive to many a youth in
meagre circumstances but with a genuine vocation
and an ardent zeal for souls. Any Catholic casting
about for some practical method of returning thanks
to God for blessing him with earthly riches need
but inquire how he may directly help to set such a
youth upon his career with all that career may
entail for the faith, for souls and for the glory of
God.
LAY-RETREATS FOR THE YOUTH
>"TMONG those making the week-end lay-retreats
J I are regularly found young men and boys.
They are of that critical period when the
supporting props of parental and school discipline
have been removed: of that period when their
spiritual guides consider anxiously the rebound
from the restraint of discipline to the larger freedom.
Experienced pastors have studied and applied vari-
ous methods covering the mercurial age when a
wholesome interest in spiritual affairs and contact
with the sources of grace must be maintained. For
both boys and girls retreats regularly made have an
excellent stabilizing effect. Father Martindale in
the Irish Ecclesiastical Record says : "The enormous
bulk of our children leave school at eleven to four-
teen, and even the more fortunate classes do so at
eighteen, and tend to do so younger. In neither
case is there any Catholic education to follow which
keeps pace with every other education that life is
giving them — intellectual, professional, social, and
that of sheer experience of the physical and mental
crises of adolescence. Mere memories of child-
hood's pieties, mere assertions of authority are not,
and I dare say should not be, enough for the grow-
ing boy or girl. I do not assuredly decry piety;
it is astonishing how its delicate flower survives in
the hideous life of factory or workship, or in garage
or medical lecture-room, in very many cases. But
not normally. How should it? And authority?
The authority of public opinion is a very weighty
one, and in our press, our theatres, our higher
educational books and establishments the authority
runs mostly counter to that of catechism and of
sermon. In the conflict between authorities, that
which is to conquer must be very clearly the best
guaranteed. And in our early education it is im-
possible to anticipate all that life will suggest to
make the Church's authority seem weak. Nor can
we merely be satisfied with reclaiming souls that
have suffered in faith or morals. We ought to
prevent. . And we cannot be satisfied with Catholics
whose private career is correct, or who at least
present themselves for a cure when they fall
spiritually sick. The Church must be Apostolic in
each of her members. We ought to inspire."
"To help to this end, I can conceive no method
anywhere near so efficacious as retreats for boys
and girls who have lately left school, and for every
class of adult."
But the suggestion to make the retreat must
in most cases come from the parents.
THE 1* SIGN
HATERS OF WEALTH
"fcT^vE had quite forgotten those million dollars
I P spurned by a Bay State scion a year ago
until it was recently announced that the young
man had changed his mind and had decided to
accept the legacy. An interval was allowed for it
to be buzzed around — "I told you so" — and then
the harassed youth assured the public that he had
not changed his opinion about excessive fortunes
and that he planned to redistribute the million
forthwith consistently with his announced principles.
A strong impulse seized us to write and ask him
to consider in the redistribution our China mission-
aries, a burse for the Preparatory College and other
projects which we thought would appeal as eminent-
ly in harmony with his principles. But we aban-
doned the notion upon reflecting that he had pro-
bably received advice enough how to distribute
such a fortune as his several times multiplied.
This embarrassed beneficiary is opposed to the
economic system which makes possible the accumu-
lation of towering fortunes. With Shakespeare's
character he claims:
"Distribution should so undo excess,
And each man have enough."
The communal life of the Spartans, if not of the
early Christians, would appeal to him, and he is
probably familiar with the austere theories of Tolstoi
on the subject. The latter also knew that his large
possessions belied his theories and he therefore
gave them all away — to his wife.
Whenever the supernatural motive is not ap-
parent, instances of the rejection of wealth always
cause wonder if not suspicion. It is conceivable
that one with the taste and instincts for rural life
such as Mr. Garland professes could be fully con-
tented with his lot and could see no further emolu-
ment in stored wealth. But might he not wisely
employ the million at least in spreading similar
wholesome tastes and instincts in reply to the lament
in the war-time ballad : "How are you going to keep
them down on the farm?"
St. Paul, the hermit, in order to serve God more
freely, chose to live in the desert where a palm-tree
furnished him shelter, food and raimant. At this
season palm-trees are featured in advertisements
alluring the wealthy to the balmy playgrounds of
the South. The holy hermit could successfully
challenge these to prove that they found greater
happiness and contentment than he.
Material poverty may be viewed as an evil.
Because it centers itself in the slums, it fosters slum
ideals and impedes character growth in the young.
It cannot be denied that the possesion of moderate
wealth procures reasonable comfort 'and surcease
from anxiety and allows leisure for nobler occupa-
tions. The danger lies in the spirit of avarice enter-
ing in. As Ruskin describes it: "Wherever we are,
to go somewhere else: whatever we have, to get
something more." The spirit of avarice is implied
also in the farmer's definition of prosperity: "Pros-
perity means having a mortgage and getting it paid
off; and when you've paid off, getting enough to
buy a parlor organ; and then having enough to
trade the organ for a fine piano, and so on without
any limit whatsoever."
Supernatural, well-ordered poverty is recom-
mended by the Church to her children for two
motives. The surrender of one's possessions may
be made in the light of heroic sacrifice, that is, out
of love for and in imitation of Him Who, for our
sakes, was born in a stable, often had not whereon
to lay His Head, and Whose poor material legacy
were only His garments to be raffled for by His
executioners. Poverty also is a curative against
avarice. Not in riches, but in what riches can so
readily procure for the indulgence of every passion
lies the peril. Hence could the Savior warn that
the rich would hardly enter the kingdom of heaven.
Only those who love God will enter there. Riches
too easily procure for a man all that excludes God
from his heart.
WAR THEM
CONSIDER the Disarmament Conference striv-
ing to regulate the use of submarines, poison-
gases and bombing planes. How prolific has
not devilish ingenuity been in the brief interim
since Hirman Maxim, the great American gun-
AND NOW
maker, was knighted by Queen Victoria. On that
occasion he elicited from Lord Salisbury the
characterization: "Maxim" he said "has prevented
more men dying of old age than any other man
living."
The Broken Lure
Matthew Kenan Cai
Off
'E were playing for very small stakes. All
afternoon, however, Trainor had been losing
so steadily, that from the pile of chips
before the other five of us, it was evident
that he owed quite a considerable sum. And Trainor
was a typically hard loser. Extremely jovial when
winning, a gloom now diffused itself from his dark
face and massive body. For some time his silence
had been nothing less than ominous; and it was with
a feeling of djead that I watched the brewing storm,
which I knew must soon break.
Suddenly he pulled out his watch.
"Well, boys!' he said briskly with a pitiable
attempt to smile, "we have been playing this baby's
game long enough now. I have just exactly an hour
left. How about making it a regular game for this
last hour, with the sky the limit?"
He looked around half defiantly and half smil-
ingly. For a few minutes there was no answer. It
was plainly manifest that the proposal was anything
but welcome to the rest of us.
"For my part, Trainor," I said firmly, "I veto
that proposition — absolutely." The others voiced
their approval.
Trainor discarded his half smile then, and be-
came wholly defiant.
"Afraid, hey?" he sneered. "Just like you,
Barnot; a quitter from the ground up. Fine way to
treat a man after he has been losing all afternoon.
Besides, the way luck has been running, you ought
to be glad of the chance to make some easy money."
"Trainor," I said good humoredly, "that is just
where you make your mistake. I didn't sit down
here to make money. This is not a gambling pro-
position with me. I pay a few dollars to have a
little recreation here, just as I would buy a theatre
ticket. When my money is gone, the show is over
with me; and I stop satisfied. If I happen to win,
well — so much the better."
"That sounds good;" he snarled, "but you'd
sing a different tune, if you were in my place."
"You know, Trainor, you are not telling the
truth;" I replied quickly. "You know that before
I sit down to a game, I always tell you just how
much I can afford to pay for my amusement, and
when I lose that, I quit. It is not because I am
afraid of losing my winnings that I object to your
proposal. It is simply the principle of the thing
I'm against. It's that idea of 'making some easy
money,' as you say — of gambling, I call it — which
is not my idea of a gentleman's recreation."
My antagonist here lost control of his temper.
"I may not be what you consider a gentleman,
Barnot," he cried hotly, "but at any rate I am not
a quitter, and I am going to prove that you are."
With that he pulled from his coat a wallet
and a pair of dice, and threw them on the table.
"You see that money," he went on, "and those
dice ! Now I'll bet you ten to one up to any amount
you say, that I will roll a higher number than you
four times out of five. Now you — "
■ At this moment a hand clapped Trainor on the
shoulder and swinging him about, he found himself
looking into the steady eyes of Thomas Jordan,
President of our K. of C. Club. He had come
unnoticed into the room during our argument. Jordan
picked up the wallet and dice and shoved them into
the pocket of Trainor's overcoat which he held.
Then he threw his coat and hat into the fellow's
arms.
"Trainor," said he, eyeing the man sternly and
steadily, "you are hardly worth talking to. You
can't understand that a man can have principles
and stick to them. I think you had better take
your dice out of here."
For a moment I thought the big man would
strike Jordan; but seeing that we were all against
him, he turned suddenly without a word, and the
door slammed after him.
* * * *
^^^HERE was no more card playing that evening.
\) We settled up quickly in awkward silence,
and filed downstairs into the smoking room.
It was just "between darkness and daylight, when
a raw November night was beginning to lower;"
and the bright warmth cast by a blazing log fire
here was cheeringly welcome.
We gathered about it instinctively, still silent;
but happily, Jim Toomey, a close friend of Jordan,
relieved the situation.
"Say, Tom, old boy," he said cheerily, "you
certainly surprised little Jimmy this afternoon. I
-•4
THE 1* SIGN
didn't know there was that much spunk in your
whole family."
Jordan smiled, and the spell hanging upon us
was broken.
"I knew you didn't like to play cards yourself,
M' Lord President," went on Toomey, banteringly,
"but I never thought you were against others play-
ing. Man alive — "
"I'm not against others playing, Jim;" cut in
Jordan, "you ought to know that. It was the dice
that made me boil over."
"Ah! ha!" laughed his friend, "I guess you
and Barnot are in the same boat there, hey?"
"Honestly, Jim," replied the other, "I'm dead
in earnest about this. I would tell you why; but
it means more to me than you can imagine. Besides,
you wouldn't believe me anyway."
"He certainly has a fine opinion of us," re-
marked Toomey dryly. "But you can't get out of
it that way, Tom. You've got to go on now; you'll
have no peace if you don't. Gentlemen!" he drolled
out solemnly, "be seated!"
And so, laughing we drew our chairs about the
fire place.
"Well," said our President, taking a seat nearest
the hearth, "I guess Jim wins as usual; and," he
said, passing a box of cigars, "to make a good
beginning at least, let us light up."
"Fine!" observed Toomey sagely, "Best begin-
ning of any story I have ever heard."
Gazing with a far away look into the fire,
Jordan began. "You may have wondered at times,
why I never play cards. I have often told you that
I am not opposed to others playing; but with regard
to myself personally, it is much the same as with
some men and drink. There are those, you know,
who can't touch liquor without losing control of
themselves, and so they are strict teetotalers, while
at the same time they do not at all begrudge another
man his glass of beer or light wine. I heard what
Barnot said about his idea of card playing; and I
admire him for it. But I am so constituted, that it
would be morally impossible for me to do as he
does. I am forced, so to speak, to be a card
drunkard or an absolute prohibitionist, although I
realize that others can be temperance players, and I
respect them as such."
"Say!" broke in Herman Mueller, a stout sober
old German, "I just wish you could go to Washing-
ton, Tom, and tell those prohibitionist fellows down
there, where they get off at."
We all knew that old Mueller sorely missed
his glass of beer; and he was so unaffectedly
earnest now that even Jordan had to laugh.
"Thanks for the compliment, Herman," he said,
"I guess I follow my dad on that question. He
believed in the old motto: 'Live, and let live.' Dad
was alway fond of a friendly game of cards, and
loved to have me play with him. I took to the game
at once too; and in a short time, I became quite
an expert in several forms of play, including draw
poker. So much so, indeed, that dad began to
boast to his friends that his boy could beat any one
of them. And at last one night, when they came to
our house for a game, as they did periodically, they
prevailed upon him to let me 'sit in.' "
"You talk like a regular player," remarked
Toomey.
"Just wait a bit," said Jordan, with a smile,
and went on "I can never forget that first real game
of mine. I can feel the thrill of it yet, even when
I watch others play. From the beginning I was as
cool as a veteran; and I began to more than make
good my dad's prediction. There was a glamour
about the whole affair that was irresistible. The
jovial faces, the spirit of good fellowship, the praises
of my playing combined with the lure of the game,
the feelings of mingled suspense and exultation
simply overwhelmed me. When the party broke up
in the 'wee sma' hours, and I found myself with
spending money for month and a number of new
friends besides, you may be sure I needed no second
invitation to the next game at another house.
"In fact from that time on, I was a whole souled
gambler. All along the passion had been growing
unsuspected, and it was now my master. Soon I
began to play almost every night, and as the game
that suited my dad's friends became too tame for
me, I sought and found other congenial fellows
ready to satisfy my gambling appetite to the full."
"And I always thought you were afraid to
play," muttered the astonished Jim.
u
'ORDAN only smiled. "But don't misunder-
stand me, gentlemen," he added, looking
about the group, "when I say I was a full
fledged gambler. For even then I did not realize
what a hold the game had upon me. You see, I
told myself that a game of cards was my only
recreation; and as I was usually a winner, I argued
falsely that I was not playing beyond my means.
And so, all this time I managed to keep pretty
THE + SIGN
regularly to the Sacraments as I had been brought
up to do. At home no one even suspected my
danger. You all remember my wife; and you will
not wonder that I managed to stop playing for a
while after our marriage. But with her death the
old habit broke out again, and before long I was
worse than ever. And now our crowd was so far
gone that cards alone did not satisfy us. We had
to conclude our entertainment every night by throw-
ing dice for an hour or two."
The man spoke grimly now, and even Jim was
becoming too much interested to break in.
"As I said before," he kept on, "I can appreciate
a friendly game of cards for low stakes where there
is sociability and a chance to get some real recrea-
tion. But there seems to me absolutely no reason
for dicing. It is unworthy of a man and fit only
for the gambling den and the back lot. There's
no skill here, no friendly rivalry, nothing but an
insane gambling fever, a hot furious debauch,
mingled with invocations of the gods of chance,
accusations of one another, and curses."
HOR the second time that day Jordan 'boiled
over,' as he delivered his tirade against twirl-
ing dice. And I was heartily glad that I had
not accepted Trainor's challenge that afternoon. It
was only with a noticeable effort that he regained
his wonted composure, and then went on more
slowly.
"You remember, I said that I had been fortunate
for a while. The time soon came when my luck
turned, and I began to get into debt. It is remarka-
ble how quickly money won in gambling will dis-
appear. It seems to melt away like the poet's
'snow upon the desert's dusty face.' At home now
I became surly and peevish. My business too began
to suffer; for my thoughts during the day were
mainly about the game that night. Heaven alone
knows what eventually would have happened but
for the incident I am now going to tell you."
At this moment I stole a glance at Toomey.
He was sitting motionless, his eyes fixed on Jordan,
the hand holding his cigar raised half way to his
mouth. He must have been that way several
minutes, for the cigar had quite gone out. I had a
good smile all to myself as the story went on.
"One night we had thrown dice a much longer
time than usual. In our party then was a fine young
fellow, who, like myself was gradually going to the
dogs. You would never guess his name, so I'll tell
it to you at once — Joe Morton."
"You don't mean our Joe," exclaimed Toomey,
"you can't."
"The very same," replied Jordan, "the late
second lieutenant, Joseph Morton, killed in action
at Chateau Thierry. You see, gentlemen, I knew
him long before you did, when he was just a lad
and .a bit wild. At that time his old father was
living and depending on him; and as Joe and I were
pals, I often tried to get him to stop gambling with
us. But the boy always replied that he would quit
only when I did. Both of us, indeed, wanted to
break off badly; but we had that false pride, which
fears the accusation of quitter — the very accusation
you gave the lie to this afternoon," he added, look-
ing straight at me.
I had to smoke fiercely to hide my embarrass-
ment; but luckily he continued with his story.
"On this particular night, Joe had lost heavily.
To make matters worse, it was all coming my way.
I never felt so low down mean in my life, for I
knew how badly off the lad was. But I couldn't
think of offering sympathy at that time and place.
So we kept on rolling the dice until my pal was
cleaned out to the last penny."
"Joe," he went on, "was, as you know, always
game to the core. And he only laughed as if it were
all a good joke. Finally he took a bit of paste-
board from his pocket and threw it on the table.
I saw it was a pawn ticket."
"There, Tom," he said, with an effort at gaiety,
"that's for some luxury I don't need at all, so just
roll me for it."
"I hesitated a moment. There was however
nothing to do but to shake the dice and let them fly.
But I knew, even before they stopped rolling, that
the ticket was mine. With that, the party broke
up; and stuffing my winnings into my pockets I
hurried out. You may well believe that I didn't
have the heart to speak to Joe, nor even to look at
him.
When I got home, it was early morning. In the
gray half light of my bedroom, I emptied my
pockets. I knew what I really wanted to look at
was the bit of card-board. I took it over to the
window, and there I saw that Joe's "luxury" was a
suit of clothes. I remembered then that he had been
wearing an old shabby outfit lately; and my face
burned. 'Something he didn't need at all,' I
THE 1* SIGN
repeated bitterly. For the first time in my life I
was sick with a wholesome loathing of myself and
with everything connected with gambling."
Outside the circle of firelight, the room was now
in complete darkness. I glanced around. In the
bright flare of the flames, every face stood out clear
cut; and I noticed that all eyes were fixed intently
on the story teller, as he spoke now with evident
feeling.
"Exhausted in mind and body, I thought to
throw myself upon my bed for a few hours dressed
as I was. But instinctively I dropped by it on my
knees. For strangely enough, I had all these years
kept to a pious practice taught me by my mother,
God rest her, of kissing my little pocket crucifix,
a keepsake of her's, before getting into bed. So,
as I knelt mechanically, I took the crucifix from
my coat and pressed it to my lips. As I did so, a
depressing sense of guilt crept over me. The naked
feet seemed very cold. I couldn't take the crucifix
from my lips. And kneeling thus, I buried my hot
face in the pillow."
*" — JORDAN paused a moment. There was a
\Y- suspicion of a catch in his voice. Obviously
he was measuring every word.
"I know now," he continued, "that I must have
dozed off. For it seemed to me, that I was still
playing with dice. But now my fellow gamblers
were complete strangers. They were all dressed as
I remembered to have seen some Roman soldiers
in my old Latin school book of 'Caesar's Gallic
Wars.' And I was dressed like them, with short
tunic, breastplate and helmet, bare kneed, and
sandals on my feet.
There were four of us; and we were intensely
absorbed in our game, swearing in our excitement
and calling on the old pagan gods of Rome.
At last my turn came. With a shout to Jove, I
seized the dice and rolled the highest number pos-
sible.
"By Hercules!" one powerful fellow snarled,
"the dog wins the prize."
And reaching back, he picked up something
that lay behind him and flung it in my face. It
dropped into my arms, and I saw that it was a suit
of clothes.
Joe's suit! I thought at once. But then, sud-
denly it changed from a blue suit of modern make
into a long white robe. And as I gazed wonderingly,
everything else was crowded out of my mind by a
voice, soft, yet clearer and sweeter than any other
voice I had ever heard, almost directly above my
head.
"Thomas!" it said, "What thou dost to the
least of my brethren, thou dost unto Me."
"Terrified, I looked up."
Jordan's voice was husky, and his words came
with difficulty.
"Above me was a Man, all naked but for a loin
cloth. He was hanging outstretched upon a cross.
At His feet, almost by my side, stood a Woman
weeping. As I knelt there, with the dice in one
hand and the long white garment in the other, I
was painfully aware that they were looking intently
at me.
I thought we stayed that way an endless time.
I could neither move nor speak. I was conscious
that my knees were aching sorely. I felt a cold wind
blowing upon me. It penetrated to the marrow of
my bones. Yet I dared not use the robe to protect
myself. I tried to lift it up to the naked Figure.
I could not. It was like a mass of lead. I cried to
my former companions, but, with a look of horror,
they fled into the darkness.
Again I struggled desperately to lift up the
robe. When at length it seemed that I was about
to succeed, the Figure faded before me. I cried out
in frenzied anguish that I would yet return the robe
though it cost my blood. Then suddenly I found
myself kneeling by my bed, bathed in a cold sweat,
my crucifix on the pillow, the fresh morning air
blowing in upon me through the open window."
* * * *
Jordan leaned forward in the firelight. His
pallid face was drawn. The soft crackling logs
sounded clear in the silence.
Tke Wkite Rose of Lucca
Tke Storp of Gemma Galgani
MATTHEW KUEBEL
6 — Resignation and Tears — (continued)
©
UT independently of these revelations
Gemma yearned to become a Passionist
nun because that life was her ideal. The
l'ong hours of prayer and meditation at the
feet of the Crucified; the severely penitential rule
of life; the strict separation from the world by the
Papal cloister, and at the same time the occasional
occupations in works of zeal such as the teaching of
catechism to children at the grille and the conducting
of retreats for women within the enclosure — all this
had a strong appeal for a zealous and ardent spirit
like Gemma.
Gemma had hoped that the course of spiritual
exercises which she, together with three companions,
had decided to make at the Passionist Convent in
Corneto, would be the first step in her flight from the
world. Much to Gemma's surprise and to the regret
of all her friends her application to be permitted to
make the retreat was refused, although the other
three young women received a more favorable
answer. Evidently, the good Superior had heard a
great deal about Gemma that was not at all in her
favor and was convinced that Gemma was one of
those deluded hysterical creatures who do not do
well in convents. This repulse did not dishearten
Gemma, much less embitter her against the nuns;
instead she defended with characteristic sweetness
the Mother Superior against others' loud expressions
of chagrin.
Just at this time the establishing of a convent
of Passionist nuns in Lucca began to be mooted, and,
of course, one of the most zealous patrons and pro-
moters of the good cause was Gemma herself.
Gemma's zeal in the matter was probably the result
of revelations she had received long before about
the future convent, of which as far back as 1900
she was able to give a long description in a letter
to Father Germanus shortly before the eminent
priest became her spiritual guide. . Now again Our
Lord spoke to her about the good work, and His
words had the effect of moving her to throw all her
energies into it. "How often," the Savior said,
"how often have I not withheld My Father's anger,
by presenting to Him a group of loved souls and
generous victims They are the daughters of
My Passion; but they are few and cannot suffice
for everything Write at once to thy Father
(Fr. Germanus) ; tell him to go to Rome and speak
to the Pope of this desirable work : let him say that
a great chastisement is threatened and victims are
needed." At other times our Lord gave Gemma to
understand that her becoming a Passionist nun
was dependent upon the establishing of a Passionist
convent in Lucca.
Stimulated by this double motive — the glory of
God and her own spiritual interests — Gemma took a
personal, energetic, and almost a principal part in
the effort to get the work fairly started. She wrote
innumerable letters filled with earnest pleading to
this person and to that whose active interest was
more or less indispensable, to arouse their serious
effort, to allay their fears, to chide the backwardness
dictated by too much human prudence. "Jesus
wishes it," she would say, "and what Jesus wills
must succeed." "Decide at once," she wrote to her
Director, "for very soon it will be too late. Jesus
will not wait any longer; and He has said to me
that He will take me to Himself if within six
months the work is not begun." But Gemma did
not stop at mere words. Unweariedly she went
hither and thither in Lucca, interesting in the work
all she could, collecting money, and seeking a suit-
able location or building — any property which there
was the remotest possibility of acquiring for the
Passionist Sisters — in order that without delay the
way might be opened for the coming of the little
band of nuns from Corneto.
It is necessary to state only that Gemma's
efforts for the founding of the convent had no results
during her own lifetime. Our Divine Lord's condi-
tions— that the work be started within a given time
— was not fulfilled, for month after month had
slipped by and nothing had been done. Therefore,
Our Lord told Gemma that it was too late ; that she
28
THE 1* SIGN
must not think anymore of becoming a nun, and
that she must be resigned. Then (she tells us), "I
ran away to my room to be more free there and
alone, and I cried a great deal. At last I exclaimed :
'Thy Will be done.' But those tears were not of
grief; they were tears of perfect resignation."
ONLY after Gemma's death were energetic
measures employed to found the convent,
when quite smoothly, or at least with no more
than the usual share of opposition and difficulty,
the work quickly progressed by ways and means
that Gemma had foretold; so that within two years
the Passionist Nuns were established in Lucca. No
doubt some day another interesting prophecy of
Gemma's will be fulfilled. "The Passionist nuns,"
she once said, "have not wished to receive me, and
for all that I wish to be with them, and shall be so
when I am dead." If Holy Church makes a favor-
able pronouncement on Gemma's sanctity, the an-
gelic girl will have the consolation of being with the
r.uns, who will then be able to tell that the true
patron and foundress of their convent in Lucca is
the sweet virgin, Gemma Galgani.
Gemma never realized her ambition of becom-
ing a nun, but she did acquire a degree of sanctity
more sublime than the religious life ordinarily
aspires to or contemplates. By a life-long union
with Jesus Crucified and by a miraculous conformity
with His image Gemma had become a child of the
Passion. She was now ripe for Heaven; God had
said to her, 'Behold I come quickly,' and it only
remained for her to prepare for the coming of her
Lord.
On the feast of Pentecost, 1902, God revealed
to His faithful serveant during an ecstacy her voca-
tion of expiating during the year of life that
remained to her the sins of unfaithful Christians, and
Gemma with characteristic generosity acquiesced in
God's designs. Immediately after this she fell
gravely ill and remained in a most critical condition
for two months. Thereupon Father Germanus wrote
to her and commanded her to ask God for her cure.
Gemma obeyed, not without great pain; and Our
Divine Lord signified to her that she would recover,
but that she would be well only for a short time.
Instantly Gemma was well again, and within one
week she regained her full strength, and her com-
plexion resumed its former freshness and beauty.
But God's Will had to be fulfilled, so that on the
9th of September, after a respite of twenty days,
Gemma again fell dangerously ill. Before very long
she was reduced to a most pitiable condition, and
the members of the household wrote in great alarm
to her Director: "Gemma is very ill; she is reduced
to skin and bone; she suffers excruciating torments
and internal pains that terrify. .. .Gemma feels
great need of you. Come quickly to tell us how to
act."
^^^HE devoted Director answered this call for
V/ J assistance without delay, and his presence
at the bed-side of his saintly spiritual child
was a great consolation to her. He allowed her to
renew her general confession from which, at this
eleventh hour of her life, he again received the
assurance that Gemma had never committed the
least fully deliberate sin, and that she would take
undefiled to Heaven her baptismal innocence. Re-
maining with her several days, he prepared her for
the reception of the Holy Viaticum and administered
to her the comfort of his holy counsels. After
several days had elapsed without any change in her
condition, Gemma said to her spiritual Father:
"Father, if you wish you may go.... This illness
will certainly finish me, but not yet; at least that is
what Jesus had told me." Then Father Germanus
blessed Gemma and returned home, not dreaming
that he looked upon her for the last time.
But before the happy release of death would
come, Gemma had many obediences to fulfill — many
long months of agonizing suffering; she must first
be crucified in body and soul as never before, and
step by step God prepared the instruments of her
immolation. Gemma must give up a happy home,
those dear ones whom she had learned to love as
kith and kin, in order to be alone, to suffer alone,
to be crucified alone with Jesus. The advice of the
Physicians and of Father Germanus that Gemma be
segregated from the rest of the family, for a long
time was not heeded. The Gianninis were most
reluctant to part with one whom they regarded as
the Guardian Angel of their home. But at length
more prudent counsel prevailed, and Gemma was
removed to a house across the street. The thought
that she would be near those whom she loved so
dearly was some consolation to Gemma in the sorrow
she felt in the separation.
For a while the afflicted girl had one consola-
tion— that of painfully making her way every morn-
ing to a nearby Church to hear Mass and to receive
Holy Communion. But high fever quickly set in
THE 1* SIGN
and Gemma was unable to leave her bed any more.
Thereafter the ravages of her malady were rapid and
terrifying. The words of one of her attendants
describe quite graphically the pitiable condition to
which before long Gemma was reduced. "Poor
victim," the lady wrote to Father Germanus, "she
suffers without cessation, and feels as if her bones
were being disjointed. It is evident that she is
tortured in every part of her body and is being
dissolved in hopeless agony. For the last twenty
days she has lost her sight; her voice has become
so weak that she can scarcely articulate, so that it
is almost impossible to catch what she says; she is
a living skeleton that seems to waste more and more,
and to see her is to be filled with pain and dismay."
"First the body and then the soul," Gemma
had said in declaring her willingness to bear the full
weight, if possible, of the Savior's pains. Her frail
body was fixed to the cross; now she was to be
crucified in her soul. All those Heavenly privileges
and sublime graces — her familiar colloquies face
to face with Jesus and Mary, the abiding visible
presence of her Guardian Angel, all those sweet
raptures and ecstatic contemplations — were with-
drawn; a thick veil of darkness had intervened
between Heaven and her pure soul; all Heaven
seemed to have forgotten one who had lived her
whole life only for God and Holy things. This
crushing weight of darkness was the instrument of
unspeakable pain.
©
^T who can tell the immense anguish caused
this pure soul by the relentlessly violent per-
secutions of the fiend! None but he could
have been the author of those strange and repulsive
phantasms filling Gemma's mind with all manner of
anxiety, sadness, and fear. What else but Satanic
insolence could have suggested that all this spiritual
and physical misery was God's characteristic way of
rewarding life-long fidelity in His service? Then
with strange inconsistency the devil would make
capital of her profound spiritual desolation and
endeavor to persuade her that she would certainly
be lost because of her hypocrisy and deceit, of which
her confessors were the principal dupes. This
temptation was so sadly effective that Gemma, re-
solving to be saved at any cost, wrote a history of
her whole life, an account in which she made herself
out to be guilty of the greatest sins. Sending this
confession to a priest who was well acquainted with
her, Gemma asked him to come and absolve her
from all her sins. The priest came and reassured
her, and thereafter she enjoyed a respite of peace.
But Satan, knowing that his time was short,
would not be stayed; if such eminent virtue could
not be shaken, the possessor of it at least must be
made to feel the full force of his malicious hatred.
In an endless variety of ways he sought, and was
only too successful in the effort, to torment the poor
invalid. The words of an attendant at the sick-bed
vouch for the reality of these assaults. "That
abominable beast," the lady wrote, "will be the end
of our dear Gemma — deafening blows, forms of
ferocious animals, etc. I came away from her in
tears because the devil is wearing her out and there
is no remedy for it We help her by sprinkling
holy water in her room; then the disturbance ceases
'only to begin again worse than before."
During all these sufferings and conflicts Gemma
was engaged in uninterrupted converse with Heaven
— the many prayers she uttered aloud, showed how
the faith and love and hopeful trust of the saintly
sufferer rode triumphant over the billows of the
storm. "Dost thou not know, Jesus," she would say,
"that I am all thine? Yes; all thine. . . .Suffering,
yes; but I wish to go to Paradise to Thee." Then
turning in spirit to the Blessed Virgin she would
say: "Mother, my own Mother, you must tell Jesus
I will keep my word to Him, that I will be faithful
to Him."
In fact all those beautiful qualities and virtues
for which she had been so much revered and so
dearly loved, shone with new splendor on her bed
of pain. Her patience, her unconcern amid need
and discomfort, the sweetness and cheerfulness
which always .distinguished her did not abandon
her now that she was enduring pains so great that
as some one said, "it would almost appear that one
could not suffer more even in Purgatory." But what
most edified people who saw her was her great
humility. After a life of blameless innocence and
wonderful virtues, her constant prayer was, "My
Jesus Mercy!" "O Jesus, oh how many sins!
But thy Mercy is infinite. Thou has pardoned me
so many times, 0 forgive me now once more!"
So the poor victim of Divine Love and Justice
dragged on a weary afflicted, and blameless life on
a bed of pain for six long months. Prayer, conflict,
suffering was all that life meant to Gemma as the
Holy Week of 1903 drew near— that week during
which all that remained to her of Christ's sacrifice
was to be offered.
30
THE 1* SIGN
ON Wednesday of Holy Week Gemma received
the Viaticum, and on the following day, Holy
Thursday, she communicated again. She
made her thanksgiving with her customary fervor,
when the spiritual darkness in which she was
enveloped was momentarily lifted; Gemma went
into an ecstacy during which she was heard to say:
"Before thou art finished, oh how much has to be
gone through!" Later on she said to one of the
nursing Sisters: "What a day tomorrow (Good
Friday) will be!"
When on Good Friday morning a Lady who had
been watching with Gemma through the long hours
of the night signified her intention of leaving for a
short rest, Gemma said: "Don't leave me until I
am nailed to the cross. I have to be crucified with
Jesus. He has said to me that His children have to
be crucified." Soon after the saintly invalid again
went into ecstacy, when she stretched out her arms
in the form of a cross and remained that way for
several hours. And what a strange ecstacy it was!
Her sweet face, still beautiful after the ravages of
disease, was not lit up as hitherto with a heavenly
light indicative of the unspeakable joy pouring into
the (soul. Rather her face was a picture of pain,
anguish, desolation; — all the sorrows of Jesus were
engulfing Gemma's soul. No wonder that the eyes
of all were riveted upon that blessed countenance!
What better picture of Christ Crucified could have
been desired! Gemma remained in all the agony
of death until Holy Saturday morning, when
Extreme Unction was administered.
Thus crucified in body by the ravages of disease,
crucified in soul by immeasurable anguish, deprived
of all spiritual comfort by the absence of her
spiritual advisors, who best knew how to console
her, well could the holy victim raise her feeble
voice and exclaim: "Now it is indeed true that
nothing more remains to me ... . Jesus. I recom-
mend my poor soul to Thee, Jesus!" These were
Gemma's last words.
A half hour passed, during which Gemma is
seated on her bed, with her head resting on the
shoulder of her adopted mother. The kind friends
who had assisted her all along are gathered around
and deep is the conviction of all that they are
gathered at the death-bed of a saint. Gemma is
absorbed in silent thought, when suddendly as all
eyes are fixed on her angelic face, she sweetly
smiled, inclined her head to one side and ceased
to live. There was no specific agony, no muscular
strain; that death was but a sweet sleep in the arms
of the Heavenly Spouse. Gemma died at one
o'clock in the afternoon of Holy Saturday, the 11th
of April, 1903. "What a beautiful thing," Gemma
used to say, "to die on a great solemnity." But
what could have been more beautiful even in her
eyes, than to die on Holy Saturday, after having
kept Good Friday as she did in company with Jesus
suffering.
Gemma's longing to become a Passionist nun
was well-known, and therefore, after her death, the
body was clothed in black with the Passionist badge
upon her breast. A crown of flowers was placed
upon her head; her hands were joined just as she
used to hold them while in ecstacy. The charming
smile with which she breathed her last remained,
and the sainted corpse bespoke an indescribable
peace and seemed clothed in a heavenly beauty.
QEOPLE came in great numbers to view the
body, and took occasion to touch it with
rosaries or other articles of devotion, or to
obtain some little token afterwards to be treasured
as a precious relic. Priests who knew Gemma
came to her room and knelt a long time in prayer.
"I feel that I am in a sanctuary," one priest said. . . .
"How well one can pray here. . . .Blessed Gemma,
who knew how to live like an angel and die a
saint."
In the late afternoon of Easter Sunday the body
was removed to the cemetery. There was a large
gathering of townspeople and the funeral cortege —
ordinarily a strange contrast to the joy of Easter —
seemed really like a festive celebration. How
could it be otherwise; this was the occasion of
Gemma's flight to Heaven in company with her
Risen Lord!
The hallowed remains were placed in a privi-
leged tomb under the colonnade of the cemetery.
A marble statue of an angel and the inscription on
a marble slab mark the spot where Gemma rests
in peace. Thus reads her epitaph:
"Gemma Galgani of Lucca a most innocent
virgin, who in her twenty-fifth year, con-
sumed rather by the fire of Divine Love
than by the violence of disease, flew into
the arms of her Heavenly spouse on Holy
Saturday the 11th of April, 1903. Peace
be to thee, 0 sweet soul, in company with
the angels!"
(The End)
Tke Passion of Christ in Symbols
Hubert Cunningham, C. P.
OEV0TI0N to the sacred Passion of Our
Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ reaches
back to the beginning of Christianity. All
other devotions compared to it are recent:
they flow from this as from their source for love
of Jesus Crucified is the fountain of all Catholic
piety. Moreover, this wonderful love of the early
Christians was never an elusive generality or vague
sentiment; it was always a solid and substantial
reality as all genuine devotion ever is and ever must
be. That is why it twined itself around the cross and
stood out bold, practical, particular and as a public
fact before the whole world of friend and foe.
But a time came when prudence dictated another
course and christian faith took refuge behind the
merciful devisement of holy disguise. In this ar-
ticle we shall follow our subject thither and study
early christian devotion to the Passion as this is
revealed in symbols.
We know the recklessness of love and above
all of holy love. It wants to be known ; it cannot be
held down. We also know that devotion to Jesus
Christ Crucified means nothing but love and love
for the most reckless Lover that ever thrilled the
human bosom and that is the simple reason why
the holy unction of our forefathers in the faith was
reckless; it was fierce, fearless and so even in
peril of life their beloved cross was defiantly flaun-
ted before the world. It was this open, constant
and daring display of the sign of Christ, its conquer-
ing march through the Roman Empire, its rapid
spread through every strata of the social life,
its discovery among the consuls and the captains,
the soldiers and the slaves, its evidence among the
senators and the civilians, its worship by the digni-
fied matrons and the timid little children; this was
the spectacle that goaded the deep hatred of the
defeated Jew, that excited the jealousy of the pagan,
that roused the suspicious fears of the statesman till
all these inimical elements combined their forces in
violent opposition and persecuted the cross with
relentless fury.
Prudently, gradually these open displays of
their beloved emblem by the hated christians ceased.
Even more, for the sake of holy reverence all sacred
objects — sacred rites, ceremonies, duties, practices
and teachings — were witheld from the knowledge
and even the observation of the heathen world to
guard these divine things from misrepresentation
and desecration by the wild passions of the time.
These teachings and practices were but slowly and
carefully divulged even to the newmade converts
and catechumens lest these might be carried by their
enthusiasm, as thousands before them had been, to
exceed the bounds of discretion. The prudent retire-
ment here indicated steadily grew till it ultimately
became general and a law of the church, called the
discipline/, arcani or the duty of secrecy.
As time progressed this law grew more and
more severe till nothing whatever of importance in
teaching or practice appeared without but always
under the disguise of signs and symbols. Bishop
McDonald goes as far as to say that in some parts
of the world it was forbidden to even so much as
commit to writing such fundamental and sacred
matters as the creeds, the forms and ceremonies,
for fear that these might reach the hands of the
enemy; instead all these sacred matters were handed
down merely by word of mouth and retained only
by memory. For those zealous souls the law of
secrecy was a severe restraint. But the years were
hard; hatred was rampant and outrage and cruelty
and murder were carried to every christian home.
However under these legal restrictions love for the
cross did not languish; as they reverently, more
reverently withdrew it from the vulgar eyes, the
christians drew it more tenderly, if that could be
possible, to their own hearts and with that marvelous
ingenuity and resourcefulness which deep affection
alone commands they fed their fervor by fashioning
that despised figure and pouring their worship upon
it in a wonderful variety of ways.
n
OLY love laughs at locks and laws and easily
finds a way and so the Church was made rich
by the enforced skill of these early devotees
THE 1* SIGN
of the suffering God. Their eager eyes looked about
them and they discovered something suggestive of
those sweet sufferings on all sides — in the sights
which kindly nature spread before them, in the regu-
lar course of ordinary life and in the occasional
experience. When we are taught to see the cross in
the wood of the* trees, the cruel nails in the iron and
steel with which the world is filled, and the thorny
crown in the finger prick we suffer when cutting the
blushing rosebud, we are practicing lessons taught
us by those great christians of the hard years long
ago. They could find the cross they loved standing
all around them : it was there in the four points of
the compass and in the pick-axe of the diggers who
worked out the tunnels of the catacombs; they saw
it in the figure of the orante, which means the good
christian praying down in that darkness with extend-
ed arms; they saw it in the singletree of the wagon
and the yardarm of the ship mast; the stretching
arms of the swimmer, the wings of the flying bird
and the fins of the fish in the water revealed it; and
was it not plainly evident in the shank of the anchor,
yes, even in the crossbar from which hung the
guidon or bannerette of Rome's great pagan legions?
Every one of these objects were used as a memento
of the cross and everyone of them comes down to
us as a symbol in valuable monuments from those
early days. All the great mysteries of the faith
were symbolized to satisfy the hungry mind and
support the longing heart and for this purpose a
multitude of objects were used as representations.
ONE of the most familiar of these emblems was
the fish, commonly known by its Greek name
icthus which means a fish. This mystic
figure is very ancient. Examples of it are abundant;
there are many evidences of it to be found among
the early writers. The first of these to mention the
fish in this connection, so far as we can discover
at this long distance, is Clement of Alexandria who
recommends that all christians have their seals
stamped with a fish. Monsignor Hackett whom I
quote for this information, pointedly remarks on this
incident that the saint "offers no reason for this
recommendation; from which it may be safely
inferred that the meaning was so well understood
that explanation was unnecessary:" and since the
holy scholar, Clement, was born about the year 150
the christian sign of the fish is ancient indeed.
In those bitter years they were compelled to
resort to the sign-manual for the purposes of pro-
tection and the figure of a fish was the countersign
of a christian. Traced by the point of his staff in
the dust at his feet the sign of the fish revealed to
the casual acquaintance that the traveller was a
christian. But the reasons which lead to the selec-
tion of this particular figure rather than any other
make this fact here more pertinent and interesting.
The first is because the fish in the water with his
protruding fins was to the christian mind an indicator
of the cross; a second reason, however, is still more
beautiful; that mystic sign is such a delicate con-
trivance of love undying but unknown! It is this: —
'the fish' (in its original greek) is an acrostic made
from the initial letters of the ancient ejaculation,
which interpreted means "Jesus Christ, Son of God,
Saviour!" The first letter of each word put together
form the Greek word meaning a fish. So that
simple figure was to the christian a living, vibrant
act of faith by which he proclaimed to God and the
initiated "I believe in Jesus Christ as the Son of
God and My Savior!" Is it any wonder then that
to those who understood the allegory the fish should
have been specially popular? It is rich in meaning
and so is constantly in evidence in one or other
manner.
^^^HE active faith of our Catholic progenitors
^SJ was very fertile in these useful manifestations
cf solid piety; for that reason we, their chil-
dren can sincerely thank the disciplina arcani or
ancient law of secrecy; it was that church ruling
which drove the pent-up love of those great heroes
to devise new ways of expression and so that love
blossomed forth in the elaborate veilings of symbol-
ism. For brevity's sake I have selected only three
examples of this and among them the icthus or
fish for a special reason in point and it is this : — the
most sweetly appealing of all the ancient emblems
of religious mystery is the dolphin. This particular
fish is used in three ways, each of which is expres-
sive of devotion to the Passion of Christ. It is first,
as an icthus, the representation of a christian as
said above, and secondly it signifies fleetness — rapid
or intense action; but in either sense the dolphin
is shown as moving toward the Christ sign which
will be explained later on in this article. In these
two forms its meaning is vivid and inspiring: it tells
the earnest desire of the disciple of Christ, like
St. Paul, to know nothing more than Christ and Him
crucified and to fly to His cross as to refuge, strength
and consolation. But the third token of the dolphin
THE + SIGN
is specially touching and is well known to the whole
world. For the better understanding of this ancient
type it should be recalled that to the pagan world
of poetry and romance the dolphin signified the
heart; it was the representation of tender affection
and the emblem of love. The christian took up this
suggestion, twined the dolphin about the anchor
cross and, lo! the effect eloquently tells its own
story to eye and to heart — the story which we are
now trying to better learn — that the love and affec-
tion, that the very hearts of our ancient soldiers of
Christ were most tenderly twined about their stand-
ard— the cross of Jesus!
The last evidence which I shall adduce in
the present article is of personal interest to the
editors of The Sign and to all the members of the
religious family to which they belong — the Passion-
ist Fathers and the Passionist Nuns — because these
carry it forth worn large on the left breast of their
coarse black habit and mantle as a part of their
heaven-appointed badge. It is the signet XPI.
^^^HERE is a variety of notions about this cipher;
^SJ some are false, some are vague ; even among
educated Catholics few, indeed, have grasped
its exact meaning and yet it is one of the very
instructive, usual and ancient forms of devotion to
the Passion. A little explanation will make it all
very clear and helpful.
This venerable trinity is made up of'the first
three letters of the Greek word Kristos, Christ.
They are the exact equivalent of the first four letters
in the latin name Christus or the English word Christ
and the mark above.as may be noted on the Passion-
ist's badge, shows it is an abbreviation in the same
manner as we use a period when abbreviating a word
in our own languarge. As as ordinary example Jos.
is the English abbreviation of the name Joseph, so
XPI is the Greek abbreviation of the name Kristos.
It is expressing it shortly by using only the first
three letters and so like all similar arbitrary con-
tractions the form is stationary; it admits of no
change or modification but takes its grammatical
form indifferently from its mere position in a
sentence; itself will remain ever the same — XPI.
It is a sign.
The name of Our Blessed Lord put forth in this
truncated and familiar style was variously called by
the ancients the " cree," the "chiro," the "sigla," the
"monogram" by some it is inaccurately termed the
"labarum." Its correct name is the "Chrismon,"
rendered in ordinary language as the "Christ Sign"
or simply "The Sign." This sign appears on the
distinctive emblem of the Passionists as JESU XPI
PASSIO (The Passion of Jesus Christ.) and there-
fore have these religious ever called their badge
"The Sign," from that holy cipher, XPI— the sign
of Christ. *
This will appear even clearer if we turn our at-
tention briefly to an exact parallel in the IHS. This
is a parallel in many ways ; first of all and strikingly
in that it lives in a permanent mist of wrong notion
before the ordinary mind.
Q SHORT time ago a knot of young church
students were discussing the meaning and
history of the characters IHS. One main-
tained they stood for "I Have Suffered" and argued:
"I saw those letters many a time in Ireland. They
were always put over the dead while the corpse was
being waked and I was told that that was their
meaning." Another contended, "No; they are not
English; they are the initials of the Latin sentence
'Jesus Hominis Salvator' — Jesus Savior of Mankind."
Hereupon a lithe-formed, bright-eyed classmate
entered; he was appealed to and confidently waved
aside all difficulties, saying, "Those are the letters
from the banner of the emperor Constantine, 'In Hoc
Signo — In This Sign Thou Shalt Conquer.' Just
like 'A E F' meant 'American Expeditionary Force'
or 'Y M C A' meant 'You Must Come Across.' My
parents learned that in Poland and taught it to me
when I was a boy."
That these young men were all wrong and al-
together wrong in their explanation of the history
and meaning of these sacred letters is true. But
the incident teaches two useful things : — the preval-
ent ignorance of these familiar letters on the one
hand and on the other the fanciful meanings which
have been given to them by different peoples. As
the XPI so the IHS has but the haziest and most
varied meanings to the multitude.
These letters are parallels again in this: — they
both signify the same thing and that is the Sacred
name of Our Lord — Jesus Christ. As we have seen
the XPI is an archaic made up of the first three
letters of His name in Greek, so the IHS is a similar
devisement composed of the first three letters of
His name in that same tongue; so that IHS XPI
are the Greek abbreviations of His sacred name —
Jesus Christ. Finally these two signets are parallels
because they are ancient, venerable and pregnant
THE 1* SIGN
christian symbols which carried to the minds and
hearts of our wonderful ancestors in the faith all the
meaning and inspiration which that sweetest of all
names brings of suffering and of love divine, and
thus folded about with aged wisdom and veneration
they have been inherited by us, the Catholics of to-
day. They are tokens of the wisdom and power
of Jesus Christ.
It is because of this sublime meaning of the
archaism IHS XPI that it appealed so strongly to
the apostolic spirit of the saints, and such men as
St. Bernard held the IHS before the eyes of the
people in his day; St. Vincent Ferrer, St. John
Capistran and St. Bernardine of Siena preached the
wisdom and the power of that holy sign, holding
it up before the eyes of the people, and so made it
the instrument whereby they converted as many as
thousands by one sermon. The grace of Jesus
Christ fell upon the efforts of those earnest men
and in that sign they conquered, in very deed, miles
and men in multitudes. They resurrected the IHS
from the ages and as an evidence of the deep im-
pression which it made on the minds of the nations
we have the IHS stamped all over the western
church — on our windows, our altars, our vestments,
our tabernacles; it is even stamped on the very
hosts which the priest consecrates at the Mass.
It is fittingly the seal of the Jesuits and the standard
of the Holy Name Society.
These two Greek tokens, the IHS and the
XPI, reach back to the earliest days and in this
connection it is interesting to note that while the
IHS is by far the more familiar today the XPI was
the more attractive in the days gone by. It is
everywhere in evidence and in the most ingenious
varieties of figure not merely in the sequence of
lettering but in a multiplicity of weavings that make
up the monogram. It is a matter of edifying interest
to know that the interturnings of the letters XPI is
the most ancient form of monogram known to
history; it is the original, the inspiration, the
protoparent of all monograms whether sacred or
profane, so that a very common and quite proper
name for this epigraph is the "monogram" and so
has it been called.
Vw^HEN we came to inquire why the chrismon
\l/ appealed more strongly to the first christians
than did its holy brother the IHS we meet
the magnificent inspiration for which we are seek-
ing. The determining factor was devotion to Christ
Crucified. The pious hearts of those much-tried
predecessors in the faith were ever eager for the
sign of the cross and their eyes were always alert
to its presence. In the IHS it is not readily per-
ceptible, whereas there it stood bold, strongly defined
in the first letter that met their eyes in the XPI.
It was the sign of the cross, the chrismon, the sign
of Christ, indeed, and they took it to their hearts
with holy satisfaction. They took that beloved sign
to their hearts in the literal, in the most touching
sense of those pathetic words and they made of it
a holy talisman. They traced that epigraphic mark
on parchment, they cut it into stone, they carved
it on wood, they moulded it into medals so that they
might the better carry it with them constantly.
And those early lovers of the cross could indulge
at their pleasure this desire to carry with them that
sacred device; they might carry it publicly, they
might carry it covertly without fear of detection or
suspicion. Why? Because the practice of wearing
philacteries by the Jews and charms by the heathen
populace was general; it was as common and indif-
ferent as the watch-charm, the dress-ring, the locket
or the lavalliere is amongst the men and women of
today. These fervent souls took advantage of this
chance condition and contrived an unknown number
of ways by which they might carry constantly with
them the beloved cross innocently yet plainly visible
in that mysterious amulet, the chrismon, the XPI.
35
An Unparalleled Photograph
■^^^^HIS is a remarkable picture. It shows Dr.
a ^\ Michael Possenti of Camerino, Italy, aged
^^^^ eighty seven years, placing at the foot of
the statue of a saint a white rose. The
statue is that of St. Gabriel of the Sorrowful Virgin.
The picture is remarkable, because he to whom the
rose is offered,
and he who offer?
it are brothers, —
Francis Possenti,
now St. Gabriel
of the Church
Triumphant,
whose feast falls
on February 27th,
and Michael Pos-
senti, of the
Church Militant.
The picture is re-
markable, because
it presents a scene
unique, perhaps,
in the history of
the Church. A
brother still in the
flesh pays venera-
tion and homage
to one of his own
blood now glori-
fied in heaven.
Flesh is united
with spirit, earth
with heaven, mor-
tality with im-
mortality, in a
communion which
only those can ap-
preciate who are
blessed with the divine gift of faith.
Michael Possenti, the sixth son of Sante Possenti
and Agnes Frisciotti, is their ninth child. His
brother Francis, (St. Gabriel,) was the eighth son
and the eleventh child, three years younger than
Michael. The latter is the only surviving member
of a family of thirteen children. It was his singular
privilege to have been present at the beatification
and canonization of his young brother Francis. His
venerable appearance and the youthfulness of St.
Gabriel, who died when but twenty four years old,
are in striking contrast. It but typifies the difference
between the two stages in which the brothers now
exist, — the Saint in the region of perpetual youth
and eternal rest, the aged brother still in a land
where everything
changes and
grows old.
This picture
also brings most
vividly before us
a vital truth. It
visualizes the hol-
i n e s s of the
Church. In every
age holy men and
women have been
born to her, who
is the Mother of
Saints. Even in
this so called cul-
tured and materi-
alistic age, she
still gives birth
to those who prac-
tice in an heroic
manner the chris-
tian virtues, and
whom she crowns
with the aureole
of sainthood.
Brother Syl-
vester, who was a
novice with the
Saint, was present
at his canoniza-
tion and is still
alive. Gabriel
was born later than Cardinal Gibbons, died a few
years before the latter was made bishop, and beati-
fied and crowned a saint before that illustrious
prelate's death. Churchmen are living today, who,
were St. Gabriel still on earth, would be his seniors.
There is a Passionist brother, who was born before
St.' Gabriel and is at present residing in St. Paul's
Monastery, Pittsburg,, Pa.
36
MICHAEL POSSENTI PAYS REVERENCE TO HIS BROTHER ST. GABRIEL
THE + SIGN
The Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, her chief act of
worship, is identical with the Sacrifice of the Cross.
The Most Blessed Eucharist, her greatest treasure,
is the abiding Memorial of the Passion. The
Sacraments are the channels through which the
infinite merits of our Divine Redeemer's Precious
Blood flow directly into every soul. The Sign of the
Cross she uses frequently in her ceremonies, places
above every church and chapel, displays on all her
vestments and in all her books. Every altar must
have its crucifix. The devotion most favored with
indulgences is the Way of the Cross. She com-
mands every Friday to be observed by abstinence
from meat in memory of Our Savior's sufferings
and death; the season of Lent and especially Holy
Week is appointed for special remembrance of the
Sacred Passion.
The members of the Archconfraternity therefore
are corresponding to the Church's own ideal in thus
earnestly striving to keep the Passion ever before
their eyes, and in attempting to be so animated
by the thought of it that everywhere they may
spread its benign influence.
The example of our Divine Savior Himself
also bespeaks the excellence of this mission. After
His Resurrection, the first among men to behold the
Redeemer's Glorious Presence were those who had
taken a close part in His bitter Passion. Thus,
numbered among these privileged souls were His
Blessed Mother Mary, who had stood beneath His
Cross; the Apostles, St. Peter, St. John, and St.
James, who had been with Him in the garden at
Gethsemane, and had followed Him at least as far
as the High Priest's court; St. Mary Magdalen and
the holy women, who had come from Galilee, and
who had remained near Him on Calvary.
When Jesus walked with the two disciples on
i the road to Emmaus. He showed them how the
i Scriptures had been fulfilled in the Savior's suffer-
I ings and death. And when the Master came to the
Apostles in the upper room, He pointed out to them
• the Wounds in His hands and side. Later, He bade
i the unbelieving Apostle, St. Thomas, to put his
■ finger into these same Wounds, and to place his
hand into His riven Side.
This especial interest of Christ Jesus in preach-
ing His Passion after His Resurrection is the self-
same mission, which the members of the Archcon-
fraternity are asked to carry on. Like the Divine
Master, they should endeavor to keep alive the
memory of the Sacred Pasion in their own hearts,
and when opportunity offers, to seize it to make
the Passion better known to others.
In the Acts and Epistles of the Apostles, the
Passion of Our Lord is set forth as of paramount
importance. When condemned and persecuted,
the Apostles rejoiced to be accounted worthy to
suffer for their Leader, Christ Crucified.
[EVERAL years ago, a celebrated artist devoted
much time to painting scenes of the Sacred
Passion. While he represented our Divine
Savior as He is traditionally depicted in such
paintings, he gave the persons surrounding Him the
dress and appearance of people in modern times.
In the throng passing by the figure of the Crucified,
he pictured the wealthy with their jewels and fine
clothes, the poor in garments faded and torn, the
old man tottering and groping for his way, the little
child, through fear, clinging to his mother's dress,
the merchant alert and intent on the business of the
moment, the laborer wearily trudging along, the bold
youth thoughtless and brimming with laughter, the
vain young girl self willed and pleasure bent, the
healthy, the afflicted, the educated, and the
ignorant; every class and condition of the human
race had its counterpart in these scenes. If any
seemed to notice the suffering Lover of their souls,
it was a glance of distant pity or an angry look of
scorn. For one among this drifting motley crowd,
who offered sympathy, there were many who shook
their fists at Him or reached down for a stone.
These pictures express a sad truth, that few at the
present day think seriously on the Passion of Christ.
The greater part of men despise the Cross, which
stands for self-control and self-sacrifice. They give
their every thought to their money bags, to the
latest fashions, to novel amusements, to personal
advancement, to self-indulgence, to anything rather
than to treading the painful blood-stained road to
Calvary.
If the members of the Archconfraternity of the
Passion go forth with fervent prayer and ardent
zeal, mindful of the strength of the Cross and
Passion, holding up like the Church this mystery
before men at all times, buoyed up by remembrance
of the example of Our Lord Himself, they will
convert the world, and bring men, women, and
children to attend and see that their is no sorrow
like unto his sorrow, to behold with grateful loving
hearts how much Christ Crucified loves them.
39
Index to Worthwhile Reading
AN EPITOME OF PRIESTLY LIFE. By
Canon Arvisenet. Benziger Bros. New York.
Price $2.50.
This is an adaptation of the venerable 'Memorial
Vitae Sacerdotis'. Like in style and spirit to the
Imitation, it is a book that eventually finds its way
to a priest's pridieu. The book though not promising
all the claims of the Imitation of Christ to per-
petuity, yet in great measure has a singular worth.
The Publishers have chosen a style of 'make-up'
which makes it peculiarly well adapted to serve as
a gift book. As a festal gift to a clerical friend or
as an ordination present to the newly anointed priest,
this edition is sure to be in constant demand. In
putting this publication on the market the Publishers
had this in mind and have succeeded in producing
a book which in every way is well suited to fulfill
their expectations.
AMERICAN CATHOLICS IN THE WORLD
WAR. By Michael Williams. Macmillan Co., New
York. Price $2.50.
Mr. Michael Williams, one of the leading
journalists of the day, has decided to serve the
Church through the Press. He uses his fine talent
and tireless energy to good advantage in this very
important book, "The American Catholic in the
War." The author gives us two valuable install-
ments of a history of Catholic Patriotism over and
above what he contracts for by the title of the
present book. The first five chapters give a survey
of the history of Catholic Americans from the
beginnings of the Republic to the days of America's
entrance into the World War. Succinctly yet with
completeness, we are supplied with the historical
justification of Catholic claims which were set forth
anew in the Bishops' "Pledge of the Catholic
Church" to the President after the War Manifesto
of April 6, 1917. "Standing firmly upon our solid
Catholic tradition and history from the very founda-
tion of this nation, we affirm in this hour of stress
and trial our most sacred and sincere loyalty and
patriotism toward our country, our government and
our flag."
The middle section of the book deals with
American Catholics in the War. Herein is set forth
how the pledge was fulfilled. We all have more
or less definite ideas that the services rendered to
the country by the participation of Catholics in the
War were on a colossal scale. The number mustered
into service, it is practically certain, Mr. Williams
tells us in a footnote, was 1,000,000. The book deals
not so much in statistics but rather aims at setting
forth the action that the Church took in answer to
the demand made upon her. The magnitude of the
country's task and the variety of the needs that would
arise from the multitude of the Church's children in
the war service readily gives one an idea of what the
demands were. Her activities were stupendous.
The response she made to the call is now history.
Mr. Williams has seen to it that the memory of it
shall not fade and be lost to posterity. No Catholic
should be ignorant of what American Catholics did
in the War.
The last section of the book tells of the activi-
ties of the Catholic Church to help in the work of
reconstruction. Reconstruction is a need that
stretches out far beyond the ruins which the War
caused. There are the evils 'that are always with
us' which are fastened on the very heart of Social
life; evils which must account for the dreadful War
that even now is not at an end; but alas evils that
could not and were not removed by the War. Mr.
Williams explains how the Church having developed
marvellous efficiency for action during the War,
how she wielded many and wonderful agencies for
good has resolved to hold to these gains and use
her organized strength to continue fighting the
evils which are working to undermine the very
foundations of Society..
The National Catholic War Council is now
The National Catholic Welfare Council. We have
here an account of what the N. C. W. C. is, and
what it plans to do. The organization is the creation
of the Catholic Hierarchy. The United and official
action of the Catholic Church in America, will
herewith function through the N. C. W. C.
We are pleased to promise our readers two
articles specially devoted to the meaning and work
of the N. C. W. C. by Mr. Michael Williams and
Mr. Charles A. McMahon.
THE LIGHT ON THE LAGOON. By Isabel
C. Clarke. Benziger Bros. New York. Price $2.00.
This is a story of strong love, high romance and
conflicting emotions. Its principal scenes are laid
in the city of Venice. It is the revelation of the
Kindly Light which always shines for the humble
in heart who seek truth in sincerity of purpose. The
reader will find in this great work of Miss Clarke
all the literary grace, descriptive power and interest-
ing action which have uniformly characterized her
large output of fiction.
immwwv
»«%
jy&MJ&JSSU&MJZELgMZKZJU
A NATIONAL Sj>' CAT MO LI C
/Monthly macazineX
VOL. I.
MARCH, 1922
No. 8
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JM?I MJ5S-2S 3?I I™ !{£ i' SIMIM1MK
IPJ InZ 2JTI IT1- VI I1 lT '.' '.' '.' '-' V ''- If '.' '-' '.' 'f I' ? '.' '.' '-' '.' '.' '> ■' .' '.' '.'
The 26otK Successor Of Saint Peter
Born at Desio, I tab?, October 12, 1858. Made Papal Nuncio to Poland in igi8.
Appointed Archbishop of Milan and created Cardinal, June 16, ig2i.
Elected Pope to succeed Benedict XV. February 6, 1922.
MgfflfWWWfflWWffllftOT^
mwmSftffl7mrmfiffiS555L
Some Shrines In Portugal
Thomas Walsh
XF, as we said in a former article in The
Sign, a visit to Spain is, in a way, a
pilgrimage, the whole country, laws and
customs of the Spaniards being the result
of a religious uprising — a crusade against the Moors
— we must say, on the other hand, that a visit to
Portugal, a material nation without the ardors of
soul so noticeable in Spain, is not necessarily a
pilgrimage.
Crossing the Douro, we leave behind us the
plains of Salamanca and Avila, the barren rocks of
Monserrato, the land of rigid convents and tragic
saints, we are greeted by a rush of many waters,
verdure and mosses extraordinary, cream and butter
and heavy wines, all the flora of the north and the
tropics combined into a landscrape almost
paradisiacal.
Religion in Portugal is mild and pastoral as the
souls of so many of its people. Christ has come
down from His cross to walk these hills and valleys
as the Good Shepherd with the lambkin on His
shoulder. He is the transfigured Christ of Tabor,
not the Bleeding Victim of Calvary. Here the very
martyrs seem to live in fame without their
torments. They are ancient, lively, half-realized
intercessors before a tender Savior Who regards
the humility of His servants. To the Portuguese,
Christ is, in the words of Origen, the Bridge between
us and the Father.
About one hundred miles north of Lisbon you
catch sight across the plains of a splendid ruins
of medieval character dominating a lofty hill like a
bit of scenery out of a fairy-tale. It is the old castle
of Dom Diniz. He was the sixth independent
monarch of Portugal, the greatest of his country's
kings, the founder of the University of Coimbra,
the protector of the Order of Christ, and the culti-
vator of the Pinhal Real, a forest of French pines
through which you will journey many miles if you
ever visit these regions in person. The castle is one
of the most romantic in Europe. Diniz, born in
1279 and living his eventful days until 1325, passed
many years in these heights looking aoross at the
monasteries and churches rising from the other hills
around.
We start our pilgrim journey here because King
Diniz was fortunate enough to be the husband of a
saint, the Holy Queen of Portugal, Elizabeth or
Isabel, the daughter of Pedro III. of Aragon. She
is described for us by Antonio Coelho Gasco in his
History of Coimbra as "a very saintly lady of
gigantic frame, very stout, very white and very red,
with a long face and large serene eyes, nose rather
low with wide nostrils, head long and beautiful."
The story of St. Isabel now takes us north to
the lovely city of Coimbra, the home of nightingales,
and also of poets and scholars like Camoens and the
Buchanan brothers, the centre of a wealth of mem-
ories of the murdered Inez de Castro, of the
Pombal, and the site of the miracle of the roses
performed in the convent of Santa Clara. The ruins
of this venerable building are still standing low in
the river reaches of the Mondego.
^^^HE afternoon of our visit the cows were
^^^ munching comfortably in their stalls within
the sacred walls where Inez was slain by the
royal assassins. The cowherd was not accustomed
to visitors staring at his work through the very Door
of the Roses where King Diniz surprised his Queen
with her apron filled with bread and asked :
"What have you there?"
"Roses," replied the Queen.
"Let me see them," said the husband.
And behold her apron was filled with roses!
Let nobody rise to remind me that this story
is also told of St. Elizabeth of Thuringia. It is,
and it is told of several other saints as well. Here
at Coimbra there are all the intimate details to
confirm the 6tory: plentiful roses, a strong and
definite tradition, a royal, conspicuous person, a real
convent gate, and on a neighboring hill in another
convent of Santa Clara the old Gothic tomb made
for the saint in the fourteenth century and still
guarded from profanation by the Daughters of the
Franciscan Order.
Down below is the Fonte des Amores that
shaded and soothed the last hours of the unhappy
Inez and beyond are the two hills called Loneliness
and Meditation, and the placid Mondego carrying
THE
the ancient echoes to tell the sea the music of
countless poets and undying swarms of nightingales
and student-serenaders. The ghosts of Francisco
Suarez can well walk these steep streets and road-
ways. There he may meet again the great Augustin-
ian scholar Egidius, Professor de Vesperis in the
University. The great Sa de Miranda may rustle
by like a zephyr and Gouvea of Paris and the one-
eyed Camoens pass the time of day in our century
that throws them all to-
gether into misty half-
forgetfulness. Coimbra is
a royal cradle of dreams.
^tt^E travel south from
117 Coimbra if we de-
sire to follow Inez
de Castro and Pedro I.
(1357-1367 reg.) to their
splendid sarcofagus at
Alcobaca. We reach a
pleasant litle town on the
plains dominated by the
relics of a Moorish
fortress. The town is
evidently only the over-
flow from the Cistercian
Monastery Mosteiro de
Santa Maria, dating from
1148 after King Alfonso
Henriques had finally con-
quered the Moors at
Santarem. It is one of the
largest buildings in the
world and in its day nine
hundred of its monks said
daily Mass here without
intermission. It comprises
five cloisters, seven dormi-
tories, a hospice and a
library of 25,000 books. Think of the kitchen of
such a monster monastery, where a small river, the
Alcoa, was turned aside to wash the dishes of the
refectory! And now when the monks are gone
the stream still rushes through the kitchen and under
the benches of what is today the movie-theatre of
Alcobaca. In the Chapel of the Tombs we find
Pedro and Inez with their effigies lying foot to foot
so that the king, as he desired, might catch sight of
his queen at the first opening of his eyes on his
resurrection day! Six lions support the king's
effiigy, and six monsters resembling sphinxes the
SIGN
there are angels grouped at every
soldiers with
monastery is
queen s ;
corner.
A few miles further on we come to another
enormous edifice, the Mosteiro de Santa Maria da
Victoria, more generally known as Batalha, after the
Battle of Aljubarrota (August 14, 1385) where the
baker's wife pursued and killed seven Spanish
the aid of her frying pan. The
one of the noblest structures in
Christendom and in the
hands of the Dominican
Order, after the plans of
an Irish architect named
Houget or Hackett, was
gradually developed as the
Portugese national monu-
ment until in 1551, when
it was still left incomplete
as it stands today. It is a
veritable forest of golden-
brown stone, a labyrinth
of royal tombs, cloisters
and chapels.
As my friend and I
drove up to the door we
met a large party of Eng-
lish tourists just landed
from a Booth Liner and
crowding around the
guardians for admission.
There sat behind the desk
a very handsome man
wearing an official cap
who waved aside a group
of tourists and asked us
very sharply:
"Are you not North
Americans?"
"We are, sir."
"Then wait until your turn comes."
We fell back in some astonishment and concern
for as we had just come from Spain where mon-
archist conspirators were supposed to have gathered
we feared that we had aroused suspicion in the
authorities. When all the British tourists had been
dispatched the great man rose from his desk and
coming towards us with his cap in his hand shook
us warmly by the hand, saying: —
"Gentlemen, you are from the Mother Republic
of the world and we are your little brother republi-
cans. Therefore we are going to show you special
F UNFINISHED CHAPEL AT BATALHA
THE 1* SIGN
THE CONVENT OF SANTA CLARA AT COIMB
honors and conduct you through every part of the
Abbey, even the most private corners."
What a day of glories it was! Never in the
most fantastic mind had come visions more strange
and romantic
than in this
petrification of
knightly dreams.
Photogra phs
only faintly re-
veal the magic
qualities of its
tremendous pro-
portions, and the
almost painful
intricacy of its
decorations. We
were glad we
were republicans
whatever we
may have thought of Portuguese republicanism.
^tt^E have no time to linger over the wonders 01
\l/ the Convent of Mafra, "the Escorial" of
Portugal, nor of the more interesting Convento
de Christo, the convent-palace of the Order of Christ
organized by King Diniz in 1314 on the suppression
of the Order of Knights Templars. Here are
splendors beyond splendors and they grow weari-
some at last until we sigh for simple and more
human interests
than are to be
found either at
Mafra or at
Thomar. Noth-
ing remains of
Sagres the fam-
ous nautical in-
stitution of
Prince Henry
the Navigator
since the burn-
ing of it by
Francis Drake.
The crows that
once occupied
the sacred cages in the church of Saint Vincent, to
commemorate their brethren that escorted his dead
body into the harbor of Lisbon, have long since
been absent from their perches, and only remain
in the armorial bearings and architectural details
of more ancient Lisbon.
To Cintra, therefore, we went, wearied of the
stony glories of the national shrines, to Cintra one
of the three supreme beauty-spots of the world —
Taormina and Monte Carlo being the others. It is
a wild upheaval
of mountains,
orchards and
gardens filled
with the flora of
every clime from
the most tropical
valleys to the
most northern
peaks. There is
a rush of streams
down the slopes
that makes the
rumor of thous-
ands of little
waterfalls and a
heavy pillow of moss covers the ground and the
buildings and marble staircases on every side.
There are gardens, quintas, from every period in
Portuguese history, from the early kings, the power-
ful viceroys, the eccentric millionaires, and modern
English and Brazilian potentates, preserving their
ancient beauties in a framework of fresh stone and
cement, with lovelier lawns and newly developed
flowers. On a peak apart we found ourselves in the
Quinta de Penha Verda, the old home of Joao de
Castro, fourth
Viceroy of India
and defender of
Diu who in his
forty - eighth
year in 1548
died here in
poverty, worn
out by his tre-
mendous under-
takings.
o-
THE CLOISTER OF BELEM
every
de in
these gar-
dens which we
had entered by climbing over the walls and dodg-
ing the keepers, were evidences of the constant
thought and tenderness of Dom Joao. Here and
there were stones bearing Sanscrit inscriptions
brought from India ; Latin epitaphs and Renaissance
chapels crowned the summits and lovely old
THE + SIGN
Dutch tiles of blue and brown scenes fronted the
mossy stairways on the slopes.
The first orange trees brought from the West
Indies were planted here and hence the name of
portogalli by which they were first known in
southern Italy. This is holy ground for Dom Joao
was in his way a saint throughout his simple devoted
life, loving retirement and placing proper value
upon the moral use of his days. It was in 1535 that
he began the planting of his garden. "Here he
entertained himself,"
writes an early bio-
grapher, "with a new
strange kind of agri-
culture, for he cut
down fruit - bearing
trees and planted
wildwoods, perhaps to
show that he was
disinterested so that
not even from the
earth would he expect
reward. And it is no
wonder if • one who
disdained the rubies
and diamonds of the
East should think
little of the products
of Cintra's rocks."
He was at his
quinta in 1545 when
the unwelcome sum-
mons came to him to
depart as Governor of
India, and the histori-
an Couto who served
under him in this
expedition tells the amusing story of how "passing
one day by a tailor-shop in Lisbon he noticed a pair
of very rich and fashionable velvet breeches, and
pulling up his horse asked to see them. After
examining their curious workmanship he asked for
whom they were made. The tailor not recognizing
him answered that they were for the son of the
Governor who was going to India. In a rage Dom
Joao took up a pair of scissors and cut them in
shreds, saying as he rode away — "Bid that young
man go and purchase armor!"
When he had defeated the army of sixty
thousand Moors at Diu he wrote his king a list of
all who had disinguished themselves in the terrible
warfare, and as it was customary for the conqueror
of a city to ask for a reward, he wrote — "Since
Your Highness may give me one unsuited to my
nature and mode of life, I will ask him specifically
that you grant me a chestnut-grove which you own
in the mountains of Cintra by the King's Fountain,
bordering my quinta there, so that my servants
having chestnuts to eat on my estate may not go
plundering what does not belong to them."
Dom Joao's letters contain many other refer-
ences to this beloved
garden. He died in
poverty in 1548 after
having written the
council of Goa begg-
ing them in his illness
to buy him a hen for
his sustenance. He
was "a saint and a
hero," says the Portu-
guese historian Oli-
veira Martins. He
might have been a
poet had he wished;
he was lying in the
arms of Saint Francis
Xavier when he died
at Goa in 1548.
a a
CHURCH AND MONASTERY AT ALCOBACA
OTHING more
Franciscan in
the primitive
sense can be imagined
than the tiny Capu-
chin Convent known
to fame as the Con-
vent of the Cork from
the sheets of cork-wood that the friars placed to
keep out the dampness from their cells. Here in
the mountains southwest of Cintra we found a
little hillock of moss and ancient olive trees and, dug
deep into the rock and earth, the half-buried Con-
vent of the Capuchins.
Truly these old brothers had emulated the
spirit of the mole so beloved by their Assisian
founder; they were imbued with the new pastoral
poetry that surrounded the Good Shepherd with
followers who talked the language of the Virgilian
eclogues, and so lived their conventual life in the
open sun and stars, like Tityrus and Sabinus. Their
courtyard and miniature cells have been cut out of
THE 1* SIGN
the solid rock; the refectory would be crowded by
twelve members ; and a tall brother would bump his
head badly, if he lifted it up in pride.
Outside on a point of the summit stands a rock
weighing some thousand pounds; under it is a
hollow large enough to hold a child, where it is
recorded the great hermit Saint Honorius died in
1596 after an occupancy of some forty years. We
climbed down and crouched for a while in the hole
and we had some difficulty in getting safely on
our feet again after the
exertion. It is also
related that when the
exiled King Sebastian
took refuge in this child-
like monastery, he was
visited by the famous
poet Camoens who sat
with him in the entrance
court at one of the stone
tables and read to him
parts of the "Lusiads"
which he was then com-
posing.
A very old woman
bent with age (or was it
from the low ceilings)
and a little boy were in
charge of the convent.
In the chapel the damp-
ness had loosened a
small clay image of an
angel from the walls and
it was lying in a corner
in the dust heap. My
friend was tempted to
carry it off, but when we
considered that the old woman would very likely
be held responsible for its disappearance we resolved
that our collection of relics had better remain in-
complete, so we came away empty-handed but much
enriched in memories and sentiment.
Another rustic pilgrimage was our few day's
visit to Bussaco, our hotel being the secularised
monastery of the Carmelities founded in 1268, with
its cells lined with sheets of cork as in the Capuchin
monastery of the Carmelites founded in 1268, with
of art and splendor and the forest surrounding the
cloister remains as one of the finest in Europe. The
Duke of Wellington lived here during his campaign
against Massena in 1810, which seems recent history
indeed, under these centenarian cypresses and
gigantic plane-trees.
The roads and ascents of stone, the garden
towers and resting-places, as well as the flower beds
and waterworks, speak of centuries of industry and
loving care on the part of the Carmelites. At the
main entrance there is affixed to the gate a marble
tablet bearing a Bull of Gregory XV. anathematising
in 1622 any woman who would attempt to enter
these precincts. In 1643 Pope Urban VIII. put an
excommunication upon
my person who would in-
jure this "sacred forest"
or invade the property.
Today English
women sit on the terrace,
drinking their coffee and
puffing their cigarettes
and talking of pro-
gress and reform. There
is a sound of billiard
balls from the hall that
once hardly heard the
whispers of the brothers.
The long walk under the
cedar trees where the
old fathers used to take
their outing and medita-
tion is now the honey-
moon resort of British
tourists. New elections,
new assassinations, alter
the Government of Port-
ugal every month, but
the same soft winds blow
over Bussaco, the same
peace inherited from its
founders breathes an ancient lesson to the visitors
from the haughty north.
^^^HERE was one pilgrimage that we did not
L) make although we tried hard enough, and
that was a visit to the shrine of Saint Brigid's
head at Odivellas outside Lisbon. A trolley line
took us out as far as Lumiar along a line of lovely
old country estates belonging to such personages as
the Dukes of Palmeella and the Angueja and Dlhao
families. While thoroughly enjoying the scenery
in a way permitted to the most ardent pilgrims, we
did not forget the shrine of religion and patriotism
for which we had put on our cockle-shells and
walking boots.
DEN OF THE CAPUCHIN MONASTERY AT CINTRA
THE 1* SIGN
At the gates of the ancient Cistercian convent
founded in 1305 by King Diniz the husband of the
Holy Queen Isabel, we saw the cannon-ball from
the siege of Ormuz, but the doors were barred so
that we could not discover whether or not it was here
they preserved the head of the Bride of Kildare,
according to the legend. Now it seems that Brigid
passed away in the year 525, and after the invasion
of the Danes in 831 her remains were removed to
the Cathedral of Down where they rested for four
hundred years.
At the time of the Reformation, they were
carried to Neustadt in Austria-Hungary where,
according to Colgan and Bollandus, they rested until
1587 when they were translated to the Jesuit church
in Lisbon. In spite of all this, there is the date
of 1283 on a slab at Odivellas commemorating the
founding of a sodality of Saint Brigid and the three
Irish knights who are said to have brought the skull
hither. These discrepancies can easily be explained
away when we remember the ancient custom of
dividing up the relics of saints.
Perhaps the Portuguese, so enthusiastic about
republicans from America, will be persuaded to send
back to Kildare this holy relic of ancient Erin as a
tribute of brotherhood to a newly proclaimed
Republic of Ireland?
XN Lisbon we visited another shrine, the
glorious Convent of the Hieronymites of
Belem founded here in fulfillment of King
Emanuel's vow to build a convent if Vasco da Gama
should return successful from his voyage of dis-
covery. It is now used as the Casa Pia or orphan-
age of Lisbon and, greatly enlarged by comparatively
modern additions, it still retains the unusual majesty
that makes it one of the really great buildings of
the world.
In the exquisite chapel lie the remains of the
founder and other royalities, especially interesting
for an Englishman being the tomb of Catherine of
Braganza long the Queen of the unfortunate
Charles II. of England. Conspicuous tombs hold
the remains of Camoens and Vasco da Gama.
A rather disagreeable event occurred to mar
the pleasure of our visit; just as we genuflected
before the high altar a woman directed a toddling
infant to run across and beg for alms, in spite of
the strict prohibition against begging in the church.
We shooed the child away and the woman grabbing
the infant ran towards the door, the famous door,
of Nicholas the Frenchman, and when we attempted
to pass out she started a demonstration among the
other beggars declaring we had struck the child
and showing what may have been a bruise or dirt-
spot several days old on the infants cheek. Not
speaking a word of Portuguese we were certainly
in a fix to placate the angry women who gathered
around.
A long speech in fluent English, a political pat
on the head for the poor child, a piece of silver
money for the old humbug-mother and a rapid pair
of feet combined to save us from what might have
developed into a mob. We shall always remember
Belem, its great lowliness and its scoundrelly beggar
women.
Would we risk it all again, go back over the
wearisome railroads and choppy seas, bear up under
the poor hotels, the dust and the heats of desolate
regions, to visit a few more shrines in Portugal?
Ah, yes! for the stories of the Portugal Shrines bring
solace to all Pilgrims, and the peace which passeth
understanding — wiping the dust of travel from the
weary feet and the dust of worldiness from the
Soul of man.
Blue-Bells
Placidus M. Endler, C. P.
'Tis not to call trie fire-bees
Unto the flaming rose
That Blue-Bell swings Kis sweetness round
So blithely as Ke blows.
Mo 'tis to warn the sleeping flow'rs
To hold with all their might
Their diamond dew-beads when the w'ind
Comes stealing round at night.
Trie Labor Problem
Rev. R. A. McGc^
MOST readers find all literature on Socialism and kindred subjects to be of the dry-as-dust order
and are repelled by it. Therefore they are unwilling to make the mental effort to inform them-
selves on what they admit to be of vital importance. Often the suspicion remains that there is much
truth and plausibility underlying the learned presentation of the heterodox view. Father McGowan
has had all this in mind in preparing this series on social subjects for THE SIGN and our readers will
be grateful to him for his simple, lucid and altogether satisfying presentation of the Catholic view.
— Editors
fi
"ACTORIES, mines, railroads, and the like
are owned for the most part by a small
section of the people. Through the cor-
poration form of ownership and the
importance of the banks and insurance companies,
a still smaller number of persons control them.
Most of the persons who work in factories and mines,
on the railroads, etc., do not own any share of these
means of work and livelihood and if they happen
to own a share, it does not give them any control.
Before they can work they have to get permis-
sion from those in control. Those in control, how-
ever, do not always need their work and do not have
to hire them. Yet the only normal and decent way
they can live is by working. They are thus very
weak, and the owners, and especially those in con-
trol, are very strong. Moreover, they are weak
where they need to be strong, for the kind of living
they and their families are to have stands at stake.
We have, therefore, a labor problem.
Except in a few industries legally declared to
be public utilities, (and imperfectly even then),
the owners of these means of work and livelihood
are allowed to receive as much money as they can
make. No limit in law and no limit in accepted
morals is placed to the amount of money they can
take for themselves in the ordinary conduct of their
business. Other owners, the consumers and the
employees must stand the consequences.
The owners of industry ordinarily run their
business on the plan that only those of the property-
less who are needed are to be hired, and that they
are to be discharged when they are not needed.
They usually work on the plan also that when they
hire a man or woman they are to pay the lowest
sum he will do the work for.
As individuals and as a body the owners of the
means of work are not obliged to give the property-
less permission to work. When they give the
propertyless permission to work they are not obliged
to pay them any more money than the smallest
amount the propertyless will work for, except where
minimum wage laws force them to pay more to
women in certain states. Since the owners of indus-
try are strong and the propertyless are weak, the
results are bad.
In the busiest times a million in the United
States cannot get permission to work. In normal
times about two millions cannot get permission to
work. Periodically — four times in the last genera-
tion— the number goes to horrible heights. Now,
five or six millions cannot find work to do. None
can really be sure he will have work when he needs
it. Yet all are entitled to get work.
Before the war at least half of the men working
for wages in the United States were not making
enough to support a family in decent comfort.
There has been little if any improvement from that
day to this. Yet their work is a title to decent
family livelihood.
XN addition, men and women work usually in
large organizations, do monotonous and often-
times dangerous work, and have very little
influence over the methods of their work. A very
large part of them work for owners who are
"absentees." Most of them are able to read and
write and have been taught by centuries of
Christianity and, in recent times, a century or so
of political democracy to consider that a human
being is worth while and in fundamentals is equal
to every other human being, and that he has certain
inalienable rights.
They are very weak when they go out to make a
THE 1* SIGN
livelihood for themselves and their families. They
are often refused the permission. When they get
permission, a large part of them get in return for
their work less than a decent livelihood and only
a few get much more. They resent such treatment
because it means unnecessary physical hardship in
a rich country. They resent it because it is opposed
to their dignity and worth as human beings.
Home is harmed. The perpetual uncertainty
of being able to get permission to work, the fre-
quent failure to receive the permission, the low
wages paid when they can work — these are trans-
formed into uncomfortable and even wretched
houses, into the temptation to commit birth control,
into sickness and death, into child labor and a short
schooling, into long delayed marriages, and into
numberless other evils.
The strength of a few, and the weakness of
the masses when they go to make a living for them-
selves, mean strength and weakness in nearly all of
social life. One side is pitted against the other, and
there is a standing denial of brotherhood. It is
creating warring castes.
A strong minority and a weak majority in
industry make an unreliable foundation for the
majority rule in government. In other words, be-
cause of the labor problem, we have an unreliable
foundation for political democracy.
Our having a labor problem is a sign that our
Christianity is weak. Wholesale injustice and
systematic denial of brotherhood could not live in
Christian air. Nor can Christianity thrive in an
atmosphere poisoned by systematic and wholesale
injustice and contempt of brotherhood.
Our having a labor problem is a sign that our
American principles are weak. Approximate
equality of opportunity, respect for human dignity,
freedom within a just law, brotherhood even though
it was only the passing comradeship of the pioneer —
these are not maintained as long as we have a labor
problem.
Because of the labor problem we have strikes
and rumors of strikes. Because of it we have social
legislation. Because of it much of our charitable
work is in such demand. Because of it, too, some
want to do away entirely with the right of
owning the means of work and livelihood. Because
of it some call for revolution.
This labor problem must be met and solved.
Otherwise, as Catholics and as Americans, we
remain in the wrong.
Why Lent?
/^f^TER upon the season of Lent with a clear
\2a idea °f its purpose and in the right spirit. He
is a poor Christian who thinks of it only as a
period during which he has to mortify his appetite.
The Church heralds Lent with the antiphon : "When
you fast, be not as the hypocrites, sad." Here our
Lord Himself suggests the high motive. He does
not discourage sadness — only the sadness of the
hypocrite. The wholesome sort of sadness we should
cultivate implies generous self-denial and, better
still, sympathy for Him engendered by the daily
contemplation of His Passion and Death and the
realization of what it cost Him to save our souls.
Regarding self-denial, our solicitude should
first be directed to the Church's laws covering
fasting and abstinence. Because of the serious
penalty involved, we should form our conscience
as to our obligation or exemption under those laws.
Compliance with these laws, however, and faith-
fulness in the voluntary curtailment of distracting
amusements should be actuated by generous
motives which will render them all the more
meritorious and easier to bear. Such generous
motives spring spontaneously from earnest medita-
tion on the sufferings of our Lord.
The Savior Himself has revealed to His Saints
how much more pleasing to Him is one tear of
sympathy for His Passion and of compunction for
our sins than long periods of corporal penance.
Your plan for Lent, therefore, should include daily
assisting at Mass, which is the re-presentation of
His oblation on the Cross, frequent reception of
the Eucharist, which is the memorial of His Passion,
and a daily journey with Him along the Way of
the Cross. Help to make your meditation interest-
ing, vivid and fruitful by inquiring Who is He
that suffers? What does He suffer? For whom
does He suffer?
Saints and Sinners
Luis Coloma, S. J.
Copyrighted 1921, by The Sign
Ckapter 7
M^^^HE Marquis of Butron was a mediocrity
a C\ who passed as a great man in a time and
^ J under circumstances when great men were
^^^ few and far between. Majestic as he
might appear to the public eye, he was no hero to
his valet; for one of his many weaknesses consisted
in the dyeing of his beard, which was supremely
white, to match the inky blackness of his hair. The
worthy diplomat was engaged in this important task
when Curra's messenger reached him. The hairy
gentleman suffered complete loss of head, and filled
with misgivings over the Countess's duplicities,
hurriedly ordered a cab, and drove to the house of
that strayed sheep, whom it was so necessary to keep
within the Alfonsist fold, quite forgetting that his
but partially-dyed beard would reveal his precious
secret to those expert tongues who so loved to tear
their friends to pieces.
His arrival caused a sensation among his
friends who thronged the palace, and all, men as
well as women, thronged from the dining-room to
greet him. His presence lent to this sordid affair
a certain importance and color, which Curra had
carefully calculated when she had sent for him. He
signaled his entrance by dramatically folding Curra
to his bosom and by imparting with a vague motion
of his hand a blessing to the frightened children
who clung firmly to their governess' skirts.
The ladies sympathized with his emotion in a
voluble chorus, till Carmen Tagle noticed the diplo-
mat's undyed beard. She burst out laughing, and
drew the attention of her nearest neighbor to the
defect; who passed the word on to the person
next her; so that very soon a chorus of suppressed
laughter played havoc with the pathetic part of the
scene.
Butron, oblivious to all this, led Curra into an
adjoining room. He was perspiring profusely,
positively suffering from a fear that this latest
whim of the Countess might result in the wreckage
of his carefully prepared plans. Glancing in this
direction and in that, terrified, as though searching
for the police who held the house in firm possession,
he said to Curra in a low voice : "What is the mean-
ing of all this?"
Curra threw herself on the nearest sofa, and
covering her face with her handkerchief: "I am
lost!" she cried.
Butron shuddered visibly. "Ferdinand is a
fool!" continued the Countess. "Martin has
deceived him. Ferdinand has compromised me,
Butron: it is horrible!"
"Speak softly!" said the agitated Marquis.
"Calm yourself; calm yourself. You can depend
on me for anything, for everything." And he
squeezed Curra's hand to emphasize his loyalty and
devotion.
"I know that Butron; I know it. That is the
reason why I immediately sent for you. But this
is awful! Imagine, Butron, all that they have said
about my appointment as first lady-in-waiting is
true."
"True!" cried the horrified Marquis.
"Ferdinand wrote to the Minister asking that
I be appointed — without even consulting me. It
is shameful. It is too much, Butron! Were it not
for the children I would demand a divorce !"
And Curra wept bitterly.
"Did you see the letter?" gasped the horrified
Marquis.
"See it? Of course I saw it! That ox of a
Minister, Don Martin, threatened in my very
presence to publish it in all the papers if I would
not accept the position. What could I do? I
implored him not to do it. He was firm and brutally
rude. Then, as a last resource, I offered him money
— money, Butron! He began to soften. He
demanded three, then five thousand duros — haggling
like a Jew! We closed the bargain. Last night he
came for payment ; and received payment. I did not
have enough money, Butron: I had to pawn some
jewels."
The Marquis listened to this clever string of
lies, carefully intermixed with a few vague truths,
astonished and scandalized. With the gesture of a
horrified Cato, he cried: This is nauseating!"
"But that is not all, Butron. Listen! At one
o'clock this morning that creature gives me the
letter. At ten o'clock he sends these police to search
the house to secure the letter, and yet keep my
money!"
"But have they got it?" cried Butron in con-
sternation.
"Ba! They would have my life first. I had
just enough time to tear it to pieces and throw it
down the drain of the bath."
"Brrr!" shuddered Butron, and walked rapidly
to and fro as though to collect his scattered wits,
while Curra watched him out of the corner of her
eye, sighing nervously every now and again.
10
THE 1* SIGN
©UTRON was convinced that the lady was a
trickster; yet what she had just told him
seemed the only credible explanation of the
visit of the police. Why should they be searching
the house otherwise? But while he might doubt
Curra in the depths of his mind, it was not diplo-
macy to let that lady see his hesitation. He stopped
suddenly in front of her, and said solemnly: "We
must make a protest against this outrage: one that
will arouse the feelings of the people.
"Butron, I am prepared for anything. I dis-
like all this publicity," Curra added pathetically,
"but I shall sacrifice that to the cause. All that I
ask of you, Butron, is that you write the Queen
Mother in Paris and tell her what is happening.
I am always so afraid of the slanders of this Madrid!
And that Isabel Mazacan has such a tongue : she
is frightfully envious of me!"
The Marquis stood majestically in front of her,
and striking his breast, said: "Confide in me,
Curra! I shall bear all the responsibility."
Just then there was a knock at the door and a
butler announced that the chief of police had com-
pleted his registration of the papers and wished
to present his apologies for having caused Madame
such disturbance. "No, no!" cried Curra. "I want
none of that man's apologies."
"Tell him," added the Marquis with Olympic
majesty," that the Countess reserves all her rights
to protest against this outrage. Tell him that the
Spanish aristocracy and all honorable people are
on her side, and that all will rally round her to
protect her!"
The butler left with these messages, and Butron
rejoined the crowd in the other rooms, scattering
praises of Curra's loyalty and constancy under
afflicition for the sacred cause. "She is admirable.
A heroine, like Mariana Pinda! Admirable,
admirable!"
The old man who was employed by Villamelon
in his accountant's office came downstairs and pre-
sented to Curra a large document which he carried
with him. The chief of police had read every
letter and paper he could find : the registration had
been thorough. He had placed on one side every-
thing that could bear interpretation of conspiracy
against the government, in order to present them
to the Governor of the province for inspection.
The prudent old man had secured a receipt for all
the letters and papers which the chief had carried
off, and this was the document he now presented
to Curra.
"Is there anything important?" asked Butron
cautiously, reading the list over Curra's shoulders.
"Nothing!" she answered. But she gazed with
amazement on a part of the inventory which read:
"A package of twenty-five letters, tied with pink
ribbon."
Butron took the floor again. The danger was
over, at least temporarily. But it was necessary to
awaken the populace to protest against this latest
m1
outrage of the government. Here was an excellent
opportunity for a really justified protest. Therefore,
he begged the ladies and gentlemen present to honor
him with their presence at a ball to be given by
himself in Curra's honor the following night; a ball
of a purely political character. The ladies must
wear in their hair the fleur-de-lis, and the gentlemen
a blue and white ribbon in the lapels of their coats,
the colors of the exiled Bourbons. He in the mean-
time would see to it that the anti-government papers
seized the opportunity to conduct a vicious campaign
against this tyrannous and meddlesome government.
They had in this action of the police a magnificent
cause for protest. And the Government could make
no answer. There was no defence.
The enthusiasm of the crowd was indescribable;
but with the departure of the police from the house,
much of the interest in the immediate occasion had
also departed, and they gradually dispersed, voluble
and enthusiastic, thinking that they could overturn
a throne with a few waves of their fans or a flourish
of their canes.
[EANWHILE Curra went in search of the old
accountant.
'Tell me, Don Pablo, from where were
those twenty-five letters?"
"I do not know, Madame." he replied. "The
chief read but three or four, and then put them aside
with a laugh that set me thinking."
"But where were they?"
"In the little antique chest, in a secret drawer,
in Madame's cabinet."
"In the chest in the boudoir?" said Curra, still
more surprised. "But that was empty! Come with
me."
In the corner of her boudoir was an antique
little cabinet of carved ebony ornamented richly
with tortoise-shell, silver and bronze. Curra raised
the lid and releasing the springs which opened
numerous little secret drawers, asked: "But where
were those letters?"
"Here below," said Don Pablo. He pressed
another secret spring and a little drawer opened,
letting escape as it did so an odor of faded violets.
"Ah!" said Curra. "I had forgotten that.
"And putting her hand inside, she drew out a bunch
of dead violets. She looked at this with a perplexed
air for a moment, as though trying to remember
something. Suddenly she became serious, and with
the anxious face of one who fears an approaching
catastrophe, murmured: "Ah! Something must be
done at once. This would prove disastrous."
* * * *
CHAPTER VIII.
^^HE news that the police had invaded Vil-
L) lamelon's palace caused surprise and annoy-
^*"^ ance to the Government, and presented the
Civil Governor of Madrid with a pretty kettle of
fish that same afternoon. The Government was
ignorant of the reason for the violent action taken
THE 1* SIGN
by the Governor and was still anxious to press the
post of first lady-in-waiting upon the Countess of
Albornoz in spite of the half comic, half dramatic
scene between that lady and Don Martin the day
before. For, notwithstanding the cunning moves
of that lady, the arrangements of the Countess with
the Government were firm and positive, as Isabel
Mazacan had declared two days before at the
Duchess of Bara's house. Curra, who had bitterly
resented what she had thought was the intended
insult of the abdicated Queen, had determined to
go over to the enemy's camp, in this way securing
typically feminine vengeance, and at the same time
realizing her ambition to make everyone talk about
her. The new king was both young and handsome,
and, once within his circle, she had hoped to be able
to follow in the footsteps of two people for whom
she had an intense admiration, Mademoiselle de la
Valliere and the Princess of the Ursines.
It had cost her a good deal to secure the help
of Villamelon for her plans, for the latter obstinate-
ly talked about his honor and of his firm intention
to live and die faithful to the fallen dynasty.
Curra finally succeeded in securing his aid, and
persuaded him to open cautious negotiations with
Don John Antony Martin and the Minister of
Ultramar, both persons whom she had previously
and traitorously attracted to her house, without a
thought for the criticisms of her aristocratic friends.
The commission was an easy one considering
the anxiety at Court to fill the post with a Grandee
of Spain. Villamelon, however, made his mistake
by running contrary to Curra's express injunctions.
She had warned him to write nothing while negoti-
ating the affair; but he, stupid and fearing to miss
an appointment which he had with a certain
questionable widow at the same time that he had
an appointment with the Minister, sent instead of
himself the fatal letter. This had caused the
extraordinary complications which we have narrated.
In the meantime, the Queen's letter had arrived,
and Curra with her usual impudence, denied what
she had done and left the Court in the lurch and
her husband on the horns of an unpleasant dilemma.
But still not entirely satisfied with the affair, and in
order to terminate any ugly rumors about it, she had
adopted the plan of denouncing herself to the
Governor, writing him an anonymous letter, in which
she produced proofs that the Countess of Albornoz
and the Marquis of Butron were engaged in a
plot against the Government, important papers
being in the former's possession. The unwary
Governor fell for the letter, and we have already
witnessed the success of the daring plans of this
illustrious conspirator, whose intrigues stirred up
so much commotion at the Court.
^^HE raid by the police forever guaranteed
I) Curra's loyalty to the Alfonsist cause, giving
^"^ her such an important position in the Alfonsist
party that it would put her beyond all reach of the
Amadist court. So His Excellency Don John Antony
Martin well understood, and his rage against the
Governor was supreme. He demanded an explana-
tion of him. The unfortunate Governor, with infinite
care concealing the fact that it was but an anonymous
letter whch had started his campaign, pompously
affirmed the existence of a great Alfonsist plot of
which the Countess of Albornoz and the Marquis of
Butron were the leaders.
"I know all about that!" announced His Excel-
lency, still gasping from his wound. And he told
the Governor the story of the episode of the letter
and its destruction, which had forced his Cabinet
colleagues to scream with laughter in his very face.
The Governor bit his lips and began to think that
he had made a general mess of things. His own
anger at this whole ludicrous, but still serious, affair
was checked, however, by the entrance of the chief
of police bearing the papers found in Curra's house.
These he tore from the individual's hand, and
the first paper which he saw was written in Curra's
own handwritting, first large, then small, changed
as much as possible while she had written the
cryptic phrase : "What an extraordinary animal
man is! "A sudden idea struck the Governor. He
hurriedly sought the anonymous letter of denuncia-
tion which he had received, and compared its
writing with one of those on the paper he had just
received. They were identical! It was proved that
the Countess of Albornoz was a clever intrigante,
but also that the Governor of Madrid was a first-
class fool! He cursed and stamped around the
room, while Don Martin, delighted that someone
beside himself had been made a fool of by Curra,
laughed heartily and jeered at his perspicacity in
discovering plots dangerous to the State.
Under these taunts, the Governor's mind formed
thoughts of vengeance. Looking through the papers
to find something incriminating on which to base
whatever unpleasant actions he might be able to
take against Curra, his vengeance was suddenly
assured.
Among the papers he discovered twenty-five
letters bound in a package with pink ribbon.
The evening before, when Curra anticipating
the raid, had destroyed all possible incriminating
papers of whatever discription, she had overlooked
this package of letters, hidden in a secret drawer
of her little cabinet, which she had not opened for
a long time. In this drawer had lain hidden for
more than three years a series of letters from a
certain Andalusian artillery captain, of good family,
most haughty disposition, and with no shame, and
who had preceded John Velarde in the confidential
post which the latter now held at Curra's house.
The triumphant Governor asked Don John
Martin whether it would not be a clever idea to
publish these letters in the newspapers which sup-
ported the present Government. At first Don Martin
hesitated, suggesting that the letters must be return-
ed to the Countess, since the chief of police had
12
THE + SIGN
given a receipt for them. The Governor admitted
this, and changed his plans accordingly.
"Well, Excellency, why not return the letters
to the lady's husband, instead of sending them to
her direct? It is the only way in which we can in
this affair perform a real work of mercy, that of
enlightening the ignorant!"
"Magnificent!" cried Don Martin, delighted
with the Machiavellian astuteness of the Governor.
So the chief of police wrote a polite note to
the Marquis of Villamelon, expressing his regret
about the incidents of that day, and stating that
he was returning all the papers which the police
had removed, requesting him carefully to read all,
especially the twenty-five letters in the bound
package, to make sure that all had been properly
returned and in good order
^^^HE afternoon papers of that day, which sup-
L) ported the Alfonsist cause, made much of the
^^^ raid upon the Marquis of Villamelon's
mansion. The government was denounced as
tyrannous, incapable, foolish, and unworthy of the
support of the people. All ended in a triumphant
note demanding what possible defense could the
Government make for a raid which had resulted in
nothing but annoyance to two most estimable mem-
bers of two of Spain's greatest families, and which
had upset the entire city for no other purpose than
to quiet the Government's excited nerves and foolish
suspicions of conspiracies and intrigues against its
own manifest impotence and folly.
"The villainous attempt of the Government,"
said one opposition-sheet," is but the first step
taken toward the Terror. A peaceful home has
been sacrilegiously invaded out of sheer imbecility.
But, let us hope, that already
The Castilian lion
Shakes his mane. . ."
^^^HIS, and the praise which other opposition
1^ ) papers heaped upon her, Curra read with
^"^ avidity. She was delighted with the titles
they bestowed upon her: Mary Stuart, a modern
Ophelia, and the Angel of the Guillotine. To add
to her satisfaction, the editor of a leading review
of Spain called upon her, sent by the Marquis of
Butron, and asked for the great honor of an inter-
view with the heroic Countess, as well as photo-
graphs of her and her family, her palace, the scene
of the latest Government outrage, with which to
embellish an article he proposed to have in the
coming number of his journal.
"Certainly," replied Curra, only too well
pleased." The Marquis is a very fine photographer
himself, and will be glad to take them for you."
And she immediately sent a message to
Villamelon requesting him to come to the salon
where she was. The servant returned with the
information: "The Marquis had ordered his victoria
at four o'clock, and had not as yet returned home."
As a matter of fact, Villamelon was at that
very moment much troubled by a mysterious doubt
which he was vainly trying to solve. He had
received the Governor's note, had read it tranquilly,
and proceeded out of curiosity to look the returned
papers over. He read the first of the twenty-five
letters in the package without understanding what
it was all about; but in the second he came across
the following, in the hand of the captain of artillery:
"As for your husband, would it not be well to
suppress the Villa, and leave the melon? It is
already proved that the poor man belongs to the
Cucurbitaceous family!"
He read no further, but sat with wide-open
mouth. Then, suddenly he leapt up, entered his
dressing room, seized a slender bamboo cane with
silver handle, which cut the air with hisses like a
serpent's, and rushed off to the apartment of the
new Mary Stuart, threatening her with a severe
whipping instead of the historic headman's block.
But the Countess was not destined to receive
such punishment. On the way to her apartment, a
large Kamschatka dog ran to meet Villamelon,
wagging his tail affectionately. The Marquis gazed
at him for a moment solemnly, and then showered
on the unfortunate animal a hail-storm of blows
which had been intended for his wife. Panting and
perspiring, he staggered back into his room,
hurriedly undressed, and went to bed.
Ten minutes after he got up again and ordered
the victoria. He went to the Casino, and then to the
Veloz, at both of which places he was showered
under congratulations over the event which the
whole of Madrid was now discussing. Disregarding
these, he whispered in the ears of some prudent
friends a certain mysterious question. Some
laughed at him, others shrugged their shoulders;
all answered him no, but Villamelon still pursued
his quest. Finally, in a private room of the Veloz
club he met an old man with thick white hair and
long white beard, more worthy of the head and
countenance of King Lear than of his own red and
pimply face, in which vice had left its indelible
imprint. His haughty air of a great noble contrasted
ill with his worn and abandoned clothes. He was
seated at a table with a large bottle of gin, which he
drank slowly from a large glass, now and again
throwing in lumps of sugar. His name was Peter
Vedar. He was the second son of a great and noble
family, lived by gambling when he was sober, and
had made himself notorious in Madrid by his
cynicism and scurrilous stories, everyone knowing
him by the name of Diogenes. He had finally
leached the position of being considered but an
original eccentric, and having secured that title,
could do or say anything he pleased without fear of
offending anyone. For people merely shrugged their
shoulders, and said: "Ah, more of Diogenes'
absurdities!"
THE T SIGN
OIOGENES realized his unique position all too
well, and said the most outrageous things to
everybody, with bitter home-thrusts which his
innate cleverness and worldly experience always
prompted. He was a peripetetic plaster which
raised blisters wherever he went. The innocent
Villamelon, engrossed in the pursuit of information,
approached him, and after exchanging a few words
which gave Diogenes the opportunity of twice drain-
ing his glass, finally hurled the mysterious question
at him: "Friend Diogenes, you know everybody.
Can you tell me who are the Cucurbitaceous
family?"
Diogenes looked Villamelon over carefully from
head to toe, and led him over to a near-by mirror:
"Certainly! Look here!" And then shrieked in
in Villamelon's ear :
"No one should boast of his illustrious race
Who is but a squash when he should be a
1 melon."
The following day the ministerial papers broke
the silence they had observed over the affair of the
raid, and one of them published a small extra, in
which it could be seen that the Amadists were
lifting a corner of the veil which shrouded the event
with a clever exhibition of half-hidden malice, which
without telling names directly, still pointed a
phantom finger as a guidepost.
"Yesterday the visit of the police to the palace
of the Marquis of Villamelon in accordance with all
the forms of law was the subject of some rather
severe comment on the part of the opposition papers.
By a truly lamentable mistake on the part of the
police, among the political papers of great import-
ance which were carried away, were some important
letters of a purely domestic nature. The Governor
kindly, and at once, returned these papers to the
Marquis of Villamelon, knowing that in conjugal
affairs it is the business of the husband alone to
remonstrate. We think, however, that the incident
will not be followed by any serious developments,
taking into consideration the well-known prudence
of both the parties concerned."
And further on:
"To everyone's surprise, the Marquis of Butron
hurried to the scene, with his budding beard com-
pletely white, that beard which is under ordinary
circumstances as black as a crow's wings. It cannot
be that the Marquis's agitation was so great that it
turned his beard white all of a sudden. We can
readily believe that he had forgotten certain chemi-
cal ingredients of his toilet, probably from not being
acquainted with the following anecdote:
"When Charles V. was once visiting a famous
monastery in Germany, he saw a monk whose beard
was black and his head completely white. He asked
the monk the reason of this strange phenomenon.
The monk replied: "Your Majesty, I have worked
more with my brains than with my teeth."
"Some months afterwards, a Polish ambassador,
who had a white beard and black hair, presented
himself to the Emperor. Charles remembered the
monk's remark, and said to his courtiers: "Here is
an ambassador who has worked more with his teeth
than with his brains."
"We hope that the illustrious diplomat of whom
we speak will in the future be more cautious, if he
does not desire to have people making the remark
about him which Charles V. made about the Polish
ambassador."
VILLAMELON and Curra each read, on their
own account, this unpleasant editorial. Both
took care not to say anything about it to the
other; for Curra found it more prudent to play
innocent, while the Marquis thought it wiser to
pretend that he understood nothing of the whole
affair. Curra also had her hands full to pacify the
indignant John Velarde who demanded an explan-
ation of these cryptic affairs. The date of the letters
alone was sufficient to pacify him, and he then lent
generous assistance to her in her efforts to lesson
the breach which threatened to stretch between her
and her husband. Velarde passed from one to the
other, breathing words of peace; and peace was
finally established. That evening they all three
dined together, in order to go to the Marquis of
Butron's house, where Curra wished to present her
friend and protege, John Velarde.
Meanwhile the articles in the Government news-
papers flew through Madrid amid the scoffiing and
sarcasms of Capulets and Montagues. The people
who criticized the Villamelons most eagerly, strange
to say, were the very men and women who had
praised her so highly at her house, and who were
going that very evening to the ball in her honor at
the Marquis of Butron's.
CHAPTER IX.
aY eleven o'clock the rooms of the Marquis of
Butron were thronged with people for the
ball in Curra's honor, organized also as a
protest against the invasion of her home by the
Amadist police. The windows and doors of the
house were thrown open, and the over heated crowd
of guests appeared but a confused mass of jewels,
flowers, beautiful gowns, and half-nude women,
among whom the men revolved like a swarm of
black worms in this jumbled collection of the world,
the flesh and the devil.
At a quarter before twelve the Countess of
Albornoz arrived. She entered, on the arm of John
Velarde, with her husband trailing in the rear. The
Marquis and Marchioness of Butron, who were
receiving their guests in the room nearest the vesti-
bule, advanced to greet them, and while Villamelon
presented Velarde to them, Curra said in her timid,
fascinating child's voice: "He is a rascal, Butron!
I can't say that he is a convert; but he is at least a
catechumen, who wears our colors to-day for the
first time."
THE +SIGN
And she pointed with her fan to the small white
and blue ribbon which Velarde wore in his dress
coat, now that the private secretaryship to the King
had been cast into the limbo of forgotten things.
Curra's arrival had produced a general sensa-
tion, in which the winks and jests of the grooms in
the vestibule combined with the malicious remarks
which the ladies of the drawing-rooms exchanged
with one another. But not one of the latter hesitated
to press forward to receive a pressure of the hand
and a smile from the heroine of the occasion. They
then danced a quadrille in her honor, Curra with
Butron as her partner; Villamelon with the
Marchioness Butron; John Velarde with the Duchess
of Astorga, one of the honorable women of the
Court.
The heat was intense, and many of the ladies
took refuge in a lower drawing-room, which
opened on a garden,
likewise crowded, and
where beautiful Venetian
lanterns lighted a festive
scene. Butlers passed
from guest to guest,
serving them on silver
platters with sorbets a la
Albornoz. These were
delicious orange ices,
served in the skin of the
fruit itself. Curra, with
the aid of Butron's chef,
had attained the Hercu-
lean pillars of feminine
celebrity.
"Exquisite!" ex-
claimed the Duchess of
Bara, as she helped her-
self to one. "How ap-
propriate — dear Curra
symbolized by a sorbet.
There is no better way of symbolizing her freshness.
Isn't that so, Diogenes?"
Diogenes crept forward with a pronounced limp
and sank into a chair.
"I am not well," he said.
"What's the matter with you?"
"What's the matter with him?" cried Carmen
Tagle. "He is filled with poison like a poppy!"
Diogenes growled out some unpleasant remark,
about cucumber salad and its effect on the digestion,
at which the ladies laughed, while Carmen Tagle
offered him a sorbet, saying: Take a Curra Albornoz
and you will recover. Cucumber salad is no more
indigestible than the articles in the opposition
papers, and there is the Countess dancing away as
happily as you please!"
"I did not think that she would have the impu-
dence to come here to-night," said one of the women.
"Bah! Her impudence gets worse every day."
"Impudence? What do you mean?" asked
Diogenes.
O]
2su of tke Thonrj) Crov^n
Dom Theodore Bailey
O.S.B.
O Jesu of the thorny crown,
of the svJeet brov?s bending down,
of the parted lips and
pale,
of the fainting breath
and frail,
of tke tear-dimmed d
arkened ey'es,
of the blood-stained piteous guise;
Jesu 1
Dve, listen to me,
Sweet
Jesu, succour me.
"Mean ! I suppose that you would defend her ?"
"Why of course I will defend her. Her impud-
ence! It's her impudence that justifies her. Why
shouldn't she come if you are willing to receive
her?"
"Well, I never!" exclaimed another lady.
"Wish you would enlighten us as to what we are to
do with that type of person in Madrid?"
Diogenes gazed at the speaker: "Bolt your
doors, or do not complain, dear lady. If you lift
the top off a cess-pool, don't complain if there is
an unpleasant odor!"
CHAPTER X.
>7=CYPOCRISY is the homage which vice pays
I I to virtue. It is also true that a false idea
* of honor is the homage which knavery pays
to honesty. Even among
knaves honor must not
be impugned, and the
liar is always offended
when he is accused of
lying, the thief when he
is accused of stealing,
while the criminal can
challenge on the field
of honor the judge who
condemns him. So that
the blood which blots
the conscience can
cleanse the honor, and
men who know no shame
are called upon to decide
affairs of honor. In like
manner the Countess of
Albornoz also had a code
of honor, and the article
which we have quoted
from one of the opposi-
tion newspapers had profoundly wounded it.
Villamelon was unaffected by the raid of the
police, save for the two panes of glass in the door
which they had broken : he gave orders that these
should not be mended, remembering that Wellington
left untouched the panes broken in his London
house by the mob, when the populace one day forgot
Waterloo. He tossed all the rest aside wearily, as
the mere trifles of a corrupt society, among those
quibbles which ought not to occupy the minds of
serious men. Curra likewise had taken offense at
nothing save that short sentence in the paper: "We
do not think that this affair will be followed by any
serious developments, considering the well known
prudence of both the parties concerned." This
wounded her, and stung her honor, as it suggested
that she was a woman who lacked a knight to defend
her, a Jimena without a Cid, an insult to any woman,
especially one who occupied the exalted position
which she held.
"We'll see!" said the Countess. And immedi-
THE *f SIGN
ately appointed her friend John Velarde as her
defender and knight.
They had a long interview, which lasted far into
the night, and Curra, saying farewell to him at the
door, whispered to him: "I will order breakfast at
Fornos, and lobsters a la Bordelaise."
Velarde grimaced, attempted to smile, and
walked off. He stopped to look back as she waved
an affectionate farewell, and then walked slowly
on as though some mysterious force dragged him
on against his will. The night was beautiful, and
Velarde passed through the twisting streets that lead
to the Plaza de Oriente, wandered twice around its
paths, and finally sat down upon a bench facing
the palace.
By the reflection of a single ray of bright light
which cut the shadows around, he could see the
sentinels in their sentry-boxes. As it was Sunday,
the gardens were crowded by people of the lower
classes, by soldiers and servants. Groups of children
played here and there with gay shouts of laughter.
©
(UT Velarde was oblivious of everything.
With his elbows on his knees, he drew
fantastic figures in the sand with his cane.
The following day at dawn he must fight the editor
of the paper which had insulted Curra. This is
what Curra had demanded of him, craving such a
sensation, eager for a duel which would add another
pearl of notoriety to her crown. It had been in
vain that Velarde had tried to make her see what
ridicule this affair would bring upon her, upon
Villamelon, and upon him. Curra had arranged
everything to her complete satisfaction, and she had
fixed upon this duel with that restless spirit of hers
which sought a thousand follies, and which nothing
satisfied. Was it her fault that Villamelon was
worthless ? Was she going to permit any newspaper
to make a fool of her? Would he, her only friend,
leave her in the hopeless predicament in which she
found herself ? Were not their lives united ? People
must be made to respect her, and to realize that she
knew how to make herself respected. She did not
ask for a duel to the death. She wanted just a
sham duel; a couple of shots, and then they would
go to breakfast at Fornos. She would attend to the
breakfast, and would order lobster a la Bordelaise,
John's favorite dish. Could she do more? Was
there anything strange in her request.
"Absolutely nothing!" thought the chosen
knight, as he traced figures in the sand. But he
already seemed to hear the echo of the shots and
the ghost of the first crime came into his mind.
Then came the idea of death, and lastly that of hell,
where there is neither peace, rest, nor hope, only
everlasting hatred, weeping and gnashing of teeth.
Velarde tried to laugh at this idea, but the laugh
would not come to his lips. For this man was not
vicious; he was only a boy illusioned by the great
world, which had gone to his head like strong wine.
He had come to Madrid from his province, the
eldest son of a great but poor family, and the doors
of this great world had opened to him at the sound
of his name. And he had thought that there could
be nothing to be desired beyond this world of gods
and goddesses. He had wished to occupy a niche
among them all in his own right, and chance and
his handsome face had brought him to Curra. By
her he was introduced into all the salons of the
Court, hoping to prepare himself for a successful
career in that royal palace which lay in front of
him. Curra was always promising to assist him,
and, the evening before, the Marquis of Butron had
also offered his help.
Velarde looked up from the ground to the
palace which lay in front of him, the palace of the
king whose private secretary he had hoped to
become. How irritating it was to have to begin
all over again, to have lost so much time! This
king across the way would go, and another would
take his place. Yet who could tell? Perhaps one
of those shots on the morrow would destroy that
house of cards which he and Curra and the Marquis
of Butron were trying to build ? His thoughts were
suddenly interrupted by a strident voice at his side,
strident but modulated by a tone of affection and
tenderness.
"What's the matter, mother?" it said. "You
aren't taking any."
Velarde turned around, and saw at a little iron
table near-by a boy who seemed to be a workman
with an old woman who apparently was his mother.
There was a glass of frozen orgeat between them,
from which both were eating, he eating his share
eagerly, while she looked at him with a quiet smile,
scarcely touching it, leaving him to enjoy and herself
to find happiness in the content of her son's pleasure.
VELARDE undersrtood what this meant, and all
the great happiness purchased for a few
coppers. A wave of sentiment swept through
his heart. Suddenly all his past arose before him,
all the bitterness of what was good lost through his
mistakes, and all those dreams and beloved shadows
of times now gone. He thought of his mother and
his little brothers and sisters, all crying when he
bid farewell to them but three years ago. His
mother had clung to him, as if wishing to imprint
his love upon her heart. Her wrinkled forehead lay
on his shoulder and her trembling lips had whispered
in his ear: "John, my son! Be a good boy and pray
to Our Lady of Regla! Remember your father,
who died like a saint! No one, my son, can die
well who does not live as a Christian should!"
And then, later on in the night, when he was
packing his bag in his room, the key had turned
in the lock of his door. He opened it, and there
was his mother in her stocking feet.
THE + SIGN
"What is it, mother? Is anything the matter?"
"No, dear boy, nothing. I but wanted to see
you again, child of my heart! You are going away
to-morrow!"
And she had whispered to him again, weeping:
"Pray to Our Lady of Regla, John! Be a good
Christian always, my darling boy!"
Velarde felt ashamed of himself, and he cried
with his head in his hands, weeping with all the
weakness of a woman and all the fear of a child.
His mother loved him! She would not ask him to
fight a duel, an offense against God, — placing him
before a pistol, risking the loss of his life, the loss
of his soul! And he had not seen her for three
whole years! And he had let two months pass
without sending her a word, ungrateful and disloyal
that he was! Velarde felt that he must write her
at once, telling her of that love and sorrow which
consumed him. He walked with long strides to his
house, thinking of what he would tell her, a letter
of affection and hope and all those things which he
knew would amuse her. She had always praised
his wit so heartily. How heartily she had laughed
at him when she was teaching him his catechism
twenty years ago, when he had been surprised that
there were but three enemies to the soul! "No
more?" he had asked much astonished; and how
she had laughed! Ah„ how different it was twenty
years later, as he laughed in the midst of his tears!
XN the Calle de Arenal a boy stopped him,
seeking to sell him the tenth of a lottery
ticket: "They draw to-morrow!" he cried.
Velarde pushed him aside twice, the last time
striking him with his cane; then repentant, turned
back and bought not merely a tenth, but the entire
ticket. If he should win a prize, what a lot of things
he could do! And turning these things over in his
mind, he reached the Calle del Principe, where he
lived. He shut himself up in his room. In a drawer
of his desk there was a picture of Our Lady of
Regla which his mother had given him the day he
had left. He stood it up before him and wrote
steadily for two hours. He was quite satisfied,
everything was going well, and the Restoration was
certain. The Countess of Albornoz —
"No, no, no!" He could not mention that name
in this letter! He blotted it out and wrote in its
place the Marquis of Butron. The Marquis of
Butron had told him that it would take place within
the year, and had promised him brilliant prospects.
Then he could arrange about the future of the boys.
Henry and Peter could come to Madrid, and little
Louis, her pet, could stay with her until he graduated
as a Bachelor of Arts. He was thinking — could
she guess what he was thinking? He was planning
to spend the month of August with them, staying
on until September 8th., when he would make the
novena to Our Lady of Regla with them all. Then
were questions without number, messages for all,
and at last the news which would bring joy and
consolation to his mother's heart. On July 3rd.,
the anniversary of his father's death, he intended
to go to Confession and Communion.
And the poor lad wrote as he thought, praying
the while for Our Lady of Regla to spare him from
the duel of the morrow; for it was evident that his
honor was already compromised, the whole affair
decided upon, the sin already committed, and that
it was now too late to retreat. He mailed his letter,
and at two o'clock lay down; without undressing,
to wait for dawn.
He was tired from the fatigues of the night
before at the Marquis of Butron's ball, and he soon
fell asleep, dreaming of his mother, who led him
as she used to do to the shrine of Our Lady of
Regla, on a large cliff above the sea, which broke in
impotent desperation against the rocks of the coast.
GE awoke terrified at four o'clock when his
servant shook him by the arm. Two gentle-
men had come in a carriage and were sur-
prised to find that he still slept. He dressed rapidly,
and hurried downstairs, nervous and upset; entered
the carriage, which started off without his noticing
which road they followed and what they were talk-
ing about. Nothing definite formed in his mind,
and all that he remembered of the journey was a
placard of a bull-fight on the corner of a house,
and a policeman with large white whiskers who,
reminded him of Diogenes, as they passed through
the gate of the Retire Why did this man have side-
whiskers and no moustache? He was pursued by
this thought, and again returned vaguely to the
question an hour later when the carriage stopped at
the entrance of a great poplar grove, in which
thousands of birds were singing of the wonders
and glory of God. Here there was a little man
in gold spectacles, who seemed as pale as himself
and as terrified, with two other serious gentlemen
who accompanied him. Velarde thought that they
were discussing something about the ground. Then
they gave him a pistol and one to the little man,
and set them face to face. Then came the clapping
of a hand, and a shot. Velarde gave a terrible cry
and leapt into the air. Trees, mountains, earth and
sky swept swiftly upon him as if to crush him.
A cloud of blood blinded him; then another black
cloud held him; and then nothing — he saw nothing
more on earth.
He saw but Christ above, alive and terrible,
who came to judge him; and beyond Him lay
eternity, dark, immense, implacable —
To be continued
Tke Sign of tke Cross
I — Its Meanings and Its Forms
Hubert Cunningham, C. P.
CROSS is not a crucifix. A crucifix is not
a cross. To the common mind these two
objects are much the same but in reality
they are entirely different. By the Cross
the christian world immediately understands those
two right-angled, intersecting beams on to which
Our Blessed Saviour was nailed, on which He was
lifted up as a horrible example and on which He
died. That is the Cross of Christ or the Holy Cross
itself. The object which is religiously called a cross
means anything which copies that sacred gibbet in
shape; whether it be formed in wood, stone, metal
or aught else it is a plain cross. Only when there
is attached to that plain cross a body or what is
called the corpus is the object named correctly a
crucifix. A crucifix is a cross — and something more;
it is the cross with a body on it.
This difference immediately reveals another
contrast between the cross and the crucifix. It is
evident enough to every eye that the crucifix is a
representation of the awful sufferings and gruesome
death of Jesus, Our Lord and Master. It is
familiarity alone that could prevent us from seeing
that the representation is, indeed, a vivid, a realistic
picture of what was ruthlessly done to the Son of
the All-Holy God. However the cross is no such
display; it does not detail any sufferings; that is not
its purpose. The cross is only a reminder, a sugges-
tion, an emblematic embodiment of what the crucifix
shows. The crucifix reveals the painful sufferings
and shameful death of Christ while the cross merely
commemorates or typifies that greatest of all
tragedies. That is why it is called a type, a symbol ;
in common language a "sign" — the sign of the cross.
Besides the cross there is a great number and
variety of objects used by the church as signs,
symbols, types such as the lamb, the dove, the
anchor, the pelican, the eye, and these are called
each by its own name "the sign of the lamb" "the
sign of the dove" and similarly when a cross is used
it is called "the sign of the cross." This is the origin
and first meaning of the familiar expression — the
sign of the cross. These words signify the plain
cross used as a sign or symbol of our redemption.
The words have another use and meaning: When
we trace with our hands those cross-lines on our
bodies, our foreheads, our lips we perform an act
of devotion and we call it making the sign of the
cross. This is the sense in which the words are
commonly applied and accepted.
The sign of the cross in both these senses,
whether as a symbol of our faith or as an act of
devotion is as far reaching as the church. Whither-
soever Christianity has extended there has immedi-
ately appeared the sign of the cross. This one fact
alone makes the practice a very interesting study,
but beyond this again there are so many details
connected with it that it is fascinating to the thought-
ful mind ; it is surrounded with the charm of variety.
When we make the sign of the cross, for example,
we accompany the act with some words such as "In
the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the
Holy Ghost. Amen." The words thus accompany-
ing the action are called the form. A form or fixed
set of words is not necessary. They may or they
may not accompany the action ; that is an indifferent
matter; it is none the less the sign of the cross. The
use of accompanying words is an aftergrowth of
the practice, how very ancient we do not exactly
know, and although the two are such ancient com-
panions they have not become blended or confused ;
each has maintained its identity. The sign of the
cross itself and the form accompanying it are
separate and independent items.
BNOTHER noteworthy circumstance connected
with this subject and one which marks the
individual character both of the devout action
and of the form of its accompanying words is that
both have variety; they have changed with times and
places and persons and under the influence of these
factors they still change and very likely will vary
in the future. So we have written in history, besides
the form which we are familiar with today and
just now mentioned such other acts of worship and
invocation as "The Sign of Jesus," "The Sign of
Christ," "The Sign of Christ Crucified," "The Sign
of the Cross," "In the Name of the Holy Trinity."
These are but some of the prayers which have
been customarily said while performing this holy
THE +S1GN
duty. The words which we use today are not so
old as the forms just mentioned by many hundreds
of years. "In the Name of the Father, etc." is very
beautiful, very dear to us of the present day and
very rich in condensed doctrine; it is well called a
perfect summary of Catholic teaching, but these
words may be called modern if we compare them
with the celebrated ejaculation "Holy God, Holy
Strong God, Holy Immortal God, Have Mercy on
,Us." These words are called the Trysagion and
were used for hundreds of years all the world over
while making the sign of the cross. It is still in use
among the Greek Catholics, though, strange to say,
like many of the salutations just quoted, it has not
only waned in popularity in our part of the world —
it has passed out and that to such a degree that it
appears in the services of the church only on one
day throughout the entire year: on Good Friday it
comes up for a moment in the Mass of the Presancti-
fied and even then, be it noted, the sign of the cross
is not connected with it. Today, after its splendid
years of history it is unknown to the Catholic public
so much so that very few of those who shall read
this number of THE SIGN will be able to say that
they have ever before heard of the Trysagion. Those
who have travelled much and so have had the
opportunity to observe will confirm this present
oblivion of a once common prayer by admitting that
the only one place in the English speaking world
in which the Trysagion is now in use is among the
Sisters of the Good Shepard. It forms a part of
their religious exercises and so it lives — a relic of
a venerable past. In the past it was in common use
among priests and people; now it is almost unknown.
XN contrast with this fading salutation notice
the position and popularity of the formula in
use here and now — "In the Name of the
Father, etc." This is so general as to be well nigh
universal. Yet its popularity is individual rather
than official, with the laity rather than with the
priesthood, in personal devotions rather than in
public prayers. It is interesting to notice that in the
official prayers of the church, in the Divine Office
and the Mass there are many forms used while
making the sign of the cross, many and various,
as "Oh, Lord, open Thou my lips, and my tongue
shall declare Thy praise," and "Incline unto my aid,
Oh God, Oh Lord make haste to help me," and others
too numerous to be detailed given here; the im-
poitant point here is that aside from its use at the
beginning of the Mass, administering absolution
and giving Confirmation the popular words are very
rarely found; compared to those which I have
mentioned they are rarely used; nevertheless they
have by their richness and their beauty taken hold
of the heart of the church and Pius IX has granted
an indulgence of 50 days to all those who may
make the sign of the cross while saying "In the
Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy
Ghost." Such a privilege is granted to none of the
other forms.
These forms come and go by no fixed rule ; they
ever find their first impulse in the soul of some
individual person, in some particular act of devotion.
Devotion is the breath of the Spirit of God within
the soul and that Divine Spirit breatheth as it listeth.
It is beyond the ken as well as the rule of man;
as none can say what has been the cause of their
coming or the reason for their going to the beautiful
forms of the past so none can tell what these may be
in the future. If the "Memorare" is a burst from
the burning bosom of a Bernard and the "Gloria
Patri" an echo of the gladness which filled the soul
of Saint Jerome it is easy to see that the whisperings
of a holy Catholic mother to the croonings of her
babe may be the first spring of another form for
the sign of the cross that will in the future be more
popular than the one of to-day. Perhaps not; but
none could have a holier origin.
An Interesting Declaration
XN view of the present diversity of aims in
Ireland this declaration by Mr. de Valera in
the "Echo de Paris" is interesting: "We
have no intention of coming into direct conflict with
the majority in the Irish Parliament, but my aim is
to lead the Irish people towards the aspirations for
which they have always fought. Still, we will not
play the game of our oppressors in creating internal
trouble which would furnish them with a pretext
for meddling in our affairs to crush us."
Current Fact and Comment
EUGENICS FOR FRENCH INFANTS
^^HE French Ministry of Public Instruction has
V V a commission at work drafting a system of
instruction in eugenics commencing with boys
at the age of nine and girls at eleven. They are
meeting strong opposition from those who claim
that the adoption of such a plan would be proof
that France no longer believes in the efficiency of
Catholic precepts. Paul Borget, the noted French
author, scarcely believes that vice to be hated needs
but to be seen, for he points out that students in
the Latin Quarter, constantly confronted with the
effects of evil habits, are as subject to moral con-
tamination as any other group. He insists that it
would be better to impress upon children the import-
ance of Confession and Communion and leave to
the priests the duty of inculcating moral tenets.
THE WEAR AND TEAR OF PLEASURE
XT is a cheerful thing to be told that the human
body is the most durable of all machines and
that, under normal conditions, it will run
longer and better than any other engine in the world.
Also that, for the strains upon the heart in particular,
nature has left a large margin of safety. Still there
is no assuring message in all this for those who
apply their time and energies inordinately to the
pursuit of gain or pleasure. The pursuit of gain,
because less culpable, is perhaps the more insidious
cause of irreparable collapse in that marvellous
machine. The pursuit of pleasure, however, stimu-
lated nowadays by variety, intensity and availability,
has a greater share in bringing that collapse about.
When even the metropolitan journals manifest alarm
for the welfare of the race and the nation as they
depict night-life in New York City, it is well for the
individual to count the cost of such indulgence and
irregularity.
THE SOAP-BOX FORUM
HITHERTO if you paused to listen to the man
on a soap-box addressing a rapt audience
quite invariably would you find him develop-
ing some radical theme against government and the
social order with a zeal and vehemence worthy of
a better cause. You marvelled at the broad inter-
pretations to which the theory of free speech can
be applied without it being ranked as treason, and
you wondered why the friends of order and govern-
ment did not rally in defense and rebuttal. The
Constitutional Defense League now plans to enter
this open-air forum. They have a capable corps
of speakers, mostly war veterans, some of them
converts from Socialism. Moreover they are con-
ducting a training school the more amply to cover
the field. It is a seasoned organization having
originated in Wisconsin where Socialism had made
great progress and had won many offices throughout
the State. As a result of the League's efforts in
1920 not a single Socialist was elected to any county
office in the entire State.
BIRTH CONTROL
^t^HEN the Vicar General of the diocese of
\I/ Newark urged the Episcopalian Bishop of
New York to take a common stand against
the birth control movement, he was aware that the
latter had no alternative. The Catholic Church has
not an exclusive responsibility for the laws and
principles affecting the sacredness and the end of
the marriage state. The faithful must not labor
under the impression that those laws are of the same
order as merely ecclesiastical laws such as the law
THE t SIGN
of fasting. When a church law seriously inconveni-
ences you, your case may be presented to your con-
fessor or director and he may validly grant a
mitigation or a dispensation. But there are laws
of a higher order, called divine because of their
directly divine origin. These bind you not because
you are a Catholic but because you are a Christian
and a creature. Human authority may not dispense
from these laws no matter how urgent and pitiful
your plea or how exceptional the inconvenience
compliance with such a law may cause you. The
Birth-Controlists have the effrontery to advocate
the abrogation of such laws emanating from the
infinite wisdom of the Creator and designed by Him
for the general welfare of the race. In their short-
sighted opportunism they are unwilling to believe
that the Creator, being also infinitely merciful,
will lend his grace and support to the faithful
individual who suffers inconvenience from the
observance of such laws. Protestants familiar with
the Old Testament should know whence the com-
monest sin of married life derives its name.
Through the peremptory slaying of Onan would God
indicate to all men His abhorrence for that sin.
THF SPIRITUAL VITALITY OF FRANCE
^^^HE Hand of God is not withdrawn in revolu-
\^ J tionary crises. Did the Church in France
seem to reel to her destruction when Separa-
tion came in 1906? George Goyau, the best in-
formed historian of the religious movement shows
how it was but a wonderful impulse to new growth
and activity. Within six years from Separation
the new churches and chapels founded in Paris
alone served 636,500 souls. This is about the
population of Marseilles and we are asked to con-
template such a city without a single sanctuary in
order to appraise the vital spiritual force at work
during those six years — the zeal and initiative that
reinstated and established God where all might
have been chaos. An equally bright picture is
drawn of all France and of both the intellectual and
labor classes of the post-Concordat period and the
historian eloquently concludes : "A religious awaken-
ing is shaking the whole French nation. The laws
of secularization attempted to dam up the move-
ment, to restrain it, to break it, but the flood mounts
and is irresistible, it has covered the dykes, it is
sweeping away the barriers."
WOMAN NOT SUPERIOR TO MAN
^^HE hand that rocks the cradle will never rule
V. J the world, according to Mrs. Asquith, and
she should know. Most men who voted equal
rights for women never contemplated their own
sisters aspiring to the honors or responsibilities
allotted by nature and tradition to the sterner sex.
The gallantry and sense of justice in behalf of
women which have distinguished this generation
have not proceeded on safe grounds if we believe
Stephen Leacock arguing in Collier's against
coeducation. Coeducation is wrong because it pre-
sumes upon the possible superiority of one or the
other sex, whereas they are different. Higher
education, yes; but not coeducation. "I learned my
Greek," he says, "alongside a bevy of beauty on the
opposite benches that mashed the irregular verbs
for us very badly. Incidentally those girls are all
married long since, and all the Greek they know
now you could put under a thimble."
According to this college professor, the funda-
mental trouble is that men and women are different
creatures, with different minds, different aptitudes
and different paths of life. They should have a
different curriculum. Tabulated results and the
experiences of those who teach show that in the
whole domain of mathematics and physics women
are outclassed. On the other hand, in all that goes
with the esthetic side of education, with imagination
and literature and the cult of beauty women are, or
at least ought to be, the superiors of men. Their
careers are different but the preparation is all aimed
at the men's career. The women are going to be
married — there is no use pretending about it — that
is and always has been their career: and what is
more, they know it, and even at college, while they
are studying algebra and political economy, they
have their eye on it sideways all the time. Woman
has much better things to think about.
THE + SIGN
At this point the professor hears some one
shriek: "But surely, even for marriage, isn't it right
that a girl should have a college education?" Admit
it. But the point is, does a higher education that
fits a man to be a lawyer also fit a person to be a
wife or a mother? No. There is more education
and character-making in six months training and
discipline of a hospital as a nurse than in a whole
bucketful of algebra. When later on in her home
there is sudden illness or accident and the life or
death of those nearest to her hangs upon skill or
knowledge and a trained fortitude in emergency she
must needs send in all haste for a hired woman to
fill the place that she herself has never learned to
occupy.
ANGLICAN STRADDLERS
(T. IGNATIUS' Church (Protestant) New York
City, has just celebrated its semi-centenary.
In an account of the growth of the parish the
statement is made that "the norm of services at
St. Ignatius' has never been of the ultra-elaborate
type in music or ceremonial but that all Catholic
adjuncts are in use. (! !) The Blessed Sacrement
is perpetually reserved, usually at the High Altar,
and High Mass in the morning and Vespers with
Benediction have been the customary Sunday
services." As a matter of fact the services in the
High Episcopal churches have become so "ultra''
as to deceive even the elect.
The popular baseball manager, Hughie Jenn-
ings, tells an instance of such deception. His team,
mostly Catholics, were quartered in a New York
hotel. On a Saturday night the pious suggestion
that the Catholic members go to Communion the
following morning was agreed to. Around the
corner a church had been discovered with all the
apparent marks of the True Church and here all had
their confessions heard. The hours for masses
were ascertained and it was planned that they would
attend in two parties. On Sunday morning the
manager, who was of the second party, happened to
ask the others on their return how they got along.
One guileless youngster replied that they must have
a funny custom in New York of giving you a drink
of wine after Communion. Only then did Mr.
Jennings realize how completely they had been
deceived. But he did not fully confirm the detail
that he had difficulty in restraining his men from
going out and doing violence to the minister who
had dared to hear their confessions.
Apropos of the simulation of Catholic services
we have the Catholic Times (Anglican) reviewing
an English Directory of Ceremonial thus: "What
we are told to do here is more or less what we must
all do sooner or later unless we are prepared to
scrap the Prayer Book for the Roman Missal, and,
logically for the Roman Ordo also. . . Full
directions in separate columns for minister and
server are provided for a solemn celebration of the
Eucharist, otherwise High Mass. . . If every church
with a fairly full ceremonial carried out the direc-
tions of this book the Church of England would be
in a much healthier condition than she is to-day. . .
Even in the Roman rite there is much more variety
than many realize. For example, who can tell the
correct position for the Roman subdeacon during
the Sanctus? (!)
Regarding the obligation of assisting at Mass
we find them with strange ingenuousness quoting
Catholic theologians: for example, "In his notice
of Fr. Koch's Moral Theology your reviewer says
that only in this work and in Noldin's has he seen
it stated that a bride-to-be has a valid reason
excusing her from attending at Mass in the fact
that her banns are to be proclaimed. Marchantius
would excuse also the young man for the reason
that the people present by looking about and smiling
at him are apt to cause him confusion."
And that mere devotion draws the Anglican we
deduce from this rejoinder: "The City churches
are not so empty on week days as Lord Knutsford
pretends. At St. Magnus' on the Feast of the Con-
ception B. V. M., December 8, nearly two hundred
were present at Mass at 12:15." Such devotion
might well be fostered by such a eulogy as this
from the Rev. H. C. Frith : "The Mass is the nearest
earthly approach to Heaven, because here is the
Bread that cometh down from Heaven. The life in
Heaven is one with the baptismal life; and the
baptismal life begins here, and is nourished and
renewed by each Communion that we make."
22
Val
ues
Grace Keon
ffi
'ARION DOWNING had a fairy Godmother.
She didn't look the part. She was
old and bent and gray, and Marion, though
she loved her, saw her seldom. But the
month after Marion was married she sent her a check
and a letter.
"This money is not to be spent on anything
Bob can buy you, but the little picayune trifles that
you may need to make you happy for the next dozen
years. It is to purchase for you, my dear, a sense
of humor. When you find life getting too serious
use some of it foolishly.
"And now about yourself, little bride. I'm
past my three-score years and ten, and I've seen a
few little brides in my time. Let me say to you
that you can have everything you want if you know
how to get it.
"These are the things that the world values,
placed as the world values them :
"Riches. Pleasure. Position. Love. Honesty.
Loyalty. Virtue. Faith.
"Make your choice now, little bride. Weigh
your values. And may the Blessed Mother of God,
to whom I dedicated you before I left the church
the day you were baptized, keep you and guard
you."
Some weeks later the fairy godmother departed
to a new court, and to- the presence of a King for
whom she had always longed.
In life she was a wealthy woman. Some one
asked Marion Downing if she had been left any-
thing.
"Why " said Marion, vaguely, through
her tears, "yes a letter "
* * * *
(HE looked at her husband across the dinner-
table. Beside them little Bobby fidgeted,
and she was kept busy with the active child.
The elder Bob paid no attention. His eyes were
scanning, eagerly, the financial reports, and there
was a smile playing about his lips. Twice Marion
spoke to him. Both times he had to arouse himself
to answer her. And then a faint call from the next
room brought her hurriedly to her feet.
"That is Anne," she said. "Come, Bobby —
you've had enough!" She lifted the boy and carried
him into the adjoining room where five-year-old
Anne lay, convalescing from a severe attack of
bronchitis and was in that irritable stage which
marks the beginning of a return to health. And
Marion talked gaily to her while she bathed Bobby's
hands and face, and prepared him for bed.
"Why doesn't Dearest Dad come in?" asked
Anne, fretfully. "He wasn't in last night, either."
"Just as soon as he finishes his supper, I hope,
darling," said Marion, consolingly. "You know how
tired and hungry Dearest Dad is when he comes
home. Be his own Littlest Mother, Anne."
A satisfied smile played about the child's lips.
She watched Bobby's undressing; prayers were said,
and he was covered carefully in his crib. Then
Marion tip-toed into the next room, where the six-
months' old baby was sleeping peacefully. And
tip-toed out again, past Bobby and Anne, whose
eyes were closing — but opened them as the mother
went by.
"You tell Dearest Dad to come just as soon as
ever he can," she whispered, drowsily.
"I'll tell him," said the mother.
She had been twenty minutes out of the dining-
room. In that twenty minutes Bob had transferred
himself and his paper to an easy chair beside the
glowing grate, had found his slippers, and was
evidently settled for the evening, for his official-
looking bag was open on the floor and he was still
immersed in the financial news. Marion noticed,
however, that her own chair had been placed ready
for her on the other side of the fire.
She cleared the table softly, carried the dishes
into the kitchen, put the tapestry runner back, and
on top of it the little crystal globe with its golden
chrysanthemums. As she was washing the dishes
the bell rang and she had to dry her hands hurriedly
and run to the door. Frank Peyton stood there,
smiling at her in his boyish fashion.
"Hello, Marion! Where's Bob?"
"In the dining-room," said Marion, smiling back.
She was not sure that Bob would be particularly
pleased at this interruption, but she believed in
smiling back. Frank Peyton was a boisterous fellow,
not averse to hearing himself talk — and this evening
was no exception to the rule, for it was his voice,
sharp, persuasive, that floated out to her in the
kitchen. She wondered at Bob's patience — since he
THE t SIGN
had come home evidently prepared to put in some
hours' work. The dishes finished at last, with every-
thing in order, she hung her apron on the hook
behind the door and rolled down her sleeves. She
was very tired, and yawned, tapping her mouth with
her fingers as she entered the dining-room. She
glanced at the clock. Nine-thirty! Already! Well,
it had been a long day and a hard day, but if the
children rested comfortably she could make up for
it by a good night's rest. Poor little Anne ! Dearest
Dad would not have a chance to talk to her to-night.
Poor Dearest Dad! He worked so hard and had
such brief time for them
It would be nice, afterward, when he could let
up some, and give the children more of himself. It
did not matter so much now, really they were
so little, little satisfied them
Bob did not rise from his easy-chair — he was
engrossed in some papers lying on his knee. But
Frank Peyton sprang to his feet, greeting her with
enthusiasm.
"Don't you ever get cross, Marion?" he asked.
"You should show me the door when I tumble in
on Bob and you this way."
"Oh, no," smiled Marion.
"I keep telling Norma she ought to come over
here and find out the secret of your temper," he
continued. "Why don't you pass it on, Marion?"
"My gracious, there's no secret about it,"
exclaimed Marion. "I suppose I'm just content —
and if there's any secret in that, she's welcome to it.
And now — I'll say good-night, Frank "
Bob gathered up the papers at this and rose.
"Yes, dear," he said. "Frank and I are talking
business "
She nodded and passed into the bedroom. In
the act of closing the door, she stood looking down
at Anne, who was fast asleep, her heavy lashes
casting shadows en the pale cheeks. How white
and frail she looked — she who had been so pretty,
so full of life
"How do you do it, Bob?" she heard Frank
Peyton ask, and there was a note of wonder, it
seemed, in his voice. "She's as smart as can be
when it comes to commonsense and yet she never
seems to have a thought beyond you and the
children."
"She hasn't," said Bob.
"Norma would die in a week if she had to live
her sort of life.
"What sort of life?" demanded Bob, and there
was a note of vexation in his voice that made Marion
smile. "We have a good home She has every-
thing she wants She has the children
I never deny her anything "
"Um But does she ever ask you for any-
thing?" questioned Frank. " I wish you could hear
Norma ! If you were married to Norma — well, that's
that. Let's settle these details now, Bob) — "
^^^HEY were off into their business discussion
V/ J again. Marion closed the door softly, a little
warm feeling stirring through her. The dif-
ference between her and Norma was great, of course.
If ever there was an irresponsible being in the world
it was Norma. The Firefly, they called her. She
could dance like a fairy and her voice, when
she sang, had a thrill to it that sent one's pulses
leaping. She played an absurd little ukulele, tied
up, generally, with an orange ribbon, and sat on a
pile of cushions, Turk fashion, her fingers skipping,
her body swaying a little chuckle of laughter
rose in Marion's throat as she imagined Bob's face
if he saw her, Marion, doing that. The digni-
fied mother of three glorious children! Why, Norma
Peyton was no more fit to be married than a baby!
Or to make a home, either! Just think of all that
Marion Downing was doing with her life! Three
children ! No wonder she felt old ! She was twenty-
six. Twenty-six ! But Norma Peyton was
twenty-seven! She had told her so herself
Marion knelt to say her prayers, and then stole
into bed, lying on the side next the baby's crib —
a round, fat, Dotty Dimples of a baby, bubbling
over with good-nature. Norma Peyton, indeed!
Funny — she couldn't get her out of her head. Her
thoughts went back to the day after baby was born.
Norma Peyton had come in, looking like a rose, in
a clinging white gown — perfumed, perfect, lovely.
"My dear, my dear. Another one! Another!
How can you?"
■ "How can I?" smiled Marion. "Just look at
her, Norma."
"No, I won't. I'm disgusted — plain disgusted."
"Good gracious, Norma! Is it posible you are
absurd enough to pity me ? I'm the happiest mother
in the world!"
"You certainly look the part. No, I'm not wast-
ing any pity on you, Marion. But I'm sorry for Bob.
Think of saddling a bright young fellow like Bob
with so many responsibilities! It's enough to drag
him down — hold him back — kill him! Smother all
his ambition!"
THE 1* SIGN
"You're surely crazy, Norma," said Marion,
smiling placidly. "The more Bob has to work for,
the more he has to build on, you foolish creature."
Norma said no more, and Marion, in her own
serene way, gave the talk no further consideration —
though she did relate part of it to Bob> — this wise:
"Just think! If she had a darling girl like Anne —
or a little soldier like Bob — or a fuzzy, roly-poly
pot of butter like this?"
"Marion," grinned Bob, "why do you try to
understand Norma Peyton? You live in two dif-
ferent worlds, and neither one of you knows the
other's language."
Marion recalled all of it. "Poor little Norma!"
she said, under her breath. "Poor little Norma!"
She touched the small hand lying curled outside the
cover. What a satiny hand — what delicate nails —
what a little mouth, pursed up like rosebud! Babies
were like flowers — pure flowers. Fit to blossom only
in the garden of God! Why, after all, should she
say poor little Norma? Norma knew what she was
doing — Norma's choice lay with Norma herself.
She lay awake, thinking the long thoughts of
motherhood. Presently she heard the outer door
close, and Bob moving around the dining-room,
whistling softly under his breath. He stepped
softly through the room where Anne and Bobby lay,
and sat down in the chair close beside their bed.
In the dim light Marion could see the brightness of
his face. His eyes were shining.
"Awake, Marion?"
"Yes."
"Good thing Frank let me in on to-night. It
will add an extra few ciphers to that country house
account of ours."
"Really, Bob?" She turned her fair face
toward him. The light fell on her shinning hair.
It looked halo-like.
"Yes. It's about Curtin. He's up against
it hard. I'm going to make him a proposition to-
morrow. He'll sell. And Frank has a buyer ready.
We'll clear up big without handling a cent."
"Fine," said Marion. "Of course it's all right
if you're going into it, Bob."
"Faithful little woman!" he bent over to kiss
her. "I can't do anything wrong in your eyes, can
I, Marion?"
"Wrong?" she echoed, softly. "Well, you see,
my eyes are not the only ones — there's Littlest
Mother's and Bobby's and Baby's I was just
looking at Baby and loving her. She's like an angel-
flower, if there's such a thing, pink and white and
shining. And they're all going to be so proud of
you, Bob — just as proud as I am."
"Foolish kid!" smiled her husband. "I'm just
an ordinary American business man, Marion."
"Well, yes," she agreed; "and Dearest Dad to
three of the most wonderful children in the world."
(HE turned her face toward the softly breathing
baby, and long before he had undressed she
was asleep. But it seemed to Bob Downing
that something was very flat in his mouth. As
if he had been drinking wine that had sent the blood
in leaps through his veins — and then tasted dregs.
It lasted, too, and the taste was bitter.
In the morning as soon as he reached the
office, he called up Frank Peyton.
"It's off, Frank," he said, briefly.
"What's off!" came the explosive answer.
"The Curtin thing. Not quite clean, Frank.
"The Curtin thing — the Curtin — Say, you can't
mean it, Bob. Say, it's the greatest — Say, let me
get over there — I'll show you "
"Off, off, off, Frank! Thought it over. Looks
shady. Won't do it. Couldn't sleep a wink — and
now I've decided. Can't afford to take a chance."
The voice at the other end of the wire was
suddenly cold.
"I'd like to know your real reason, Bob. It's
a sure thing — not a chance about it."
"Yes yes. I'm sorry."
"Well of course I'm disappointed.
If you had intimated last night "
"I know. Wish I had looked at it then the way
I do now. I can't help it."
"Good-by, Bob."
"Good-by, Frank."
"And that's that," thought Bob to himself,
echoing Frank's phrase of the previous evening. "I
suppose he'll not come near me again in a hurry."
He was mistaken. Frank Peyton was too
ephemeral and too impressed with the value of Bob's
business friendship to allow any protracted break
between them. And as Bob felt almost apologetic,
they met on the best of terms.
* * * *
QORMA PEYTON flew into the big living-room
of the Downing flat two afternoon's later.
"Just had to see how Nan was getting
on," she said. "Hello, lovey-dovies! Three guesses!
What has Aunt Nonnie got in her bundle?"
THE 1* SIGN
She settled down like a brilliant bird on the
floor beside Anne's big chair, and Bobby, squealing,
threw himself upon her. She snuggled his hand-
some, rosy face into her furs and he drew away,
sputtering — to bounce in her lap once more — "right
side up," he said.
Mother and baby sat in a low rocker. Baby
had just had her dinner and was playing with her
bare toes.
"Anne has invented a new name for her — this
is Baby Wee," smiled the mother. "Now we have
Littlest Mother, and Bobby Bounce, and Baby Wee!
Meet the family, Aunt Nonnie!"
"I've got a monkey that can climb over and
under, forwards and backwards, and do one million,
five hundred thousand tricks," said Aunt Nonnie.
"He guaranteed — the man did — this monkey as
being absolutely the perfectest monkey out of the
Zoo."
Anne was staring, fascinated, at the long paper
parcel.
"A monkey!" she said.
"A monkey," nodded Norma. "Bobby, you're
strangling me. I've got a top for you. It plays
ten tunes. He played the whole ten for me."
"Oh, Aunt Nonnie!" sighed Anne, "I love
you!"
"Umph!" said the practical Bobby. "I love
you hundreds of times more'n she does. Where's
the top?"
Marion giggled. Aunt Nonnie watched the
excited little faces, the trembling little fingers un-
wrapping their packages.
"Lovable! Adorable!" she said. "But oh,
Marion how do you stand it?"
"Stuff and nonsense," said Marion.
"Don't you get tired?"
"Pooh, pooh, silly woman!" remarked Marion.
"Never to lose them for one single, solitary
moment ? Never to breathe except in the same air ?
Never to see anything without having them intercept
the view? Never — "
"Quoth the raven " suggested Marion.
"Why don't you get behind that man of yours
and make him hustle ? If you had money you could
have someone help you take care of them; you could
enjoy them all the more if "
Oh, keep quiet, Norma," said Marion. "Really,
I think you come up here to see me when you want
to vent your bad temper on something that won't
fight back."
"Well — you're about right at that," said Norma.
"But I mean it, too, this time. There's that husband
of yours could have cleared at least five thousand
dollars for himself — maybe more — with as much —
and maybe more — in it for Frank. And he wouldn't.
I was so disappointed when Frank told me — Well —
I won't repeat what I said."
Marion was looking at her puzzled.
"If Bob did anything like that — there must have
been good reasons why — "
"Oh, yes. He had an excuse. Something silly
about things being not quite — well, quite honest.
Now you needn't look as if someone had made you
a present of that five thousand dollars — "
"Now, Norma — "
"Go on! I think you are at the bottom of it.
That's the second time Bob's turned down a chance
— five thousand dollars! Maybe more! Think of
it! Business men kill each other every day for half
that sum!"
"Not business men like Bob."
"Oh! Bob, Bob! What's so remarkable about
Bob I'd like to know? I don't see any difference;
he's just like a dozen others!" Her brown eyes
were snapping, and her red mouth reminded
Marion, who was watching it with admiration, of
baby's pout —
"You're not married to him," Bob's wife
answered, gently. "And you don't know what it
means to a man like Bob to be Dearest Dad to
Anne and Bobby — and this little rosy-posy."
"It's honest-to-God," murmured Norma, half
under her breath. Really! Sometimes I wonder!
It doesn't seem possible that such a soft-spoken,
gentle thing — " She shrugged her shoulders, then,
and looked at the cooing baby. "She is a beauty,
isn't she, Marion? She'll be the prettiest of the
three, I think."
"No, no, no!" protested Marion. "Anne is
too pale yet — but wait until she recovers, and gets
back her color. Anne is just like a pink wild rose
when she is well."
"Yes," conceded Norma. She threw off her
fur coat, and it slipped in a heap on the floor. "This
sort of thing ought to make me sick, seeing that I
don't believe in the fine art of domesticity — but — it
doesn't. It's good to get over here, and even to talk
to you, in spite of the fact that I am positive you
are the cause of Dearest Dad doing me out of the
handsomest diamond ring I could find!"
"But you have three!" protested Marion.
THE + SIGN
"So I have — three diamonds. And you have
three babies."
"As if there were any comparison."
"None!" mocked Norma. "My diamonds are
no trouble."
"And no value," said Marion, quietly. "To me
they're just like the toys you've brought the babies.
Things to play with."
"Well — all right, Cornelia. Every one to her
taste." She swayed back and forth. "I want you
to break loose for an evening next week. Will you ?
I am giving a party — a real party. You and Bob
will come? Please?" she coaxed.
Marion considered.
"I haven't been out in nearly a year," she said.
"Good! You'll have a fine time. Do, like a
darling — I'm always talking of Marion Downing —
and no one ever sees you. Will you try?"
"What evening?"
"Thursday."
"I think so. I can get some one to stay here
with the children if Bob has no other plans."
Norma stared at her.
"Marion, honestly, you'd spoil the best man
ever made."
"Norma, don't, please. Bob's too good. He
can't be spoiled."
"Oh, all right, all right! We won't begin that
again! Only — if I made plans for that evening
Frank wouldn't have any — Or if he had — Well, it's
all right." She repeated the words. "I'll expect
you. Dinner, entertainment. Marie Wheeler
promised to sing."
"And you'll sing, too, Norma?"
"Perhaps!"
"I don't want to go unless you do. Go over
there and sing something for me now. Please,
Norma. I love it so!"
"Marion, you're about as old as that baby on
your lap," she jibed. But she darted to the piano,
and ran her fingers over the keys. It was like a
vivid flame, her music, like herself — a saucy, lilting,
maddening torrent of notes, through which her voice
ran like a light thread.
"Oh, Norma!" breathed Marion. "It's lovely.
I suppose I should be ashamed to say it, but I'm
not very fond of classical music — and that thing
you played then. . . .well, it just goes to one's head."
"That's a nice expression from a little saint!"
remonstrated Norma. "You should prefer hymns."
"I like hymns, too," said Marion. "I love
them."
"Well, then, tell Bob I'll forgive him for that
diamond ring if he gives me next Thursday night.
You hear?"
"Yes, I hear," smiled Marion. She watched
her flutter to Anne, kiss the pale cheek, squeeze
Bobby, and then, with a warm kiss for herself and
Baby, Norman Peyton drifted away.
"Aunt Nonnie's like our canary," said Anne.
"She can't stay quiet."
"No," said Marion. "But she is so pretty, and
she can sing such lovely songs."
"Yes," said Anne. She pulled the string and
the monkey climbed to the upper perch where he
swayed dizzily. "Though I wouldn't like her to sing
me to sleep nights. I like your singing better."
Marion laughed.
"Aunt Nonnie's singing is meant to keep
people awake — it's that sort of singing. And I'm
glad you like mine better at night."
Later Anne was talking of Aunt Nonnie's sing-
ing to her father.
"It's all shivery, Dearest Dad," she said, "but
it's pretty, too. Aunt Nonnie is pretty."
"Lovely, Anne."
"Will you give the Peytons next Thursday
evening, Bob?" asked Marion. "I'd like to go — I
haven't been out in so long, and it will probably
be just an informal affair. She says," she added,
"that she'll forgive you for the diamond ring you
cheated her out of, if you go."
"The diamond ring I cheated her out of?"
echoed Bob Downing. "What does she mean,
Marion?"
"I don't know, Bob. Something about a deal
you didn't go into with Frank. I wasn't interested,"
said Marion, placidly.
Bob Downing leaned his check against Anne's
fair head.
"I didn't cheat her out of it," he said. "Dearest
Dad did that."
* * * *
(0 they went to the party. Norma was a born
hostess. The dinner, served by a high-priced
caterer, was perfection, and the guests in-
cluded a writer, a well-known actress, two business
men of Bob's acquaintance, and Marie Wheeler,
whose services could not be bought. She was
Norma's friend.
Norma herself was the center of interest. She
THE + SIGN
wore a gown of red and gold; she sang; she played
the ukulele, without the orange ribbon this time,
sitting Turk fashion on a pile of cushions. And
Marion thoroughly enjoyed it all. Every one
pleased her. Everything was beautiful. Lovely.
Exquisite. The writer talked to her and found her
an awed listener. The actress enacted a scene from
one of her plays and Marion wept at its pathos. Mr.
Walters and Mr. Carruthers chattered pleasantly and
found in her simplicity and commonsense something
that made them wonder how she came to be such a
firefly's friend. And when Marie Wheeler sang
Cara Nome, all seemed satisfied to watch the rapture
on Marion's face. Then it was time to leave — and
she said, regretfully, that it seemed to her as if she
had just come.
"You were the success of Norma's party," said
Bob. It was after one o'clock when they reached
their little flat. All was serene. The children and
the caretaker were sound asleep — Marion stole about
softly, from one to the other, assuring herself of
this, before she showed that she had heard him.
"But, Bob! How can you! Not a single thing
have I — not one accomplishment! But oh, how I
did enjoy it! And oh, how glad I am to get home!"
He went to the window and threw it open,
drawing her cloak over her shoulders. They stood
side by side looking up at the clear blue sky.
"You did enjoy it, Marion? Why?"
"Because — " she hesitated. "Well — because
I knew we were only playing. The real thing is
here — and we have it."
"The real thing is here — and we have it."
"And besides, I know," she went on, with brows
puckered, "that neither of us can go very far wrong,
with those little hands waiting to clasp ours, those
clear eyes waiting to meet ours, those little mouths
waiting for our kisses. Perhaps that is why I am so
sure, Bob, nothing can go wrong with us."
"But there is something else, Marion."
"What else?"
"Can't you guess?"
"You mean that I — "
"Yes. They're living for themselves over there
— they're not building. We're building, Marion."
"Building!" exclaimed Marion. "What a nice
way to put it! Building — on God — on each other —
for God, for each other. No one could say that but
you, Dearest Dad."
"I didn't say it all," he teased. Then, laugh-
ingly, under his breath, "Though for a little while
I was about persuaded that the honors were all
mine!"
"Good gracious!" said Marion, with the chuckle
he knew so well in her throat. "To-morrow I'm
going to spend a few dollars of godmother's money
on something foolish. Positively."
Yes, Marion Downing had a fairy godmother.
She wrote:
"Riches. Pleasure. Position. Love. Honesty.
Loyalty. Virtue. Faith."
And Marion, having a keen sense of values,
had chosen. She began at the bottom of the
world's preference, and built up. It didn't matter
much what was at the top, if Faith made the corner-
stone.
The Passion In War Memorials
^^^HE Sacred Passion of our Lord seems to be
Ij the favorite thought in most of the Anglican
war memorials; the figure of the Crucified
painted in a panel, a three-light window with the
Crucifixion and figures of our Lady and St. John,
Calvarys of Portland stone, etc. In Sussex some
twenty wayside crosses have been erected as
memorials of the war. Recently at the unveiling
of one of these Major-General Sir John Daniell
reminded his audience that nearly all the villages
of England had their village cross 300 years ago,
but with few exceptions, all had disappeared. They
were intended to direct minds to the One Great
Sacrifice; and he hoped that they would see that
no harm came to their cross.
28
God's Wonder Book
Marie Ellerker, O. S. D.
aOU have often seen the deacon or server
accompanying the priest to the altar carry-
ing the large Mass book which is called the
Missal. You have probably often wished
that you could read Mass from it like the priest.
How to do this is what you and I are going to find
out together.
You will want a Missal of your own and you
will want one that is not all in Latin. You can
secure one in English and Latin from any Catholic
bookseller by asking for a "Missal for the Laiety."
To me the Missal is God's Wonder Book. Out
of it the priest reads the prayers of Holy Mass,
and in it are those most wonderful, powerful words
which change the bread and wine into the Body
and Blcod of Christ, and give us Jesus on the altar
as our Emmanuel — our God with us. How could
any Catholic help being thrilled at the thought of
having a Missal of his own, and knowing how to
use it ? Can you think of any better way of hearing
Holy Mass, than following word by word the priest,
whose lips are being used by Jesus, the great in-
visible Priest, who says every Mass?
I don't want you to get a wrong or a narrow idea.
Every prayer is good to say at Holy Mass. We must
never think our way is the only way. So although I
want to help you to love your Missal, to love to use
the Church's very own prayers during Mass, you must
never forget that it is joining in the great Act of
Sacrifice that matters. If the person next you saying
her beads not too quietly is doing this better than
you, then her prayer is giving more glory to God
than yours, even if you read your whole Mass in
Latin, and do not miss a single prayer. I expect
a story will help you to understand how not to hear
Mass:
A certain little boy, whom we will call Jack,
wanted to pray well on a certain special occasion,
but a very queer idea of what praying well meant
had got into his head. He thought he would read
as many prayers as he could during Mass! When
it was over he rushed home and announced: "I
have read the Ordinary of the Mass through eight
times."
QOW let us take our Missal and examine it.
I think it will help to make the finding of our
places easier and simpler if we made a list,
showing the order in which the parts of the Mass
come:
The Sign of the Cross, The Psalm and Con-
fiteor, The Introit, Kyrie and Gloria, Collects, Epistle
Gradual and Alleluia or Tract, Gospel, Creed. The
Offering of the Bread and Wine, Lavabo, Secret
Prayers, Preface. Prayers for the Living, Con-
secration and Elevation, Prayers following the Con-
secration, including Prayer for the Dead. Our
Father, Lamb of God, Lord, I am not worthy,
Priest's Communion. Communion, Post-Communion,
Priest's blessing, Last Gospel.
In the ages of faith, even tiny children were
not unfamiliar with the inside of a Missal, I have
just read this little story in a life of St. Hugh of
Lincoln. Speaking of St. Hugh's chaplain, the
writer says:
"This priest tells us how he had the honour
of giving the first lesson to one of the nephews
of the Saint. The pupil, who was just seven years
old, and whose name was John, had accompanied
his uncle to Belley. It was in the cathedral of that
town, and upon the altar dedicated to St. John the
Baptist, that a Missal was laid open, from which
the little child was to learn to read. With this
beautiful ceremony, he received his first lesson."
You must know that in this series of articles,
I am speaking particularly of Low Mass, to which
you will probably go most often. Now and again,
I refer to High Mass and its ceremonies, especially
when there is something which I think will be of
particular interest to you.
II
QFTER making the Sign of the Cross the priest
says alternately with the server the beautiful
42nd. Psalm. I once heard the late Father
Bertrand Wilberfore, 0. P., preach a whole first
Communion retreat from that one Psalm. This
should make you look at it carefully, and try to
make you find out how much there is in it. You
must not be like the girl I once heard who said :
"I wonder why the Church put that psalm
there; there seems to be nothing in it."
THE t SIGN
I wonder what verse of this psalm you prefer.
Perhaps it is the Antiphon : "I will go unto the altar
of God : to God who giveth joy to my youth."
Or: "Send forth Thy light and Thy truth:
they have conducted me into Thy holy mount and
into Thy tabernacles."
Do not only follow the words of the Mass,
but notice, too, the ceremonies which the Church
uses; they are always full of meaning. For in-
stance, at this part of the Holy Mass the priest
bows down to acknowledge his sins, reminding us
to humble ourselves ax the feet of God, even as the
priest stands at the foot of the altar, because we
are sinners, and unworthy to approach him.
The Confiteor which the priest now says has
not always been in exactly the same words with
which you are familiar. In earlier times it was
much shorter, and a short form is still used by the
Carthusians, Carmelites and Dominicans.
XF you go to a Dominican church, you will
notice that the Fathers do not say the 42nd
Psalm. They prepare their chalice before
beginning Mass, and then, having found the place
in the Missal, they stand at the middle of the altar,
and say the little prayer :
"Prevent, O Lord, our actions by Thy inspira-
tion, and further them by Thy help that every
work of ours may always begin from Thee, and by
Thee be happily ended. Through Jesus Christ our
Lord. Amen."
Coming to the foot of the altar, the priest makes
the Sign of the Cross, saying "Praise the Lord for
He is good," to which the server answers: "For
His mercy endureth for ever."
Then follows the Confiteor.
This is the short form used by Dominicans:
"I confess to Almighty God, and to blessed
Mary ever virgin, and to blessed Dominic our Father,
and to all the Saints and to you, Father, that I
have sinned exceedingly by thought, word, deed,
and omission, through my fault, and I beseech you
to pray for me."
Notice the beautiful wording of the Misereatur
prayer which follows :
"May Almighty God have mercy upon you,
and may He forgive you all your sins; may He free
you from all evil; may He save you and strengthen
you in every good work, and may He lead you to life
eternal. Amen."
Ill
^^^HE Confiteor with its accompanying versicles
l J ended, the priest goes up to the altar, saying:
"Take away from us our iniquities, we
beseech Thee, 0 Lord, that we may be worthy to
enter with pure minds into the Holy of Holies,
throught Christ our Lord. Amen."
Having reached the altar, you will see him bend
down and kiss it. This is a mark of respect, be-
cause the altar is a figure of Jesus Christ Himself;
it is also done to reverence the martyrs "whose
relics are here."
At High Mass the altar is now incensed for
the first time. Do not forget to notice the cere-
monies. For instance, you will see that the deacon,
when handing anything to, or taking anything from,
the priest, kisses both the object and the hand of
the priest. In simple easy ways like these, our
Holy Mother the Church tries to get into our heads
and hearts the deep love and reverence we ought to
have for this great Sacrifice and everything con-
nected with it.
The Introit which follows is really the be-
ginning of the Mass. The Psalm and Confiteor, of
which we have just spoken, were originally the
private prayers of preparation which the priest
said as he went in procession from the sacristy to
the altar. In olden times these varied considerably,
and when at last Pope Pius V. fixed them, he pro-
bably adopted the most popular form.
I think I can make you understand this from
the practice in our own days with regard to Holy
Communion. You are free to use any prayers you
like in preparation; every prayer book has its Acts
before Communion. Now if our holy father wished
to fix certain prayers to be said in this country, he
might take some widely used form, such, I suppose,
as that found in the "Garden of the Soul," and
make that the Church's prayer of preparation.
Something like this has happened in the fixing
of the Liturgy.
While the priest was saying his own private
prayers the procession wended its way to the altar
to the accompaniment of music. The choir sang
a Psalm. One verse of it was sung at the beginning
and repeated after each succeeding verse as a sort
of refrain. This we call the Antiphon.
The singing was required only during the pro-
cession, and when it reached the altar, even if the
Psalm were unfinished, the Choir ended with the
THE t SIGN
"Glory be to the Father" and the Antiphon repeated.
The Introit is not found in the Ordinary of
the Mass, because it is a part which changes from
day to day. You will find it wherever the feast
that is being kept is placed in your Missal.
You will often be struck, not only by the beauty
of the words of the Introit, but by the way they
just suit the feast for which they have been chosen.
Take your Missal and look at the Introit for the
feast of Corpus Christi, and the three Introits for
Christmas day.
IV
eOING to the middle of the Altar, the priest
says alternately with the server the Kyrie
Eleison.
These are two Greek words which mean : "Lord
have mercy on us." They are an invocation to the
Blessed Trinity. "Kyrie Eleison" is said three times
to God the Father; the "Christe Eleison" three times
to God the Son; and again three times "Kyrie
Eleison" to God the Holy Ghost.
They are the only Greek words in our Mass
now, if we except some words sung only on Good
Friday. I have said now, because you should know
that this could be changed at any time if the Church
thought such a change wise. At one time in Rome
itself the entire Mass was said in Greek. To this
day the Holy Sacrifice is offered in nine different
languages in different countries, by Catholics own-
ing obedience to our holy Father the Pope.
Besides the Greek of the Kyrie, there are in
the Mass some Hebrew words — "Amen," "Alleluia,"
"Sabaoth," "Hosanna." Writers who wish to re-
mind us that the Mass is one and the same sacrifice
with that of Calvary sometimes point out that the
inscription upon the Cross, "Jesus of Nazareth, the
King of the Jews," was written in the three lan-
guages of our Mass — in Hebrew, in Greek, and in
Latin.
Except on mournful occasions the Kyrie is fol-
lowed by the Gloria in excelsis Deo, the "Angelic
Hymn" as it is often called, because its opening
words are the welcome given by the Angels on the
first Christmas night to the Babe who was their
God and King.
The Church has always shown very special
devotion to the Gloria. In the early ages to say
it was the privilege of a Bishop; it was long years
before a simple priest was allowed to say it except
on Easter Day and the day of his ordination. There
are many directions given for the saying of it. You
will see that the priest goes to the middle of the
altar, he extends his hands, raises them towards
heaven, and then rejoins them. Several times he is
told to bow his head. These directions are called
"rubrics," from a Latin word meaning "red." In
the priests's Missal they are printed in red, so that
they may stand out from the actual words of the
Mass.
You should love to make yourself familiar with
the rubrics, then you will know when to bow your
head if you are at a High Mass and the Gloria is
being sung.
The Gloria, like the Kyrie, is a prayer addressed
to the Blessed Trinity. The first part is to God the
Father; from "O Lord Jesus Christ" to God the
Son; and the words "With the Holy Ghost" to
God the Holy Ghost.
SATHER Nieubarn, O. P., in a book called
"The Holy Sacrifice and its Ceremonies,"
has a very nice thought. He says: "This
hymn of praise throws into relief the four principal
ends of the Mass. It is a hymn of adoration, "We
adore Thee;" of thanksgiving, "We give Thee
thanks;" of propitiation, "Who takest away the
sins of the world;" of supplication, "Receive our
prayers."
I knew a person to whom the good God had
sent many and heavy crosses. She was a very brave
woman, and very generous, and she had a great
devotion to the Gloria in excelsis. Once she had
been cut to the heart by the cruel conduct of one
whom she loved. She had been telling me of her
grief, and ended very simply by saying: "I went
down the steps, but I could hardly see where I was
going, and when I reached the gate I just leaned
against it, and said the Gloria right through." I
think that was splendid. It must, I am sure, have
sounded like beautiful music in the ears of God.
As a last thought I suggest to you that you
should read the Gloria very slowly, and see what
a beautiful thanksgiving it would make for Holy
Communion.
"Glory be to God on high, and on earth peace to
men of good will. We praise Thee; we bless Thee;
we adore Thee; we glorify Thee. We give Thee
thanks for Thy great glory, O Lord God, heavenly
King, God the Father Almighty. 0 Lord Jesus
Christ, the only begotten Son; O Lord God, Lamb
of God, Son of the Father, who takest away the
sins of the world, have mercy on us; Thou who
31
THE + SIGN
takest away the sins of the world, receive our
prayers; Thou who sittest at the right hand of the
Father, have mercy on us. For Thou only art holy :
Thou only art the Lord : Thou only, 0 Jesus Christ,
with the Holy Ghost, art most high in the glory of
God the Father. Amen."
(A Dominican says the Kyrie standing in front
of his Missal. For the Gloria in excelsis he goes to
the middle of the altar and says the first words,
but then returns 'and reads the rest of it from the
book.)
HFTER the Gloria in excelsis, the priest turns
round to exchange with the people the holy
wish:
"The Lord be with you."
"And with thy spirit."
Do you know how many times this is said
during Mass?
Then, going to the Missal, he reads from the
Proper of the day the prayer called the Collect.
It is usually short, very beautiful, and asks for one
thing.
Nearly all these prayers are addressed to God
the Father, a few to God the Son, and none to God
the Holy Ghost.
Sometimes only one Collect is read at Mass,
but there can be as many as seven. These extra
ones may be in honour of some feast which is being
kept, or prayers ordered by the Bishop, or sometimes
chosen by the priest who is saying Mass. You will
notice when there are several that the priest ends
the first one with the usual ending, some such words
as these : "Through Jesus Christ Thy Son our Lord,
who lives and reigns with Thee in the unity of the
Holy Ghost, world without end. Amen."
The other prayers he says as one, and only
the last is ended with these or similar words.
The Collect is the Church's prayer for the day,
and is said not only at Mass, but at the various
Hours of the Divine Office. These prayers of the
Church are very beautiful. It seems a pity we do
not use them much more often in our private de-
votions instead of some of those found in modern
prayer-books, which cannot be compared with them
for beauty of language or accuracy of thought. Look
through them, and see if you cannot find in them
just what you want to say to God. They will give
you, too, the spirit of the Church.
This is the collect for the second Sunday of
Advent. You cannot help feeling how perfectly it
expresses the thought proper to this time of pre-
paration for the coming of the King: "Stir up,
O Lord, our hearts to prepare the ways of Thy only
begotten Son, that by His coming we may be enabled
*o serve Thee with pure minds. Amen."
VI
>~ i'OU will often have brought home to you
I**}' during your life, especially in your reading
and in your studies, the marvellous power
which the Catholic Church has of preserving things.
Our Divine Lord gave her the mission to "go
and teach all nations." Now you will discover that
when the Church found amongst the people she
was striving to win to Christ some custom c
ceremony wmcn could be kept and blessed and
used for the service of God, she took it and made it
her own. If you fix in your mind this beautiful
idea of the Church as a preserver, you will nevei
be like the poor lady with whom I was speaking
some time ago. We were talking about the Mass,
and at a certain point I said: "That is one of the
many things which the Church owes to the Syna
gogue." Her answer was: "What a shocking and
disloyal thing to say!"
Now the Lessons read at Holy Mass are certainly
an inheritance from the services in the Synagogue
in which Our Blessed Lord Himself so often joined,
and part of which consisted of portions read from
the Sacred Scriptures. On ordinary occasions there
are now only two of these portions, one of which
we call the Epistle and one the Gospel, but in
former times there were several. You can see traces
of this still in some Masses, for example, on Ember
days.
The first Lesson came to be called the Epistle,
because it is so often taken from the letters of the
Apostles and chiefly from St. Paul's, but this is not
always the case. Look at your Mass for the Holy
Innocents, the Immaculate Conception, and there
are many other instances where the first Lesson is
not taken from an Epistle.
In the early Church the Acts of the Martyrs
were sometimes read instead of a passage from the
Holy Bible.
In your Missal a certain definite passage is
printed, and you know that just this will be read,
neither more nor less. At one time, however, the
reader went on until the celebrant made him a sign
to stop.
32
THE t SIGN
To read the Epistle is the privilege of the sub-
deacon. When he is ordained a book is given to
him by the Bishop.
This Lesson is read at the south side of the altar,
which we call the Epistle side. We sit during it and
other Lessons, if there are others, always with the
exception of the Gospel. At the end the server
answers: "Deo gratias." (Thanks be to God.)
^^^HE Epistle at the end of this article is taken
y J from the Mass for the Feast of St. Thomas
Aquinas, the Patron-Saint of Catholic schol-
ars. It is an example of a Lesson which is not really
an Epistle; it comes from the Book of Wisdom in
the Old Testament. It helps many people to let the
thoughts put before them in the morning Mass go
through the whole day. If you think it will help
you, you could sometimes take your Missal when
you go to make your visit to Jesus in the Tabernacle.
For example, you could easily make this Epistle
for the feast of St. Thomas into a Eucharistic prayer,
by replacing the words "Spirit of Wisdom" by "the
Blessed Sacrament." At the end you would then
get: "For the Blesed Sacrament is an infinite treas-
ure to men, which they that use become the friends
of God."
That is surely most true.
Epistle for the Feast of St. Thomas Aquinas.
(Wisdom vii. 7-14.)
I wished and understanding was given me : and
I called upon God, and the spirit of wisdom came
upon me:
And I preferred her before kingdoms and
thrones, and esteemed riches nothing in comparison
of her.
Neither did I compare unto her any precious
stone : for all gold in comparison of her, is as a little
sand, and silver in respect to her shall be counted
as clay.
I loved her above health and beauty, and chose
to have her instead of light : for her light cannot be
put out
Now all good things came to me together with
her, and innumerable riches through her hands.
And I rejoiced in all these: for this wisdom
went before me, and I knew not that she was the
mother of them all.
Which I have learned without guile, and com-
municate without envy, and her riches I hide not.
For she is an infinite treasure to men! which
they that use, become the friends of God, being
commended for the gift of discipline.
(To Be Continued)
Ballad of Christ Crucified
J. Corson Miller
They took the good Lord, Christ, with, staves
On the nigkt before He died;
They baited Him with taunts and jeers,
Until the angels cried.
But we — smug citizens of earth,
We are not satisfied.
Tkey bailed tbe good Cbrist to court,
On trumped-up charges all;
Tkey ckeated Him of ev*ery rigkt,
To bring about kis fall.
'Tis so to-day, for Greed and Fraud
Make Hell's kigk carnival.
Tkey scourged tke good Lord Ckrist \0itk ^kips,
Till blood dripped to tke floor;
Tkey crov?ned Him witk a wreatk of tkorns
Tkat cut and cruelly1 tore.
But we, for 'tfkom He suffered all,
We laugk, and call for "More!"
Tkey* placed a cross on tke Lord, Ckrist's back
No kuman strengtk could bear;
Tkey kicked and cuffed and goaded Him,
To drive Him to despair.
Yet kad we been tkere by tke road,
We'd but ka\>e stopped to stare.
Tkey nailed tke Ckrist to a gallows-tree,
And stripped kim of His gov?n;
Before His blood-filmed ey*es tkere stood
Tke wkole revengeful town.
And many carry still to-day1
Tkat selfsame, angry" frown.
Tke Good Lord, Ckrist, died in His blood,
On a kill tkat bitter day;
Bnt v?e — v?e crucify Him still,
In ev'ery sinful way.
O Citizens of all tke world,
Kneel dotfn, and let us pray!
What Do You Know About:
Tke Pope and the
^-— -^ITH its customary effusiveness our Ameri-
W I ^ can press devoted a great deal of space
\M/ to the recent Conclave which elected Pope
Pius XL
Readers have been surfeited with all sorts of
prognostications as to who would succeed Benedict
XV. and what would be his policy particularly as
touching the relations of the Vatican with the
Quirinal.
The greater part of what was printed was
simply the guess-work of unknown and irresponsible
reporters and editors who are not much troubled
above the source of their information or the basis
of their speculation.
The American mind, trained, one would say, to
see in every election merely the sway of political
motives and interests, chose to make the attitude of
the incoming Pope toward the Italian Government
the predominant issue of the Conclave.
The Papacy must, of course, have relations with
the governments of the world and consequently must
have what is called a foreign policy.
But we Catholics should not forget that the
paramount relations of the Holy See are immediate-
ly and supremely concerned with the service of
God and the welfare of souls. Mere newspaper
talk should not make us think otherwise.
With the election of Pope Pius XL it was pro-
claimed that the attitude of the Church towards the
Italian Government would be quite conciliatory and
therefore proportionately progressive.
Mere change is not progress. Conciliation may
be very unprogressive. Catholics should remember
the following principles and facts :
FIRST. The Pope must be independent of any
Government. He is the visible head of the Catholic
Church. That Church is, as its name implies, inter-
national. It is a divine institution with a super-
national purpose. It is distinct from and above all
civil organizations. It embraces all peoples and
must not be identified with any one race or
nationality.
SECOND. This principle was universally
recognized. Hardly had the Church emerged from
the catacombs when the independence of the Papacy
was assured. As early as the fifth century we
have the beginnngs of what is known as the Tem-
poral Power.
Italian Goverment?
THIRD. This principle was violated. When
in 1870 the House of Savoy robbed the Pope of the
Pontifical States it not only flagrantly broke the
seventh commandment by wholesale theft but also
violated the Pope's right to remain absolutely free
in an independent state. No other ruler had such
unquestionable rights to his territory as had the
Pope.
FOURTH. This principle was partially
recognized by the Quirinal. After the confiscation
of the Papal States the Italian Parliament in 1871
passed the so-called Law of Guarantees. By this
law the Pope was declared independent of Italian
jurisdiction; the Vatican property was made extra-
territorial; a sum of $600,000 annually was appro-
priated for the maintainance of the Pope in lieu of
the revenues of which he had been ruthlessly
defrauded.
FIFTH. The Popes have consistently main-
tained this principle. In accordance with this princi-
ple of absolute independence Popes Pius IX., Leo
XIII. , Pius X. and Benedict XV. have unhesitatingly
rejected the overtures of the Italian Government.
They have never accepted the moneys offered them.
They have never relinquished their claim to the
Papal States. They have refused to traverse Italian
territory, and have remained secluded within the
limits of the Vatican palace and gardens. The Pope
has been called a prisoner. He is a prisoner not in
the sense that he is confined in the Vatican but in
the sense that of his own will he will not leave it.
All the Popes since the Italian usurpation have
been remarkable for their foresight and political
sagacity. No fair-minded man can attribute to them
other motives than those best advancing the weighty
interests of their tremendous trust.
Any agreement between the Vatican and the
Quirinal that would imply the subordination of the
Papacy to the Italian Government would make the
head of Christendom the subject of a temporal ruler
and would arouse endless suspicions among other
nations.
This would be true of any other nation making
such an agreement. It was because of the particular
influences that threatened that the whole Catholic
world protested against the establishment of the
Papal court at Avignon, and the forced detention by
Napoleon of Pius VII. in France.
Archconfraternity) of
Success of
'M'^^HE work of the Archconfraternity of the
M Cj Passion is best described by the Apostle
^^_ V St. Paul when he says: "We preach Christ
Crucified." Every effort of the Society is
made with this end in view to persuade the
people to remember devoutly and frequently the
Sacred Passion of Our Lord.
The salutary results of this constant preaching
of the Cross is of course also intended by the
Society. The more faithfully and generously the
people practice some devotion to Christ Crucified,
the greater is their desire for virtue and piety and
holiness. The example of the saints abundantly
proves that the study of the Crucifix inspires self
sacrifice, and gives courage and strength to be true
servants of God. Moreover, the Cross and Passion
more than any other religious truth converts sinners
and teaches them repentance and the safe way to
happiness and eternal life. The history of Our
Divine Lord's sufferings and sacrifice leaves a deep
and lasting impression on those who are "not of the
true fold," and very often brings them to a know-
ledge of the truth and secures for them the gift of
faith.
These different aims of the Archconfraternity
are attained by prayer and example, by sermons and
services in honor of the Passion, and by the distri-
bution of devotional leaflets. The society desires
in every possible way to keep the Passion before the
eyes of men.
Three years ago, on Passion Sunday, the Arch-
confraternity of the Passion was formally established
at St. Michael's Church, West Hoboken, N. J. This
was the first place in America to become a center
of the society. Our late Holy Father, Pope Benedict
XV. bestowed new honors and privileges on the
Archconfraternity, and expressed the hope that it
would soon spread throughout the world. The
Superior General of the Passionist Congregation,
Most Rev. Father Silvius, then urged all the Fathers
and especially the Missionaries to take an active
the Sacred P
assion
the Society*
interest in the society, and to do as much as they
could do to promote its success. The record of the
past three years presents the generous efforts of
the members to promote devotion to the Passion and
also the great events in which they may justly claim
to have taken an important part.
fINCE the solemn inauguration of the Arch-
confraternity in West Hoboken, there have
been thirty six meetings, which with very few
exceptions, were well attended. The few exceptions
occurred on account of stormy weather, or because
for some reason the regular meeting was not held
on the fourth Sunday of the month.
The chief feature of Archconfraternity meetings
is the sermon on the Passion of Our Lord. These
discourses, thirty six in number, were by different
Fathers of the Monastery and presented the Cross
and Passion more in an instructive style than in
making known the incidents and facts of this
mystery. The object of the sermon is not only to
make the people acquainted with the sufferings of
Christ but especially to teach them the virtues and
lessons of the Cross and Passion. The discourses,
it may be said, have contributed much to the success
of the Archconfraternity.
At the regular meeting of the Archconfraternity,
new members were received and invested with the
Black Scapular of the Passion. There are about
five thousand names on the register of the society.
The members divide themselves into three classes.
Some give their names and enroll as members, and
attend the meetings very seldom. They lose none
of the blessings of the Archconfraternity if they
strive to practice devotion to the passion and
endeavor to persuade others to think of Christ
Crucified. The second class of members very
seldom absent themselves from a meeting. They
keep the fourth Sunday of the month as the day of
Our Lord's Passion, and hold to the resolution of
faithfully attending the twelve meetings of the year.
THE f SIGN
A third class are members, who take the most active
interest in the Archconfraternity. They bring new
members with them to almost every meeting. They
try every month to make the society known to
people, who never heard of it. They are assiduous
in devotion to Jesus Crucified, and by their prayers
and example contribute most to the success of the
Archconfraternity.
Devotional leaflets of the Sacred Passion have
been freely distributed at every meeting. Within
the past three years, more than seventy five thousand
of these small pictures and prayers of the Passion
have been given away. That they have made the
Archconfraternity better known and have assisted
considerably in promoting devotion to the Passion
may be judged from the number distributed and the
many requests for them. An advantage in the publi-
cation of these devotions is the power given to the
members to reach all their relatives and friends, and
to bring before their attention, as nothing else could
do, the sufferings and death of Christ. They usually
contain the prayers blessed with rich indulgences
and are a source of many favors to those who use
them.
S FIENDS of the Archconfraternity to express
grateful devotion to Christ Crucified have
donated the large Crucifix, which appeals to
"all who pass by" to remember His sufferings and
death. The banner of the society, the gift of some
members, is always displayed at the regular meet-
ings. The beautiful shrine of St. Gabriel is also
due in some measure to the members of the Arch-
confraternity of the Passion.
By their prayers and good works, the members
have contributed a great share to important events
within the past three years. Besides many retreats
and missions given by the Passionist Missionaries,
they have done much to promote the society in other
places. The Archconfraternity is now established in
a number of churches in different parts of the
country, and in almost every country in the world
where the Passionist Congregation labors for the
salvation of souls.
The members may claim some share in the
success attending the thanksgiving celebration of the
Canonization of St. Gabriel, and the Two Hundreth
Anniversary of the foundation of the Congregation
of the Passion. By their fervent prayers the members
of the Archconfraternity have promoted the mission
to China, so that some of the Fathers have been able
to start for that country and have thus far been
protected and encouraged with every blessing. The
future success of the Chinese mission depends more
on prayer than anything else, and the society will
continue to do its part to promote it.
The spiritual treasury of the society reveals
many Masses heard and Holy Communions received,
and prayers said, and sacrifices made, generous acts
of virtue for promotion of the devotion to the Sacred
Passion. But as God is never outdone in generosity,
many blessings and divine favors have been received
by the members of the Archconfraternity. For the
success of the past three years, sincere and generous
gratitude is offered to Jesus Crucified.
gS the Archconfraternity begins its fourth year,
it is with the hope that God will bless the
society with even greater success. It is desir-
ed that not only the number of members will increase
but that more zealous efforts will be made to think
of the Passion frequently and to keep it in view of
others. It is the aim of the Archconfraternity to
bring the lessons of the Cross into every home, to
build a shrine for Christ Crucified in every heart, to
strengthen souls in every virtue, to give them new
motives for avoiding sin, to arrest the attention of
Non-Catholics that they may come to a knowledge
of the truth through the Sacred Passion of Our Lord.
In the year to come, the Archconfraternity will
continue to preach Crucified by means of devotional
leaflets and books and instructive sermons. The
members will again and again offer their aid by
prayers for the success of missions and retreats, and
all other good works that will promote the grateful
remembrance of Our Suffering Savior.
The success of the Archconfraternity spreads
everywhere the influence of the Cross. The more
people turn their thoughts and their hearts to Christ
on Calvary, the more they become imbued with the
spirit of the Passion, the greater honor and glory will
be given to God, and the peace and happiness, which
He alone can give, will come more and more into the
homes and lives of men.
From Seattle to Yokohama
In Company) With The Passionist Missionaries
Vm-^ITH a prayer of gratitude on
Ml our lips we alighted at
^-*^ Seattle, the "Metropolis of
the West." Already the spell of
the Far East began to envelope us,
for the porters who eagerly sought
to lighten our baggage problems
were all sons of Nippon.
We had expected to shift for our-
selves, once we arrived in Seattle.
You can easily imagine our sur-
prise, then, when we were accosted
by two Jesuit Scholastics who in-
formed us that we were to be the
guests of the Fathers during our
stay in the city. How they knew
of our coming is still a mystery.
It was, indeed, an honor to enjoy
the hospitality of the Jesuits who
have been among the pioneers in
the "Great Oregon Country." De
Smet, Cataldo, etc., are names to
conjure with- in the missionary field.
Their spirit is strong in their
present-day successors. One has
only to talk with these to know of
their keen interest in the missions
of the Far East. To the Rector,
Father O'Shea, and his Brethren
we offer our sincere thanks.
Early the next morning we ran
into something — "the Maryknoll
Smile." It was no mere accident.
We had looked forward with
pleasure to this visit. So we knew
the "smile" would be there. Have
you ever met that smile? Get
acquainted with it, especially you
who live in the vicinity of New
York City or Scranton.
To the Western Teresians we
brought the good wishes of their
Superior, Mother Joseph. In Seattle
the Sisters conduct a kindergarten,
established in May, 1920, for Japan-
ese children. The children gave us
a great entertainment. They danced
and they sang and they said their
Catholic prayers. Little would one
suspect that the great majority of
them are pagans! Only three or
four of them have been baptized.
Our next visit was to the Rt. Rev.
Edward J. O'Dea, Bishop of Seattle.
With wrapt attention we listened to
his reminiscences of missionary
work among the Indians, and we
fear that he has left his heart or
a great portion of it with the
children of the forest. Who could
wonder at this when hearing such
stories as that of a poor squaw who, ,
in order to make the First Friday,
travelled one hundred and fifty
miles with her children and a cayuse.
A hasty trip to the steamship
office reveals the fact that there
is a mountain of mail and packages
Our readers will be pleased
to get some details of the trip
made by the first colony of
Passionist Fathers who have
set forth to evangelize China.
We are happy to announce
that the Fathers will send us
frequent accounts of their
experiences in their arduous
labors for the conversion of
souls in the Chinese Empire.
awaiting us. We learn also that
the Chinese Delegates to the Wash-
ington Conference are to sail with us.
Our last afternoon in Seattle was
spent in looking after a multitude
of travel details and in a short visit
to St. Teresa's Home for Working
Girls. The Bishop is justly proud of
this institution. Here we met some
old friends from Jersey City. In
the chapel, a gem of beauty, Father
Celestine said Mass on the vigil of
Christmas.
VIGIL of Christmas! Long
looked for day ! How eagerly
we packed up our belongings !
Farewell having been said to the
good Jesuits and the Sisters, we set
out for the wharf. A Catholic
architect and his brother who had
shown us every courtesy, and a
Scholastic accompanied us.
Pictures were snapped aboard the
boat, and at exactly eleven the good
ship Wenatchee steamed out of the
harbor. The Jazz band played
merrily on the deck while the
37
passengers threw small rolls of
many-colored paper to the friends
who came to say good-bye. And
good-bye it was for us ! Good-bye
to home, to friends, to all who had
made life happy for us in the good
old U. S. A. But not good-bye to
God: for we felt that His blessing
was with us as it had never been
before.
The passengers were few, due no
doubt to the holidays. But it was
not long before a young Chinaman
approached us and offered his card.
His name is Zeulieng Loo, repre-
sentative in America of the China
Film Co. He is young and very
energetic and has high hopes for
movie business in his native land.
From the button on his English golf
cap to the tip of his patent leather
pumps he is perfection in dress.
Though educated at the Moody
Bible School in Mt. Herman, Mass.,
he impressed us with the fact that
he is not a Christian. Why should
he be? His brother is a Christian
and he is better than his brother —
therefore!
Loo is accompanied by a young
man with an Irish name and an East
Side face. His business is to bring
out the pictures. For some years
he has been connected with the
Methodist Foreign Mission Board.
Now he rejoices in the prospect of
making the movie in China what it
is in America. May the Lord for-
give him !
The sail up the sound was
extremely pleasant. Interviewed
the purser about having public Mass
on Christmas Day. Our next stop
is Victoria, B. C, where we are to
take on about 250 Chinese for the
steerage.
Vir^E had furnished two little
f I 1 chapels in our staterooms,
^*^^ curtaining off the hallowed
spot where the Babe of Bethlehem
was soon to dwell once more
amongst the children of men. Each
Father had the inestimable privilege
of offering the Holy Sacrifice three
times. Two, with a little more zeal
THE I4 SIGN
perhaps, had arisen at midnight to
begin their Masses.
How we wish our dear ones could
have been present! Hundreds of
miles at sea, the Immaculate Lamb
of God again descends from Heaven
to console, to bless, to strengthen
His humble missioners. "Behold I
am with you all days, even to the
end of the world." Our brethren at
home, our relatives, our friends, our
benefactors, none
were forgotten.
The steward had
kindly consented to
fix up the Social
Hall for the public
Mass which was
offered at nine
o'clock. The piano
was the altar,
flowers were ar-
-anged neatly about,
and the chairs put
into place. At ten
minutes to the hour,
the bell-boy march-
ed through the ship
striking a Chinese
gong, and announc-
ing that Catholic
services were to be
held in the Social
Hall.
The attendance
was small, but very
cosmopolitan. We
had expected this,
as there were com-
paritively few pas-
sengers aboard.
Some of the ship's
officers, Catholic
and Protestant ; a
few Filipinos ;
several of the F
Chinese legation,
drawn by curiosity — this was the
congregation. Father Raphael cele-
brated the Mass. Father Timothy
assisted and preached.
A little exercise on deck keeps us
in condition. A istationary golf-
course, shuffle-board, ring-toss, serve
to keep the blood in circulation,
while a brisk walk along the promen-
ade deck is an excellent thing for
the appetite.
Upstairs we have the bodies of
seven deceased Chinamen. Bodies
are being brought back to rest in
their native country. Ancient tra-
dition. No expense is spared by
relatives to do this. Some of the
more wealthy class always bring
their coffin with them. Li Hung
Chang, famous diplomat, carried his
throughout Europe and America.
e
ACH day we gain about forty-
five minutes. At least we
turn our watches back. Later
HER LAMBERT-FR. TIMOTHY— FR. FLAY1.
AGATHO— FR. CELESTINE— FR. RAPHAE
on we are to lose a whole day and
even up matters. The Captain will
decide the day when the time comes.
We are trying to write to our
friends. Not so easy ! Recall a
joke told us by Fr. O'Shea while in
Seattle. A Jesuit missionary received
so many socks at Christmas from
the Sisters, that he wrote and asked
them if they thought he were a
centipede. Wish we had the
tentacles of a centipede to write to
all of our friends.
Secured the use of an empty state-
38
room in which we may celebrate
Mass. This is quite an improvement.
More room, and much more devo-
tional. We gather three times a
day for Spiritual Exercises. The
Rosary, Spiritual Reading, Stations
of the Cross for our benefactors,
living and dead, and the prayer to
St. Paul of the Cross.
A visit to the steerage reveals a
wonderful sight. Shades of Mott
St. ! Hundreds of
Chinese coolies
squatted here and
there and playing
cards as if their
very life depended
on it. Portholes
closed, the air blue
with tobacco smoke,
almost absolute
silence, save when
some excited indi-
vidual makes a haul
— or loses one. Evi-
dently China's most
popular indoor
sport, for the highly
educated gentlemen
in first-class are
also devotees.
Only three ladies
on board, so the
passenger list de-
clares. Vigil of
Christmas does not
appeal to them as
a sailing date, un-
doubtedly. In reali-
ty there are four
out "Katie is a Kat,"
and is not listed.
However Katie
misses none of the
joys peculiar to a
cat's life on shore,,
for she is mauled
and handled by the "kiddies" who
have one of their own at home.
Clang! Clang! Toot! Toot!
Bells ringing, whistles blowing! We
confess wc are scared. Sound of
feet is heard! Hastening above we
find it is a fire and boat drill, a
Monday morning institution in ship-
ping circles. Cards in the state-
rooms say that all passengers should
be notified of this a half hour
previously. It had not been done,,
hence the excitement.
Boat rolling a little to-day. That
THE + SIGN
is "a little" to the sailors, but quite
enough for us. This should not
bother the gentleman who lives next
door, for his business is "looping the
loop," not figuratively, but actually.
He says he is a show-man on his
way to the great Carnival in Manila.
All his paraphernalia is stowed be-
low, and it is costing the Phillipino
government about six thousand dol-
lars to bring him across. He has
figured in some very narrow
escapes. Geting a little old for the
business. Would like to break some
younger men in for the act. Good
chance for a young man who wants
to see the world "at various angles."
Weather is remarkably fine! The
Captain says there must be a good
Samaritan on board. Such weather
remarkable for this season of the
year. He doesn't know the secret of
it — but we do. Mary, Star of the
Sea, is guiding us. The multitude
of fervent prayers being offered for
us by our dear ones and friends
brings God's blessing on the voyage.
J^^RAGEDY! Not much of it
i^ on a boat like this. Recently
^^ we had just a shadow of it
in our daily experience. The story
all hinges around a "zither." The
zither was purchased by Brother
Lambert on his way to this country
for the remarkable sum of one
American dollar. Its ultimate pur-
pose is to provide music for the wee
Chinkees who are to attend the
first Passionist school in the Orient.
Consequently it has been guarded
on the trip with infinite care. Care-
fully wrapped in a blanket, its
custodian has never, for a moment,
lost sight of it. So true has this
been that one of the party remarked
"our journey has been one sweet
song, accompanied by a zither
always."
On the boat, it was not consigned
to the baggage room, like ordinary
luggage, but occupied a position
of honor in the stateroom. But
to-day. Ecco ! It is gone! The
blanket remains, but not the zither.
What looks like a case for Sherlock
Holmes soon evaporates, for sub-
sequent inquiry reveals the fact
that Father Timothy has borrowed
it, and is busy picking on the silvery
wires in another room.
The ship's Surgeon is a remarkable
character For years he has been
engaged in sanitary work in the
Celestial Kingdom, a fertile field
for this kind of endeavor. He has
a wide acquaintance with the mis-
sionaries— Catholic and Non-Catho-
lic. Speaks very highly of the work
done by our Church. Says that in
Hunan, where we are going, the
Anglican Sisters have a hospital ;
but remarks very candidly that
these same are only a burlesque on
the old French Catholic nursing
Sisters.
Young Chinaman accosts me to-
day. A member of the delegation
from Washington. First one to
make any advances. He has been
educated at the University of Brus-
sels. Some questions to ask. Have
we a church in China? Then comes
the bomb. Why is the Catholic
Church in China French ! Wake
up America ! Tried to explain that
the Catholic Church is not a national
one, etc. Later informs me that his
wife has been educated at the
Sisters' School.
Steward promises a real Chinese
dinner on New Year's Night. With
chop-sticks, if we prefer. Will
enjoy the dinner, but not the chop-
sticks. However, practice makes
perfect. The Chinese certainly enjoy
them.
Went to bed Thursday night —
woke up Saturday morning. A day
is always lost on the trip to the
Orient. What this day will be is
determined by the position of the
ship at the 180th Meridian.
The third mate, a K. of C. man,
and a practical Catholic, very
amused. The Quatermaster on his
watch yesterday was telling every-
body that to-morrow (Friday) is
his birthday. When told that there
will be no tomorrow, he gets
indignant. No birthday celebration
this year.
V^~ ^AD two public Masses New
I I Year's Day. Some of the
^ "k crew could not get to the
later Mass, so we arranged for an
early one. A few confessions and
Communions. Our parish is grow-
ing. Father Timothy celebrates :
39
Father Flavian preaches, wishing all
a happy and prosperous New Year.
The promised Chinese Dinner is
served tonight. The menu at least
looks pretty. Boiled Maracuda,
Mandarine Sub Gum Chop Suey,
Chicken Foo Young Oriental, Chinese
Ginger, follow one another in rich
profusion. Chop sticks will be furn-
ished, if we so wish; but we refrain,
leaving or rather postponing our
initial efforts with these weapons to
some future day, when the audience
is not so large.
[O Oriental is the atmosphere
that some of our Chinese
friends succumb to the temp-
tation and appear in native costume.
Zeukieng Loo, for example, causes a
gasp from the diners when he makes
his debut in a long robe of dark blue
silk, with black figures running
riotously over its dazzling sheen. A
standing collar of black velvet, with
cuffs to match, add to the color
scheme. But this is not all. From
beneath we catch the gleam of a
pair of pale blue pantaloons, nicely
creased. Blue velvet slippers, with
hose of immaculate whiteness, com-
plete the costume which would make
Loo the Beau Brummel of any
Chinese gathering.
Four of us lined up for vaccination
today. This is a necessary pre-
caution for those who intend to
spend any time in the Far East.
The ship's surgeon would not hear
of any fee. He is glad of the chance,
he declares, to pay back the thous-
and and one favors bestowed on him
by the Catholic Missionaries in the
past.
The Far East is fast becoming
the "Near East." Yokohama, our
first port is now drawing near, and
very naturally we are somewhat
excited. Birds are flying in the
wake of the ship, a sure sign of
approaching land.
In our next letter we shall recount
our experiences in Japan. Yoko-
hama, Tokyo, and Kobe, should
prove interesting. Sorry to say, a
visit to Nagasaki where the beautiful
church commemorates the undying
faith of the Japanese Catholics
seems out of the question. Adieu!
Index to Worthwhile Reading
THE JESUITS. 1534-1921. By Rev. Thomas
J. Campbell, S. J. New York: The Encyclopedia
Press. Price $5.00.
The English-reading public is already in debt
to Father Campbell for his charming studies of the
Pioneer Missionaries and Laymen of North America.
He considerably increases this debt by his present
work.
So much has been written about the Society
of Jesus that is distorted or not warranted by facts
that Father Martin, the Superior General, in 1892
appointed a corps of distinguished writers to co-
operate in the production of a universal history of
the Jesuits which was to be based on indisputable
facts and in line with the most exacting requirements
of scientific research.
Unfortunately, this contemplated work has not
been completed and probably shall not be for some
years to come. In the meantime Father Campbell's
volume supplies a need that has long been felt by
students of Church History generally. The volume
is enhanced by a large bibliography and a complete
index. It is not burdened with foot-notes which
might deter the average reader from its perusal.
In its thirty chapters the author gives us a story
that is more interesting than fiction. He traces the
history of the Society from its humble beginnings,
through its rapid developments, its marvellous
achievements, its suppression, its restoration, to its
present-day vigor and multiplied activities.
Passionists will be glad to see in this authorita-
tive work a refutation of the accusation made against
St. Paul of the Cross. This accusation is stated in
the letter written by the infamous Bernis under date
of July 3, 1770: "I heard that the Founder of the
Passionists, Paul of the Cross, has warned the Pope
to watch over his kitchen, and hence Brother
Francisco who looks after the Pope's household
has redoubled his vigilance. I do not know if it
is on account of this warning, but in any case the
Pope has gone to some mineral springs for treat-
ment and is to be there for the next fortnight."
Father Campbell comments; "As this General of the
Passionists was no other than the saintly Paul of the
Cross, who has been since raised to the honors of
the altar, one may form some idea of the infamous
devices resorted to in all this business. Far from
being unfriendly, Paul of the Cross writes: 'lam
extremely pained by the sufferings of the illustrious
Company of Jesus. The very thought of all those
innocent religious being persecuted, in so many
ways, makes me weep and groan. The devil is
triumphing; God's glory is diminished, and multi-
tudes of souls are deprived of all spiritual help. I
pray, night and day that, after the storm is passed
God who gives both life and death may resuscitate
the Society with greater glory than before. Such
have been always, and such still are, my feelings
towards the Jesuits.' "
VEILS OF SAMITE. By J. Corson Miller.
Boston: Small, Maynard & Company.
This is the first published collection of poems
by J. Corson Miller. Mr. Miller needs no intro-
duction to readers of THE SIGN.
The book, prefaced by William Stanley Braith-
waite, contains ninety-four poems, the largest of
which is sixty lines. Almost a fourth of the poems
are dedicatory; the remainder cover a variety of
topics — Christian, pagan, and unreligious. These
topics are woven into all the standard types of
stanza. There is some rather 'free verse,' as in
"Winter Stars." The hymn stanza is exemplified
in "The Shepherds and the Child." There are, too,
a number and variety of odes among which we
may mention "The Day Laborer" and "God's Tree."
Blank verse is not wanting, for we note "Aspiration"
and "Sappho's Farewell to Phaon." The ballad
appears as "On the Road to the Black Sudan."
The epic type is used effectively in "James Whit-
comb Riley," "Fulfillment," and "Life's Gray
Shadows." But the predominant metrical form is
the sonnet. Of the fifteen sonnets embodied in the
book we observe as particularly felicitous "The
Angelus," "A Night of Stars," and "Sunset at Sea."
To poets we recommend "Veils of Samite" as a
volume that will bear careful study. We are con-
fident these poets will be encourged in their efforts
by this palpable proof that poetic themes have not
been exhausted and that intense thought is quite
compatible with technical finish.
To all lovers of highly imaginative verse we
recommend "Veils of Samite" as an eminently
readable book. True, readers will find obscure
allusions; true also, they may be oppressed by the
minor key in which some of the poems are written:
yet withal they will detect throughout the book a
healthful optimism, they will discover on every
page pure and exquisite thoughts draped in rich
Veils of Samite.
Mr. Miller occasionally touches upon subjects
of classical antiquity; but he treats them merely
as themes not as articles of a neo-pagan creed.
Any misgiving as to the author's intentions is dis-
pelled by this bit of self-revelation from "The
Song of Songs":
There are many who fashion the gracious moonlight
To the Night's cool kiss on a parched plain ;
And many have sung of the pine-tree's whisper
When forest-aisles are draped in rain.
But I shall sing of the Virgin-Mother,
Whose heart was crushed when her Son was slain.
40
™. 3P.52I .™ w>® m W ?.'.' '-'.'-' '.'7-
5£ W.^J^J^MWMJSSUSSJSSUS^JS^SRSMSJB,
N^ry/Z/'
A NATIONAL \J> CATHOLIC
^MONTHLY MACAZINEX
VOL. I.
APRIL, 1922 No. 9
!5 ^iiJJ mMlMMMDi
TOTjjTrK^n.' nv. n
li-JJiMIM
lUiUJZffi^^I ^ thj yi; ^u^Tr^i^u^^ tik^o; m; uv rrv n
In this striking design Bro-
ther Anson, tke distinguished
Benedictine artist, forcibly sym-
bolizes the basic thought of
Eastertide, — Christ Risen, —
the be all and the end all of
the Christian's faith.
The circle expresses *£**
the eternal generation *^C^
of the Son. ,J^
The Latin legend, • ■ *gm
"In Cruce Christus ■ |
Mortuus et Sepultus «
Est Ressurexit Tertia • %^*J
Die." — Christ died on • *r
a Cross and vJas buried. *V>
The third day He rose «
again — epitomizes the Re-
deemer's life.
The door within the circle
depicts the portal of the Holy
Sepulchre- tradition's irrefut-
able proof of the Resurrection
as an historical fact.
The two candlesticks with
their burning tapers denote the
Old and the NIevJ Testrments
which both bear Witness to
Jesus of Nazareth as the
promised Messias.
The words Alpha and
Omega are the names of the
first and last letters of the
Greek alphabet- Figuratively
they appl>> to Christ, "I am
the Alpha and Omega, the
beginning and the end,
g saith the Lord God."
W^» The inscription "The
k l/fm Alpha and Omega of
^g **A Jerusalem" signifies
^m** \ that the Resurrection
"5^^ • of Chirst is the pivo-
*£9^m •* tal fact in the entire
*JLgm history^ of the Holy
'^^» City; as the same trans-
<!,* cendent event is the
central doctrine of that
more perfect cit>> of which
the earthly Jerusalem is but a
tj'pe — the indestructible Cath-
olic Church.
Christ Jesus, triumphant o\>er
death, is the corner stone of
Christian faith.
He is all this and more.
He is "the first fruits of
them that sleep," the guarantee
unto the just of a glorious
resurrection to be.
That the Risen Lord may Vouchsafe to kindle anew the flame of faith in the hearts of our
readers, and to reavJaken in them an invigorating hope, that so they ma}) attain unto the
promise of life eternal, is the earnest Easter prayer of the Editors of the Sign.
wmmwrmmmw^rmwmmwmMW«lff^^
Naples' P
erennial
Colman Ladd
Wond
onaer
^-— -£E remember the claim of the Neapolitans
ill that to see their city was the consummation
y^X of earthly bliss — "See Naples and die!"
Accordingly it was with high expectations
we passed the guardian isles, Ischia and Capri, and
entered the famous bay on an afternoon in early
May. Vesuvius loomed
on our right crowned
with a fearful mass of
fume and cloud. Spots
of fair landscape gradu-
ally merged into the
compact city and we
came to anchor with
scarcely a thrill. There
was something meteor-
ologically awry. An
average March setting
will spoil any landscape ;
and thus it was our luck
to approach Naples with
spring long overdue,
with a raw wind in our
faces and ragged clouds
here and there trailing
rain or occasionally dis-
closing scant patches of
Italian sky. There fol-
lowed a night of sound
repose. In the meantime
there was a shifting of
scenes — a splendid
vision was in the mak-
ing. And when at sun-
rise we stepped out upon marty
the balcony of our lodgings, there lay Bella Napoli
utterly transformed in all the freshness of a May
morning, under a clear mellow sky, and her grey,
pink and saffron homes and albergos spread out
in a far sweeping crescent.
A'KR Bl'ST ()
^
UT whatever of gripping natural beauty or of
historic association Naples had to show — all
this could wait. It was important that we
verify the item we had chaneed upon in our guide-
book; namely, that the miraculo might be seen
during the eight days beginning Saturday before
the first Sunday in May. Here we were within the
blessed period. But was it possible that our eyes
were to be favored with the sight of a miracle?
We had learned that the
famous relic of St.
Januarius was exposed
annually on his feast
day, September 19 and
during the octave, and
on the feast of his
Patronage, December 16,
and that only on this
latter occasion did the
liquefaction of his blood
ordinarily fail to occur.
Would our presence con-
cide with such a failure ?
Our first concern was
how to witness this won-
der at best advantage —
how to circumvent the
surging crowds — for
surely one must be close
at hand to obtain a satis-
fying view of the mar-
vellous process. On the
first day, therefore, we
made only an explor-
atory pilgrimage to the
great church of Santa
Chiara. The liquefac-
tion had already occured.
There was a hum of prayer and praise among the
throng as the relic was passed along for veneration.
On this occasion we ascertained that a close
sight of the miracle could be obtained without
penetrating the throng and striving for a favorable
position. The illustration of St. Januarius' chapel
as here shown, is a view taken from a side portal
in the main basilica. For a favorable view of the
miracle one does not enter here, but directly from
THE 1* SIGN
the street at the right of the main entrance through
a small door leading to a sacristy. Neither ticket
nor favor is required. And this for the
greatest spectacle of its kind in the
modern world!
ONE should, of course, previously
inform oneself of the origin of
this wonder. The Roman brevi-
ary provides this information concisely.
St. Januarius, bishop of Beneventum,
during the persecution of Diocletian and
Maximinian, early in the fourth century
was summoned before Timothy, Gover-
nor of Campania, charged with pro-
fessing the Christian faith. His trial
took place at Nola, where, having con-
stantly persevered through various
forms of torture, he was cast into a
fiery furnace, but without harm even to
his very garments. The Governor
enraged thereat, commanded that he
be racked even to the dislocation of
his limbs. Thence with his deacon and
lector he was dragged before the chariot of the
Governor to Pozzuoli. Here he was cast into a
prison where there were others who had been
sentenced to be thrown to the wild beasts. On
the following day this sentence was carried out
but the beasts only cast themselves meekly at
the feet of Januarius.
Attributing all this to
magic powers, Timothy
ordered the beheadal
of them all and forth-
with was stricken blind.
Through the prayer of
the blessed Januarius
he received back his
sight, and at this mar-
vel nearly five thous-
and embraced the faith.
Nevertheless the un-
grateful Governor,
rendered furious at the
conversion of such a
multitude, and fearful
concerning the imperial
decrees, renewed the order for the beheading of
the holy bishop and his companions which this time
was executed. Following a divine admonition, the
remains of St. Januarius, after resting for a time at
Beneventum and Monte Vergine, were finally
brought to Naples and laid in the major
church there, where they have been
rendered glorious by many miracles.
Of these, most wonderful is that, where-
by his blood, ordinarily congealed in
a glass vial or flask, when brought close
to the martyr's head, in a marvellous
manner, liquefies and bubbles as if it
had been but freshly shed.
w
RELIQUARY CONTAINING
THE MARTYR'S BLOOD
E returned to Santa Chiara the
following morning about nine.
In the ample sacristy the clergy
had just begun to display the treasures,
mostly in the form of episcopal vesture
and regalia. There were many jewels
and a wealth of gold brilliantly set in
empurpled trays. One mitre alone con-
tains 3325 diamonds, 168 rubies and 188
emeralds. The most precious of all the
treasures however is the reliquary which
contains the blood of the Saint. This
reliquary may be best described, for the information
of our readers, in the words of the Catholic Encyclo-
pedia : — "In a silver reliquary, which in form and
size somewhat suggests a small carriage lamp, two
phials are enclosed. The lesser of these contains
only traces of blood. The larger, which is a little
flagon - shaped flask
four inches in height
and about two and a
quarter inches in diam-
eter, is normally more
than half full of a dark
and solid mass, abso-
lutely opaque when
held up to the light,
and showing no dis-
placement, when the
reliquary is turned up-
side down. Both flasks
seem to be so fixed in
the lantern cavity of
the reliquary by means
• rANTJARms °^ some nai"d gummy
substance that they are
hermetically sealed. Moreover, owing to the fact
that the dark mass in the flask is protected by two
thicknesses of glass it is presumably but little
THE f SIGN
affected by the temperature of the surrounding air."
OHE vested clergy now carry the mitre, cope
and pectoral cross with the reliquary con-
taining the blood of the martyr which has
congealed after yesterday's vesper service, to the
altar. The silver bust of the martyr containing his
head is set on the platform before the altar at
the gospel side. The bust is enrobed with the
episcopal regalia. Immediately, a monsignor takes
the reliquary and, facing the people, with a clerical
attendant on his right and a civil official, repre-
sentative of the municipality on his left, begins tha
invocations. Those who have followed from the
sacristy are now grouped around the altar, — our-
selves kneeling on the highest step, within arm's
reach and with a distinct view of the blessed vial.
Clergy and people alternate in the invocations. The
latter are quite rhythmic being intoned by the mem-
bers of a confraternity familiarly known as the
Aunts of St. Januarius.
At short intervales the vial is inverted and
examined for signs of softening. At times is is
brought as close to our eyes as this printed page.
Onl ya dark immovable shellac-like substance ap-
pears. Sometimes the liquefaction takes place almost
immediately, sometimes there is a delay of an hour.
On this occasion twenty-five minutes have elapsed
when the monsignor pauses in anxious scrutiny.
Slowly his austere features are transformed into a
gentle smile ; he extends the reliquary to the lay at-
tendant to behold; the latter nods affirmatively and
announces : "II miraculo e f atto," "the miracle has
happened," and with a wave of a handkerchief
signals to the organist.
^tt^HILE the tumultuous strains of the Te Deum
\I/ were intoned the reliquary was presented to
us for our veneration. There was no hurry
— it was held there for our liesurely admiration as
though there were not hundreds awaiting — and there
we beheld the limpid, ruddy contents responsive to
every movement — even the inversion — of the vial.
Fervently then did we join in that solemn hymn
rUCH a perennial marvel could not have
escaped the attention of a critical scientific
world. Accordingly the pilgrim to the shrine
of St. Januarius should know that the phenomenon
has been examined under every conceivable natural
aspect and still remains a mystery to the scientist.
There is the general hypothesis that the vial contains
some other substance sensitive to fusion. Such
fusion would, of course take place at a uniform
temperature. But the authentic records show the
liquefaction occurring over the wide range of six
degrees centigrade. There is much variation both in
the quantity of the transformed blood and in the
manner of the liquefaction. At times the vial is
quite filled with blood: on some occasions there is
a very gradual softening or melting, again it is
accompanied by violent bubbling. All this has
naturally suggested the application of the two most
infallible scientific tests: the scales and the spec-
troscope. The scales showed a corresponding
variation in weight and the spectroscope indicated
the presence of blood. Professor Sperindeo gives
the calculations in these experiments carried out in
twelve decimal figures.
Our space does not allow us to quote the favor-
able testimony regarding the miracle, of men of
every phase of belief. Even Voltaire was so im-.
pressed by it as to take up its defense against
Addison and other Protestant writers. Dumas
observed : "Is this a secret preserved by the canons
of the Treasury from generation to generation from
the fourth century to our time? Such a tradition
would be more miraculous than the miracle itself."
iy^E cite Professor Sperindeo's conclusions :
\\y A. "The hypotheses advanced at dif-
ferent epochs and based upon diverse princi-
ples are inadmissable, because under the same con-
ditions the blood of St. Januarius and the substances
proposed show altogether different characteristics,
miracle of St. Januarius are altogether peculiar.
C. The spectroscope, an instrument infallible
in its delicate research, has demonstrated on
evidence that the substance presented in this case,
is actual blood : and that this spectrum is not to be
confounded with that of the pirocarminio no matter
how closely it may resemble it.
D. Wherefore, since congealed blood can never
be liquified we are forced to admit that there is here
something not natural.
Moreover we do not wish to be blind or to
pose as blind. Neither do we care to give an
inconclusive negation to the facts in evidence, as
others, have dared to do who were urged by other
motives. It is for the scientist to verify the truth,
for the ignorant and perverse to deny it.
Therefore we repeat, and with greater emphasis,
that the miracle of St. Januarius, regardless of all
other evidence, must be believed on scientific
grounds alone."
The Labor Probl
em
Rev. R. A. McGowan
Why Working People Join Unions
^-— -^ORKING people join labor unions because,
ill usually, that is the only way they can
\|/ make a decent living for themselves and
their families. Each one by himself is
too weak to do much. United, they can pick a good
spokesman from their number who knows what
they need. They can pay him a salary so that he
will not be dependent on the employers for a job.
They can refuse, as a body to work for an employer
who will not treat them right, thus they can some-
times force him to terms.
Most people at work in the city industry and
trade do not own anything to work with. They have
to depend on getting a job from others. There
are usually more people hunting for jobs than there
are jobs. If working people don't unite, then they
battle with each other for work and down go wages
and up go hours.
Finn McCool, Ludwig Lang, Peppo Peppini,
and John Smith are longshoremen. All want jobs.
When Finn goes alone to get a job as a longshore-
man, he is so anxious to get it that he takes what
wages the employer offers, if he can live on it, in
the fear that he won't get any job at all. Peppo
Peppini, Ludwig Lang and John Smith meet the
same fate.
But they get together and tell the man who is
hiring longshoremen that they will not work for less
than such and such amount — enough at least to give
them and their families a decent home to live in,
decent food to eat, decent clothes to wear, decent
schooling for their children, decent recreation, a bit
for the church and lodge, and something to lay aside
for the day of sickness and the day when they can
no longer work. If the employer needs their work,
he has to give in, and they get what they are
entitled to.
There is nothing deep or secret about labor
unions. Sometimes they do wrong. But no one
under Heaven, who has reached the age of reason,
does right all the time. When they do wrong, they
are to be condemned for it. But the first point is
that working people need labor unions, and have the
right to establish and join labor unions.
^^^HE Bishops of the United States sent the
V/ J Catholics of this country a Pastoral Letter
two years ago. Listen to what the Pastoral
Letter says: The working people have "the right
to form and maintain the kind of organization that
is necessary, and that will be most effectual in
securing their welfare."
Why should the Bishops go out of the way
to talk about labor unions?
They have not gone out of the way. They
were talking about matters of morality. When one
man works for another, a question of morality enters
at once. The man who works for another takes
upon himself certain obligations. These obligations
are binding in morals and religion. His conscience
has something to say about it. So too, the employer
has his obligations. One man is thrown into a very
important relation with another. Duties of justice
and charity instantly come to life.
When an employee fails in his obligations, the
employer discharges him, and picks another without
much trouble, from the thousands or hundreds of
thousands or millions who are out of work. When
an employer fails in his obligations the employee
can discharge the employer and join the army of
job hunters. He can also excuse the employer. But
if all the employees join together, they can do some-
thing to make the employer live up to his obligations.
e
'XPERIENCE shows that those who own the
means of work and livelihood do not as a rule
live up to their obligations. No one knows
for certain (since wages and cost of living are chang-
ing so much), but it is very probable, that half of the
men at work for wages are not receiving even now
enough to support a family in decent comfort.
From four to six million are unable to get work;
even in normal times well over a million are out of
work.
But this is all a matter of money and why be
disturbed about it? Are we to make money our
God? Is it not better to be content with what we
have and try to get no more?
It is indeed a matter of money. But it is more
THE + SIGN
than that. For it is a question of what money will
buy. It means plenty of good food for the husband,
the wife and mother, and the growing children. It
means healthy children brought into the world —
thriving children — children growing strong. It
means more schooling for the children. It means a
comfortable home. It means fewer children on the
street. It means better schools and churches and
parish halls.
It is not a question of so many cents an hour,
so many dollars a week. It is a question of how
human beings are to possess material goods enough
to lead normal lives, and do well by God and their
fellow-men.
HABOR unions are an antidote to the poison
that lies in the motto and rule of life : "Every
man for himself and let the devil take the
hindmost." That is a pagan rule of life, fit for no
one but beasts. It is a rule of the fang and the
claw. Labor unions are an attempt to form a
brotherhood in which each will protect the other
and stave off the devil of grinding want from the
hindmost.
The pity is that labor unions are not able to
protect all employees. The pity is that they are
unsuccessful in their aim. They have not thrown
off the dependency of those who do not share in
ownership and control of the things to work with
and live by. They have not ridden the propertyless
of the fear and the bitter experience of being with-
out work. They have not raised the wages of all
who work to a standard of decent living.
But they have done something. Therefore,
working people join labor unions and.therefore, they
establish unions when there are none for them to
join.
Good Friday In April
Vaughn Devlin
' ' Why weepest thou, fair month? why' weepest thou?
Are not the treasures of the Springtime thine?
Tke lov'e notes of the birds' first songs, the buds,
And all that makes the world look ^oung and fair?
Why do the tears course down thy cheeks and rest
Like Sacramental dew upon the floors?
Hast thou some secret sorrow all thine own
That tears so oft' eclipse thy brightest smiles?"
"I weep because while still my days tfere young,
Love hung upon the Cross to die for sin.
Perchance my* tears may help remote the guilt
That hangs, a gloomy cloud o'er all the earth.
I saw Him die on calvary's dark mount —
The mem'ry haunts me in my gayest moods.
My" robes are sprinkled vJith His blood and Tears—
I \Ceep because God's only Son is dead.
Saints and Sinners
Luis Coloma, S. J.
Copyrighted 1921, by The Sign
SYNOPSIS OF PREVIOUS INSTALMENTS:
Scene in a Catholic College outside Madrid on the day of the closing-exercises of tlie year. Luis, having
read the valedictory poem and gathered up '•is prizes looks in vain for his mother's face among the crowd* of
parents and friends of the other students. Some sympathetic women draw away in horror when they learn
that he is the son of the Countess of Albornoz. A groom arrives late with a coach to take the young student
to his home. Another scene in the drawing room of the Duchess of Bara showing the leaders of Madrid society
in the midst of their intrigues for the return of the ex-Queen Isabel and her family who are now in exile in
Paris, and the exp.ulsion of King Amadeo, the Savoyard prince who has been occupying the Spanish throne
in the interim. They have discovered that one of the old Spanish grandees has permitted her name to be sug-
gested to the Italian Queen as rst lady-in-waiting. This is the result of the intriguing of Curra the Countess
of Albornoz who fancies that the ex-Queen in Paris has insulted her and desires revenge, and also to obtain the
position of secretary to the present monarch for her young friend John Velarde. In the face of the indignation
aroused Curra attempts to deny her part in the intrigue. She has no time to give to her little son Luis and
passes him on to her servants.
The Government in anger at the Countess' treachery demands that she fulfil her agreement to accept the
position at court. She tricks the Minister of the Interior and destroys the letter that compromises her, where-
upon the police are sent to break forcibly into her house and carry off all her papers under the charge that she
has been conspiring to overthrow the Government. Her friends and partisans hurry to her house and the
outrage ends in a sort of picnic party.
But among the letters carried off by the police there was a certain package from an old lover of the Countess,
and as it was necessary for the police to return these papers, the scheme was hit upon of returning these
letters to her husband with a note calling his attention to their very compromising contents. Curra having
forgotten to destroy the letters when the evening before she had prepared for the raid upon her house now felt
that some satisfaction was due to her standing, particularly as the Amadist newspapers had printed articles
reflecting on her respectability and the courage of her husband. She chooses her friend John Velarde to
challenge the editor of an insulting reference, assuring him that it will be a mere formality of shots in the air,
and arranging a breakfast for him immediately after the meeting. John Velarde, a type of the well-educated
but erring young Spaniard, is shot dead at the first fire.
Chapter I 1
^^fc^HE news of Velarde's death reached Madrid
£ C~\ almost at once, and Isabel Mazacan im-
^_ J mediately went to Curra's house, as the
^^^ first bearer of the sad news. Curra
changed color perceptibly, and for a moment her
entire world seemed to fall about her.
"This made a terrible impression in Madrid,"
said the Countess of Mazacan. "Everyone is talking
about his poor mother: he was her only support."
Curra saw the reproach in these remarks.
Without thinking, and allowing her own remorse
to change to bitter anger against everyone else, as
selfish people will, she forgot both her sense of
delicacy and her meekness, and turned on the
"Naturally it has, especially when it is pro-
voked by "
"By what?"
"Envy, my dear, envy."
"Whose envy?"
"Yours, for example."
The Countess of Mazacan turned like another
cat, as the sarcasm struck home.
"Mine?" she cried. "I envious of you! Of
the Villamelon! Vil-la-mel-o-na!"
And she laughed hearitly with feminine spite
long treasured in her heart, while she emphasized
the syllables of "Vil-la-mel-o-na-," strange to say
the worst insult which could have been flung at
Countess of Mazacan with the ferocity of a cat Curra
whose tail has been stepped on. In her impetuosity
she foolishly attempted to justify herself.
"What has this to do with me? Did I ask him
to fight? The character of Don Quixote, my dear,
has its weak side."
"And so has that of Dulcinea," answered the
Countess of Mazacan, beginning to lose her temper, petrified statue of anger.
7
The two fought like street venders after that,
hurling truth and calumnies at each other, with all
the ferocity of two viragoes of the lower world,
eager to tear each other's hair out. The Countess
of Mazacan shrieked at the top of her exquisite
soprano voice. Curra, erect in her chair, spat her
nsults like a viper, without moving a muscle, a small
THE + SIGN
XN the midst of the quarrel, Isabel Mazacan
spoke of the letters of the captain of artillery,
and her remark recalled something to Curra
which seemed to frighten her. She rushed out of
the room, and rang for her maid, Kate. John
Velarde must have kept some of her letters, and
she must secure them before anyone else laid hands
on them. She could not have another catastrophe,
like the one just past. Kate quickly disappeared
in a cab, and an hour later handed her mistress all
the letters, and among them, by error, the lottery-
ticket which Velarde had bought the night before.
A mockery of fate! The ticket had gained a prize
of fifteen thousand dollars, which the Countess of
Albarnoz collected, after having carefully laid her
plans.
All of Madrid again began to file through
Curra's house to offer sympathy. "She was past
suffering; but she had felt terribly the loss of the
unfortunate boy, who had been so deeply attached
to Villamelon and herself. Of course, she had
known nothing about it. The poor lad had said
absolutely nothing either to Ferdinand or herself.
Of course, it was one of those deeds which cause
comment, and which seemed indecorous, resulting
in serious embarrassment to those left behind."
And at this point Curra would lower her voice
and confide to her friends: "You know, these poor
people haven't a cent, apparently ; the mother seems
to be in abject want. I do not know her, and of
course the matter is a delicate one. But Ferdinand
and I have deposited fifteen thousand dollars in the
Bank of Madrid, that the poor woman may have
an income."
This is true. Curra had deposited the fifteen
thousand dollars of lottery money won by Velarde
in the Bank of Madrid, and had then written a
letter to Velarde's mother consoling her on her son's
death. She added in a postscript that she and her
husband had learned of the mother's condition, and
as they both wanted to show their affection for
the memory of her son, they offered her the income
and capital, the necessary papers concerning which
she enclosed. Having written this, Curra shrugged
her shoulders and was as unconcerned as before.
XN the meantime no one had even thought of
preparing the mother for the terrible news,
and she was happy with John's letter, and
with her preparations for his home-coming. She
was busy in his room, so that the beloved guest
would find everything prepared for him on his
arrival, when the visit of the parish priest was an-
nounced. She came downstairs, surprised; it was
not his hour of calling. The priest had read the
terrible news in the journals, and had hurried to the
mother's house to prepare her by degrees for the
catastrophe, before any unthinking person would
blurt the news out to her.
Hardly knowing what he said, he talked about
this and that, and finally, with infinite evasions and
precautions, told her that her son was seriously ill
in Madrid. The unfortunate woman sprang from
her chair terrified, pale, and then irritated, as if
they were trying to play some horrible joke on her.
"Impossible!" she cried. "I received a letter
written to me only yesterday."
And she spread the letter for the priest's
perusal, trembling like a leaf and with cold chills
running through her body.
"You see!" she cried. "He is coming for the
month of August, and will remain until the feast of
Our Lady of Regla. On the third he is going to
confession. He cannot die, my darling boy!"
^^^HE three other children and the two servants
t) had meanwhile come running in, hearing the
^^ cries of their mother and fearing evil news.
The priest took the letter and saw from the date
that the unfortunate boy must have written it but a
few hours before he died.
"My news is later than this, unfortunately," he
said. "He — er — wrote this, manifestly; he was
then stricken with an apoplectic stroke. He is very
ill indeed."
"My God! Blessed Virgin of Regla!" cried the
mother; and grasping the priest eagerly by the arm,
she asked with white lips: "And has he been to
confession? Has he confessed?" The priest could
not answer, and she shook him again by the arm,
repeating her question.
"His soul, father, his soul above everything
else !" she cried. He could but tell her that of this
he knew nothing. Then she repressed her grief
and gave emphatic orders that they would start for
Madrid that day, that very minute. The mail coach
would pass at four o'clock, and in two hours they
could be at the nearest station. Henry could
accompany her. Peter, at a gesture of his mother,
rushed off to a cabstand to order a cab ; the servants
hurried off to get the trunks ready; while Louis,
the baby, commenced to cry. His mother kissed
his forehead: "Don't cry," she murmured.
(HE herself did not shed a tear. The priest
tried to detain her.
"But you may not be able to catch the train."
"They can put on a special."
"That will cost a fortune."
"I have ten thousand reals. If that isn't
sufficent we can sell something, we can beg."
"But, dear lady, wait!"
"But his soul, father, his soul!" she cried. "Do
you think that death will wait? And he is there
alone, without his mother to help him to die well,
unshriven; and if he dies, there is no one to place
him in his grave."
Little Peter came running in much excited.
He had not gone to the cabstand. On the way
thither Martin Romero had told him that he had
received news that John was better, that he was
nearly well.
THE 1* SIGN
"You see?" cried the triumphant mother. She
burst out laughing, choking her mirth with deep
sobs. The priest denied this news, the result of a
stupid sympathy, and then was forced to tell her
that her son was really dead. There he stopped :
he did not dare tell her how or when. She received
the news staggering, and sank into a chair, shaking
her head, her lips working nervously, without
voice, without breath, her hands pressed to her
heart, as though something had died within her,
something as cold and horrible as death itself. The
priest cried like a child and sought to console her,
but she listened to him with glazed eyes, without
understanding. Her children threw themselves
into her arms;and as she touched these three heads
a sob broke from her, and her sorrow at last found
some relief and comfort in tears.
a
'VERYONE in the town respected her grief,
and no one dared tell her the details of her
son's death. But three days later Curra's
letter came, and therein the poor woman found them.
The instinct of a mother told her what laid between
the lines, and red with anger, she tore the bank
check to pieces, putting them in an envelope to-
gether with the letter which Curra had written, and
returned them without a word of reply.
The latter was amazed at this surprising re-
sponse, and again shrugged her shoulders : "She must
be an odd old thing. Just imagine that, after so
much delicacy!"
Curra was rather quiet for a short time after that,
as she did not quite know what she could do with the
fifteen thousand dollars. She was scrupulous at
using this blood-money herself, and decided to use
it for some charity. She decided that she would
give a large ball with the money for the benefit
of the Foundling Hospital; but for that the season
was already too far advanced, and she intended
besides to start on her trip to Belgium the end of
the week. She then had a happy inspiration : she
would give this money to Pius IX. when she visited
Rome at the commencement of the autumn. She
was captivated with this idea, which both quieted
her scruples and satisfied her vanity, imagining that
she saw the praises of the newspapers for the
munificence of her gift.
That evening about nine o'clock a friend, Maria
Valdivieso, arrived in a great hurry to see Curra.
Curra must accompany her to Prince Alfonso's
circus! A beautiful American singer was to make
her debut there. And this affair would be a great
success! Curra must get ready at once.
"No, no," said Curra, "I do not feel like going
to the opera."
"But you must not bury yourself alive. You
haven't been outside the house for three days."
"Well, you see, I am in mourning."
"But you have worn mourning already for five
days. I would not have put it on five minutes for
that Velarde! He was very foolish, child, very
foolish."
"All right; to-night I'll wear half-morning. I
have a new gown which will be perfect — black and
white. It's lovely, and wouldn't do for anything
else."
"Wear it now, then, and hurry up. It's very
late. "And she herself rang the bell and gave the
necessary orders.
Curra dressed quickly, while Maria Valdivieso
talked to her: "Did you ever hear anything from
John Velarde's mother?"
"I had a letter only to-day. She must be a
queer person."
Kate here interrupted the two cousins to ask
Curra whether she would wear black or white gloves.
"Which do you think, Maria?"
"I think that black would look better."
"Bring a pair of each and we'll see."
"Yes, she must be a queer old soul. She
refused to accept the money."
"But, my dear, what foolishness!"
"She wrote me a letter saying that she needs
nothing and has a sufficiency of everything."
"All the better then; that will suit you per-
fectly."
"Yes, but you don't quite understand. I had
already made the sacrifice for poor John, and just
because his mother refuses the money, I am not
going to take it back. So I'm thinking that I'll
give the fifteen thousand dollars to His Holiness
when I go to Rome in October, so that he will
grant Velarde indulgences."
>yVARIA VALDIVIESO was much edified, and
111 the two cousins left the room, Curra picking
'^^ up one white and one black glove by mistake.
She discovered her mistake when she was putting
them on, near the theatre, and wished to return
home to change them.
"Don't be foolish, dear: leave them as they
are. People will think it a clever idea, and you
will start a new fashion."
"Of course!" cried Curra, delighted.
And so it happened. Everyone thought this
caprice perfectly charming, and the following night,
at the opera, one saw everywhere dresses of two
different shades, with gloves of two separate colors.
The American singer's debut was a distinct
success, and the following day Madrid talked of
nothing but her success and of Curra's gloves. No
one thought any more of Velarde's death, of the
episode of the first lady-in-waiting, or the raid of
the police.
So Curra could now breathe peacefully, feeling
that the serious consequences which Butron had
foretold upon her appointment as lady-in-waiting,
had vanished through her clever manoeuvres; her
political fidelity was now firmly established, pro-
ducing among other results these three trifles :
(1) A broken hearted mother.
THE + SIGN
(2) A soul in Hell.
(3) The fashion of the different gloves.
CHAPTER XII.
M^^^HE express from Marseilles to Paris was
m C~\ four hours late owing to the destruction
^^ J of a bridge between Galician and St. Giles
^^^ the evening before. The travellers did not
reach the capital until half past four, hungry and
in ill humor. A man of about thirty years was
among the first to alight from the sleeper, and
crossing the street before the crowd pressed into it,
he hailed the first
of the carriages
which stood there
in orderly line. The
driver carefully sur-
veyed the traveller,
taking in his appear-
ance from head to
foot. The only lug-
gage he carried was
one of those English
carry-alls, bound
with a leather strap,
which hold so much
in a small space.
The driver seemed
satisfied after his
examination, for he
had detected under
the traveller's rich
fur coat, a little rib-
bon of yellow and
white in the button
hole of the coat. He
had been decorated!
Stepping into the
cab, the traveller
laconically gave an
address, speaking
The traveller glanced at the letter several times
with curiosity, holding it to the light as though
attempting to see what was within, through the
envelope. The thick linen prevented the contents
being seen, and the traveller was forced to content
himself with looking at the large handwriting of
the address manifestly written by one accustomed
to sign documents and letters rather than to write
them, and sufficently Italian to place the little
dukedom of Aosta before the royal crown of Spain.
©
Unappreciated
Nicholas Ward, C. P.
A little weed grew at the foot of a rose,
And they both breathed the soft summer air,
But the little weed sighed as it looked at the rose,
For the rose vJas so tall and so fair,
At sunset the little weed tremblingly spoke
And told of its love to the rose,
But the rose did not mind for the language of weeds
Is one which a weed only knows.
Then the little v?eed wept and the fair rose's feet
Were vJashed and refresh' d for the night,
The birds of the morning sang sweet to her heart,
And she lifted her head to the light.
Statelier she grew and her green leaves spread wide
Till they shut out the sunlight and air;
Then the little weed died at the feet of the rose,
But the rose
never knew she was
in well pronounced French: "Grand Hotel; Boule-
vard des Capucines."
The carriage rolled forward, rocking from side
to side; but the traveller did not seem filled with
either admiration or curiosity, which enthuses those
who visit Paris for the first time, second, third,
fourth, or even fifth time. He leaned back on the
well-worn blue cloth of the carriage, and began to
examine carefully some papers in a dispatch-case,
which hung across one of his shoulders. None
were missing; in the right hand pocket were several
letters, open, loose papers, and a small bundle of
bank notes. In the left hand pocket there was a
large official-looking letter, sealed in red wax with
a royal crown. The envelope was addressed to :
His Royal Highness the Duke of Aosta,
King of Spain.
HE traveller, deep in his thoughts, took from
a pocket a small leather note book and began
to arrange his tangled accounts. At the top
of one page, he
wrote the word "Ex-
pectations," and at
the top of another
"Realizations," and
under the heading of
what he seemed to
expect, he began to
add-up figures which
developed into addi-
tions, multiplicatons
and divisions, and
produced a column
o f arithmetical
chaos, ending the
column of "Expecta-
tions" with the sen-
tence : "Two - nun -
dred-thousand dol-
lars and a cabinet
portfolio." Under
the head of "Reali-
zations," the result
simply stated:
"Nothing."
Then, as though
some error might
have played false
with his arithmetical
problems, the traveller, now and again scratching
his high forehead with his pencil, continued to write
figures and calculations, until he ended with another
horizontal line, under which appeared something
much less than nothing, which might well have been
all that the man really possessed: "One hundred
and fifty thousand dollars at fifteen per cent!"
The traveller gazed at this unpleasant total
with disgust, and finally turned his eyes from the
note book to the scene which Paris presented to his
view. His eyes sought in the distance the terrace
of the famous Petit Club, which borders on the
Place de la Concorde, and was the rendezvous of the
high life of Paris. ' It was a magnificant day, and
under the red and white striped awning of the club
he could easily make out two or three members who
were watching the carriages on their way to the
the
THE 1" SIGN
Bois. He felt happy as he looked at the club, as
though he knew that herein he might find the minus
fifteen thousand dollars at fifteen per cent. He
knew only too well that there was plenty of gambling
within the precincts of the club.
^^^HIS man presented a curious likeness to Lord
t J Byron. He possessed the same striking beauty
^■^ of the poet, with a similar magnificent head
balanced on a vigorous neck; the same haughty
attitude of disdain. His handsome eyes were dark,
and his chestnut hair curled in great natural waves
upon a broad forehead. His lips twisted in the
corners in that bitter line of skepticism, disdain and
vice, always tired, and seldom satisfied, which ap-
pear so emphatically in good portraits of Byron. His
face was a perfect oval, with a slightly projecting
beard. Two things alone were lacking in the resem-
blance: his left foot was not lame and no ray of
genius shone on his countenance. If this man was,
by some miracle, Byron returned to life, he had
returned leaving his genius and lameness behind
him, and bringing with him but the beauty of his
twenty-five years and the vices of a life-time. This
Byron would not have ventured to Greece to free it,
but to exploit it; in his eyes was no searching for the
ideal, only a reflection of sensuality and an eager
desire for money.
^^^HE carriage stopped at last before the Grand
C^) Hotel in the Boulevard des Capucines. Our
^^^ modern Lord Byron gave the driver a hand-
some fee and ran up the hotel steps, meeting at the
door a tall old gentleman with large white whiskers,
who was limping out. The traveller turned away
as though to avoid him. But the old man hastened
after him into the hotel office, and overtaking him,
cried in Spanish: "Jacob! You are trying to avoid
me — that means that you have some money!"
"Diogenes!" cried Jacob with every expression
of surprise and pleasure, grasping both his hands
with great fervor.
"What have you been doing in Constantinople?
I thought that you were bringing us back the Sultan's
beard!" said Diogenes.
Jacob held his dispatch case to Diogenes's
nose: "Omnes divitiae sunt mecum!"
"Ah, honest ambassador! Those who want to,
may believe you. But you must have left some of
the spoils behind at the station. From where have
you come?"
"From Geneva. And what are you doing
here?"
"Suffering from ill-fortune, my boy. Last
night some villain won five thousand francs from
me in half a second."
"Impossible! I though that you had sworn
off?"
"Not until I am buried, my boy! You must
try a hand at the Petit Club : there is heavy playing
there. Last evening I saw that devil of a Ponoski
win two thousand louis."
"Ponoski here? I would like to see him, only
I am off again tomorrow."
"To-morrow? Where in the devil are you off
to?"
"To Madrid."
"To Madrid! Polaina! You'll get a bullet
through you!"
"What do you mean? What's up down there?"
"My little ambassador, where have you been?
Haven't you heard the news? This morning King
Amadeo started for Portugal, saying "Good riddance
to bad rubbish," and at this moment, I have no
doubt, Figuerillas and Don Emilio Castelar are
bombarding Madrid preparatory to setting up a
Republic. They have completely beaten you, my
boy! Absolutely!"
**" — I'ACOB was both astonished and horrified to
ff L hear this news, and seizing Diogenes' arm,
^^^ he cried in a changed voice, as if this sudden
political catstrophe meant much to him : "What do
you mean? It's impossible!"
"Polaina! Impossible! Come over here; some-
one who knows can tell you. Yesterday the Italian
abdicated, and to-day at six he went off to Lisbon;
at this moment Madrid will be on fire. Already the
hotel has received over twenty telegrams asking for
rooms."
And while Diogenes was excitedly explaining
all this, he drew Jacob up the steps of the hotel to
the terrace. One might have thought oneself in an
aristocratic drawing-room of the Spanish Court.
Spanish was being spoken on all sides, and here
and there in groups one noticed both men and ladies
of the Spanish aristocracy, and politicians of the
Isabella II. school.
Everyone was talking about the news from
Spain; some already saw Prince Alfonso seated on
the throne deserted by Aosta, others prophecied a
Republic under the sway of the masses; others saw
Carlist soldiers at the gates of Madrid, in the empty
palace, and seizing the vacant throne.
Everyone was anxiously waiting for the mail,
and for the return of Uncle Frasquito, who had gone
out in search of authentic news. In the reading-
room which opened on the terrace, several ladies
were seated, among them being Curra Albornoz and
the Duchess of Bara. In the middle of a group of
men, Leopoldina Pastor was talking with great
vehemence, demanding that the men at once arm
themselves, and explaining her martial and strategic
plans. The men were frankly amused as they
listened to Leopoldina while she hung on the buttons
of their coats. Ah, if she were but a man! And
she declaimed yet more vehemently.
The arrival of Jacob did not make a favorable
impression on anyone. He was either the friend or
relative of nearly everyone present, on the side of
his own family as well as that of his wife, who
n
HE + SIGN
posessed a title high among the nobility. He had
left her two years previously, and led a luxurious,
bachelor's life in Paris and in Italy, until, pursued
by creditors, he had again returned to Spain in 1868,
there taking a prominent part in the Revolution.
He had played the part of a Lafayette for a short
time, and then disappeared, only to turn up later
as the Amadist ambassador in Constantinople.
QATURALLY everyone was surprised to find
him in Paris at this particular time, leaving
his diplomatic post behind him, and they
received him with the suspicious scorn which
the defeated enemy always finds when he flees after
the battle is over to the victorious army.
Jacob pretended not to notice the coldness with
which he was received, and did not allow the un-
easiness which the verification of Diogenes' news
brought to him, to be observed by anyone. He was
entirely without news, or pretended that he was.
He had left Constantinople two months ago for
Turin, going on to Florence and Geneva, and after
a pleasant journey around the Italian Riviera, he
had dropped at Nice and at Monaco.
Curra had been stealthily watching the hand-
some traveller from her seat. She had not recog-
nized him at first, for it was difficult to see in this
full blown man the young Jacob Tellez Ponce, who
had married twelve years before the Marchioness of
Sabadell, a distant cousin of Curra's.
She would not have recognized him at all, if
Leopoldina Pastor had not approached and said:
"Do you see Jacob Tellez? They are saying that
in Constantinople he married a lovely Turkish lady.
I am wondering if he has brought the good-for-
nothing with him."
The Duchess of Bara made some derogatory
remark, at which the ladies laughed, and Curra said :
"Is that Jacob? Who would have thought it? I
thought that it was Byron himself, my favorite poet!
It's a perfect likeness!" She rose quickly to go
over to him. But the Duchess of Bara caught her
by the skirt. Curra pulled herself away, saying:
"My dear, he's my own cousin. I can't slight a
relative!"
Meanwhile Jacob had approached the group,
and saluted the ladies, kissing the hands of the
Duchess of Bara and Curra. The latter with many
affectionate flatteries, made room for him at her
side. They talked awhile of Jacob's journey, until
the arrival of Uncle Frasquito interrupted them.
Everybody started to run over to him, including
Jacob,' but Curra held him a moment by the arm and
said to him: "Shall we see you again, Jacob? I
want to present you to Ferdinand. Our rooms are on
the second floor, number 120."
The Duchess leaned over to Leopoldina and
whispered: "Did you hear? She wishes to present
him to Ferdinand."
Leopoldina made a face, and replied: "I sup-
pose we should be both blind and deaf."
And the two laughed merrily.
OYED, covered with cosmetics, dancing on the
tips of his .toes, unable to walk otherwise
owing to his tight shoes, Uncle Frasquito
stumbled up the terrace in a great hurry. He was
the uncle of all the nobility of Spain, of wealthy
men from all cradles, of all political and literary
celebrities, daring adventurers, who formed the "all
Madrid" of the Court, the mixed dessus de panier
of the social world of Madrid. All these people
called him Uncle Frasquito and he gladly accepted
the title and the relationship of those whose blood
had really mingled with his own several centuries
ago.
In the midst of his universal family, Uncle
Frasquito had played a conspicuous part for half
a century, seeing pass before him generation after
generation of nephews and nices, legitimate or false,
who had been born, married, had children, died,
and been forgotten, without his ever passing his
thirty-third year, shielded as he was in a very tight
corset which confined the factious rebellions of his
abdomen. The story was often told that Uncle
Frasquito wore on his person no less than thirty-
two false articles, among which were a cork hip. He
was a wealthy bachelor, lived quietly, and had
neither debts nor, any publicly known, vices. He
was pleasant, courtly, obsequious, with the manners
of a modest young lady, and inflections of voice
like an affected sire. He collected diplomatic
seals, made embroidered tapestry, and played a flute
very badly.
Diogenes pursued him and persecuted him
through drawing-rooms and salons, calling him
Francesca di Rimini, and sometimes Senora Fras-
quito, and gave him affectionate squeezes when he
took refuge among the ladies, as was his custom,
squeezes which rumpled his shirt-front; or else
impetuous embraces which made the unfortunate
gentleman hurry to wash and rub himself violently
with cold cream. Diogenes would step on his
victim's toes, spoiling the polish on his boots, or
dislocate his fingers with violent handclasps. These
two old men, one so different from the other, were
really but two types of the same society, two fossils
of a past century, and examples of those unsub-
stantial or effeminate fops who had ruined Spain
and discredited the nobility.
aNCLE Frasquito walked to the terrace, and
corroborated to those who thronged round be-
sieging him with questions, the news that
Don Amadeo had gone to Lisbon with his family
and that the Republic had been founded.
"The Spanish Republic!" he exclaimed, taking
off his hat in mock reverence. And amid scornful
jeers and ironic laughter he read out of a notebook
the names of the first Republican cabinet.
The telegrams also announced that Don Carlos
THE 1* SIGN
had entered Spain, and that his followers, taking
advantage of the confusion, intended to make a
final bid for the throne. This disgusted everyone,
as the Carlists were feared far more than the
Republic; and a perfect tornado of discussion ensued
on this news.
The electric bell which announced the arrival
of new travelers rang at this moment; presently a
man rushed in to announce excitedly that Lopez
Moreno's wife had arrived, having come through
from Madrid, and that she had been nearly killed.
"One of her ears is torn off!" he cried.
Horrors depicted on their countenances, the
company rushed out to meet the banker's earless
wife. The Duchess of Bara, with those unpleasant
mortgages in her mind, attempted to steal out of the
reading-room, but so unsuccessful was her manoeuvre
that she ran into the lady, her daughter Lucy, two
maids, a man servant, seventeen trunks, and numer-
ous valises and bags in the court-yard. The
banker's wife was pale and frightened, and the lobe
of one of her ears was actually bleeding.
The Duchess saw she was caught, and accord-
ingly greeted the banker's wife affectionately:
"Ramona, my dear! Why didn't you let me know?"
"Know!" cried the excited lady. "I am grateful
to have escaped alive! What a journey, Duchess!
I was nearly killed! I revived only yesterday: it
was a miracle, a real miracle!"
"Terrible!" cried the Duchess, glancing around
cautiously with the hope that Providence had not
spared M. Lopez Moreno as well. "Where is your
husband? Isn't he here?"
"He is still in Spain, that is, if he is alive!"
And surrounded by the Spaniards, the talkative
lady narrated the tale of her misfortunes. Spain
was rapidly going to the devil. People were escap-
ing from Madrid in crowds, and it seemed that the
last trump had sounded in the Court.
"Delightful!" murmured Diogenes. "I have
always been waiting for the last trump. Think of
what will be revealed when the angel says: "Every
dollar to its real owner, and every child to its
father!"
The Duchess silenced him with a tap of her
fan, and Lopez Moreno's wife, satisfied at last to
find herself the center of so much attention, con-
tinued her story. Her descriptions were graphic,
and as she was the bearer of the latest genuine
news from Spain, General Pastor, the valiant
Leopoldina's father, who occupied a high position
in Alfonsist circles in Paris, suggested that she
should be brought to the Queen, that Her Majesty
might hear this budget of news in person. The
banker's wife was overcome with pleasure at this
suggestion, and the Duchess, who repaid her debt
in attention since she could not do so in money,
hastened to exclaim: "A splendid idea! I will
accompany her. I will request an audience with the
Queen to-morrow."
Senora Moreno was overcome again by this
proposal; the dream of her life, to be presented at
Court, was at last within realization; and she for-
got even her torn ear in the excitement. The
General on his side was merely following Button's
famous policy of sweeping everyone within the
Alfonsist circle, and was already calculating the
benefit which would accrue to the sacred cause
through a potantial control over Moreno's money
bags. During this scene, Curra had been watching
Jacob, who was listening to everything which was
said, and who seemed in no particular hurry to go to
his room to prepare for dinner. However when the
party broke up, Curra missed him in the reading-
room, nor could she find him in the courtyard, nor
on the terrace. He had disappeared completely.
( To be continued)
In Our Stead
OURING the dark months of the "Reign of
Terror." Carlyle tells us in his "French
Revolution," an old gentleman walked up to
the gate of the city prison one morning early in
hope of getting a brief interview with his son,
son, then lying under sentence of death, or what
amounted to the same thing, awaiting his trial
before the revolutionary tribunal. His name was
Loiserolles. As he stood there in the chill morning
air, among the crowd of prisoners' relatives, the
dreaded cart so well known in Paris then, that
conveyed its daily load to the guillotine, arrived
at the prison door. A list of names was produced,
and the crowd closed in on the officer as he read
the fatal roll-call. "Loiserolles!" was one of the
names shouted along the corridor: and "Here, I
am Loiserolles!" was answered suddenly from the
crowd. The voice was not that of the young
prisoner asleep at that moment in his cell: it was
older, feebler, and a trifle more eager than a
prisoner's might be supposed to be: but there was
no time and no care to make investigation. The
father was taken for the son. He was seized,
bound, hurried off and executed. He died for his
boy who was asleep. Not till long afterwards did
the younger Loiserolles know at what a sacrifice
his life had been purchased.
Commenting on this heroic incident, Balgarnie
would sa ythat the day of our trial and judgment
was past : the morning of our execution had arrived :
we as prisoners of sin and Satan were summoned
to receive the death penalty: the sons of men were
called. "But I am the Son of Man" was the answer
given to the challenge. If, therefore, ye seek Me,
let these go their way. Let them sleep now and
take their rest . . . then let them awake and know
what I have done for them."
A Form of Catholic Activity
Charles A. McMahon
Editor, N. C. W. C. Bulletin
ON September 24, 1919, ninety-one arch-
bishops and bishops of the American
Hierarchy met at the Catholic University
of America and formed the National Catho-
lic Welfare Council. The meeting appointed a com-
mittee of seven of its members to perfect the
machinery of the council, to establish its several
departments and to co-ordinate their work in certain
important fields of Catholic endeavor. At two sub-
sequent annual meetings of the Hierarchy, in 1920
and 1921, the bishops of the country approved the
Council's work and provided funds for the continua-
tion of its departmental programs.
In two and one half
years during which the
Welfare Council has been
operating, the organiza-
tion has crystallized into
permanent form. It has
established five great de-
partments, each under the
direction of an episcopal
chairman and it has ac-
complished splendid re-
sults in the name of the
Catholic body of America.
Through its Press Bureau,
through the columns of its
monthly magazine, the N.
C. W. C. BULLETIN, and through the lectures and
talks of numerous speakers, the meaning and
message of the Welfare Council have been brought
to a considerable number of persons and to many
different communities throughout the country. And
yet very little is known by the average Catholic
concerning the aims and purposes of the organiza-
tion, as to why the bishops of the country deemed it
necessary, what it has accomplished up to this time,
and what it is planning for the future.
What is this organization of the National Catho-
lic Welfare Council to which Professor Carlton J.
H. Hayes, Professor of History at Columbia Uni-
versity, points as the "most significant and fruitful
creation of the war?"
Vexilla Regis Prodeunt
From the Divine Office
The banners of the King go forth,
The resplendent Sign 's revealed to men;
— The Cross on which Life suffered death,
And by death brought back life again.
The question is answered by David I. Walsh,
U. S. Senator from Massachusetts, in these words:
"The Welfare Council is the agency in America by
which the Catholic laity can be doers rather than
hearers of the word. ... in which bishops, priests,
press and Catholic laity, all united, can plan together,
work together, fight together to make this a better,
more Christian, God-fearing and God-loving
America."
Vj^HAT is there in the scheme of the N. C. W. C.
\l/ to command the interest and service of a man
like Admiral William S. Benson, knighted by
the late Pope Benedict
XV. with the order of St.
Gregory the Great and
pronounced by former
Secretary of War, Newton
D. Baker, as one of the
five men who did the most
to win the world war ? In
Admiral Benson's own
words "The plan of the
N. C. W. C. is so splendid,
the purpose so compelling,
that when the necessity
for orderly and sincere
organization is understood,
there is not a parish or
mission but will rally to the cry of 'God and
Country,' service to both, genuine and untiring, every
month and every month of every year." And to
show that his faith in the organization was moving
him to something more than mere lip service,
Admiral Benson, one of the busiest men in the
whole country, has served successively as parish
president, district president, diocesan president and
now national president of the National Council of
Catholic Men.
Before proceeding further with this necessarily
brief sketch, it might be well to inquire the reasons
which impelled the bishops themselves in 1919 to
launch the organization of the Welfare Council. In
their own words as contained in the pastoral letter
14
THE + SIGN
of the archbishops and bishops of the United States,
issued early in 1920 to the clergy and laity of their
charge, the reasons are stated as follows : —
"In view of the results obtained through the
merging of our activities for the time and purpose
of war, we determined to maintain, for the ends of
peace, the spirit of
the union and the
coordination of our
forces. We have
accordingly
grouped together,
under the National
Catholic Welfare
Council, the vari-
ous agencies by
which the cause of
religion is fur-
thered. Each of
these, continuing
its own special
work in its chosen
field, will now de-
rive additional sup-
port through gen-
eral co-operation.
And all will be
brought into closer
contact with the
Hierarchy, which
bears the burden
alike of authority
and of responsibil-
ity for the interests
of the Catholic
Church.
"Under the
direction of the
Council, and, im-
mediately, of the
A d m i n i s t rative
Committee, several
departments have
been established,
as follows : The
Department of Education ; Department of Press and
Publicity; Department of Laws and Legislation;
Department of Social Action; and Department of
Lay Organizations.
"The task assigned to each is so laborious and
yet so promising of results, that we may surely
THE LATE CARDINAL GIBBONS
First President of the Welfare Council
expect, with the Divine assistance and the loyal
support of our clergy and people, to promote more
effectually the glory of God, the interests of His
Church, and the welfare of our country."
It can be seen, therefore, that the Welfare
Council was an outgrowth of the war inasmuch as
it is the successor
| of the emergency
organization — the
National Catholic
War Council —
created by the
American Hier-
archy at the time
of America's en-
trance into the
world war and
through which the
archbishops and
bishops of the
Church in America
directed and inspir-
ed the mighty ser-
vices ot twenty
million united and
patriotic Catholics
during the greatest
crisis in American
history. Previous
to the establish-
ment of the War
Council, the Catho-
lic people of the
country had no
national organiza-
tion, no representa-
tive society,
through which
Catholic opinion
could be made
known in an
authoritative man-
ner and by which
unified Catholic
action could be
effectively directed in emergencies in which the
entire Catholic body of America was immediately
concerned or which affected the interests of the
whole American people. No attempt had ever been
made to solidify nationally the mighty forces of
American Catholicism, the result being that although
THE +SIGN
possessed of unity of faith, the Catholics of America
lacked unity of action and were not making the
imprint upon our national life in the various fields
of social activity which their collective strength war-
ranted them in doing.
The war brought to the Catholics of Ameri-
ca a heavy responsibility and a splendid oppor-
tunity. When Cardinal Gibbons offered to the
President, as the first pledge to be made by any
religious group in the
United States, the pat-
riotic services and
loyal support of the
entire Catholic body,
stating that "Our
people will rise as one
man to serve the
nation," he knew that
the Catholics o f
America would fulfil
this pledge without
reservation and with-
out exception; but he
also knew that in
order to make the
fulfilment certain, a
national organization
was needed — an
organization which
was official, which
was representative ol
the ecclesiastical au-
thority of the Church,
and capable of acting
intelligently and ef-
fectively in the ren-
dition of the services
required of it in the
country's crisis.
Archbishop of San Francisco
Chairman Administrative Committee
a GENERAL convention of the Catholics of
the country was held in Washington on August
11 and 12, 1917, to establish such an organiza-
tion and the National Catholic War Council was
the result. Its objects were to promote the spiritual
and material welfare of the United States troops at
home and abroad and to study, co-ordinate, unify
and put into operation all Catholic activities inci-
dental to the war. How well these objects were
attained, both during the war and in the reconstruc-
tion period which followed, is told in Michael
Williams' history of the War Council, "American
Catholics in the War," published during the past
year and reviewed in the February issue of The Sign.
The reading of this story of Catholic patriotism,
sacrifice and service has been urged upon all our
Catholic people by the highest authorities in the
Church and no Catholic who is anxious to get the
inspiration of the splendid beginnings of the Wel-
fare Council can afford not to read this excellent
book
The magnificent
record of Catholics
during the wai and
reconstruction period,
and the helpful ser-
vice which they ren-
dered both to the
country and to the
Church in the great
variety of activities
handled by the emer-
gency war organiza-
tion, impressed upon
the members of the
Hierarchy the neces-
sity of continuing in
peace times many of
the useful activities
of the war period.
Reminded by His
Holiness, the late
Pope Benedict XV.
that the Universal
Church was now look-
ing to America to be
the leader in all
things Catholic, and
realizing that without
unity of action and
thorough organization
effective leadership was impossible, the Hierarchy,
at their annual meeting in Washington in September
1919, determined to perpetuate the work of the War
Council in a permanent organization to be known
as the National Catholic Welfare Council.
BS a result of the meeting in September, 1919,
the bishops, a short time later, issued a
remarkable pastoral letter which set forth
the attitude of the Church and the Hierarchy toward
the many problems of reconstruction which were
THE +SIGN
engaging not only the attention of the Catholic
people of the United States but the thought of
America and the entire world.
This pastoral (a copy of which
should be in the possession of
every adult Catholic) received
the most widespread publicity
and the most favorable com-
ment from the American press.
In it the bishops stated that
"the tasks of peace demanded
that our people should arise
above all minor considerations
and unite their endeavors for
the good of the country." In
it was a call for the Catholic
body of the country to unite
their forces, to join themselves
together under the direction of
their bishops and with the ideals
of Holy Mother Church before
them to work nationally in one
splendid body to uphold Ameri-
can traditions, to promote
American ideals and to work
under the banner of "GOD AND
COUNTRY" for the restoration
of the kingdom of Christ
throughout America and the
world.
Thus was the permanent
organization of the Welfare
Council launched, to unite, co-
ordinate and express nationally
the splendid forces of American
Catholicism. In order that the
work of the Welfare Council
might be organized, co-ordinat-
ed and administrated in the
most effective manner, the
Hierarchy appointed an admin-
istrative committee of seven of
its members to manage the
affairs of the Welfare Council.
The most Rev. Edward J.
Hanna, Archbishop of San
Francisco, was appointed chair-
man of the administrative com-
mittee and the following
episcopal chairman of the various departments were
elected to assist him : His Emience D. Cardinal
Dougherty, Archbishop of Philadelphia, Chairman
of the Department of Laws and Legislation; Most
Rev. Austin Dowling, Arch-
bishop of St. Paul, Chairman
of the Department of Educa-
tion; Rt. Rev. Peter J. Muldoon,
Bishop of Rockford, Chairman
of the Department of Social
Action; Rt. Rev. Wm. T. Rus-
sell, Bishop of Charleston,
Chairman of the Department
of Press and Publicity; and Rt.
Rev. Joseph Schrembs, Bishop
of Cleveland, Chairman of the
Department of Lay Organiza-
tions. Later, when Cardinal
Dougherty resigned from the
committee, Rt. Rev. Edmund F.
Gibbons, Bishop of Albany, the
seventh member of the com-
mittee, was elected Chairman
of the Department of Laws and
Legislation, and Rt. Rev. Louis
S. Walsh, Bishop of Portland,
was elected to membership on
the committee.
Archbishop of St. Paul
Chairman Dept. of Education
j-Z<u^j^ <fr. &ui^i
Bishop of Albany
Chairman Dept. Laws and Legislation
H
IMITATION of space
permits mention of only
a few of the comments
of the bishops of the country
as contained in formal pro-
nouncements approving of the
council as a whole and of the
work of the various depart-
ments. The quotations given,
express the mind of a great
majority of the Hierarchy in
explaining the N. C. W. C.
Archbishop Hanna said recent-
ly, "Our plan is the uniting of
all our forces that we may work
nationally; that we may put our
ideals into our national life.
which we have not done suffici-
ently in the past." Bishop
Schrembs of Cleveland, episco-
pal chairman of the Lay
Organizations Department, com-
posing the National Councils of Catholic Men and
Catholic Women, not long ago stated : "We want our
THE + SIGN
Catholic manhood and our Catholic womanhood to
organize along the lines laid down by the National
Catholic Welfare Council. We
want a strong, vigorous, pulsat-
ing Catholic conscience that
will energize their endeavor,
vitalize their activity in our
national life." Archbishop
Hayes, in addressing a mass
meeting in New York held
under the auspices of the
National Council of Catholic
Women, said: "I am very glad
to get behind this national
organization in a national way
and anything I can do to place
it upon a solid basis and to
bring about better work not
only locally but also throughout
the country, I shall try to do."
Bishop Gibbons of Albany, in
voicing his approval of the
N. C. W. C. movement, remark-
ed : "The importance to the
Church and to society of the
movement can hardly be over-
estimated. The Welfare Coun-
cil has urged us, both clergy
and laity to be more Catholic
in our outlook, our plans and
our activities. It has shown the
way to the union necessary
to handle our problems effec-
tively." In urging the organi-
zation of the National Council
of Catholic Men in the Milwau-
kee Archdiocese, Archbishop
Messmer called upon all to take
an active part in the organiza-
tion, stating: "If the Catholic
church in the United States
does not occupy today the
prominent and influential posi-
tion it might and ought to have,
it is because her great and
irresistible powers for reform
and up-lift and welfare in all
the phases of public life have
not been brought into full play."
Many other archbishops and bishops have spoken
along similar lines.
li
ep
shop of Cleveland
Chairman Dept. Lay Organizations
-r
frf«KiJ'
Bishop o
Chairman Dept.
MPHASIZING a point dwelt upon by Arch-
shop Messmer in his pastoral, referred to
in the foregoing, Professor
Hayes of Columbia University,
in addressing the eleven hun-
dred delegates and members of
the National Council of Catho-
lic Women assembled in Wash-
ington last September, pointed
out that while possessed of
unity of faith, Catholics were
sadly lacking in unity of organi-
zation and action and therefore
were not making the impress
upon the national life of Ameri-
ca that their numbers warranted
them in making. On this point
Professor Hayes remarked:
"In spite of the Church's
amazing growth, American Ca-
tholics have had no such influ-
ence upon the thought and life
of the whole nation as their
numbers would lead us to
expect. Now for the first time
real opportunity presents itself
to the Catholic Church in the
United States. The way is at
last prepared for Catholicism
to supply spiritual and intellect-
ual leaders to the American
nation. We are no longer
immigrants. We are Americans,
and as such, we take second
place to none in allegiance to
our country and in prayer and
work for her prosperity and
well-doing."
0 much for the opinions
of ecclesiastical and lay
leaders relative to the
/3 /, plan of the Welfare Council.
" I (A^m*~*/v Tne question will now be asked
V^_^ "What has the N. C. W. C.
done to merit such enthusiastic
approval ? Notwithstanding the
fact that a considerable period
of time has been taken up out-
lining the necessary activities and programs of the
various departments of the N. C. W. C, in selecting a
f Charleston
Press and Publicity
THE 1* SIGN
capable personnel, and in co-ordinating the activities
of the several departments into an harmonious and
effective whole, the reviewer of the Council's work,
especially during the past year, finds a remarkable
total of accomplishments.
It should be kept in mind that the Executive
Department has the responsibility for the supervi-
sion of the work of the Welfare Council as a whole
and the ultimate responsibility as to its development,
as well as its general policy and action. Reverend
John J. Burke, C. S. P., Editor of the Catholic World
Magazine, as General Secretary of the Welfare
Council, acts as the personal
representative of Archbishop
Hanna, Chairman of the Coun-
cil's Administrative Committee,
at the National Headquarters,
1312 Massachusetts Avenue,
Washington, D. C, and is directly
in charge of the Executive De-
partment of the Council. Father
Burke's large and successful
experience as Chairman of the
Committee on Special War
Activities of the National Catho-
lic War Council, has eminently
fitted him for this responsible
task.
Bishop of Rockford
Chairman Dept. of Social Ac
^^./HE Executive Department
V/ J keeps in personal touch
with the officials of the
Government. It is a medium of
communication, of information,
and of action between these
officials and departments of
the government on all matters
that affect Catholic interests and Catholic rights.
It is a medium of information to legislators,
national or state, and to others who wish to inform
themselves as to the Catholic attitude on matters
of Catholic interest. For instance, the Executive
Department made known to President Harding the
Catholic position on education; it presented to him
information on Catholic affairs in the Philippines.
To the President personally was presented the pro-
nouncements on disarmament issued by the Admin-
istrative Committee of Bishops. The Executive
Department dealt directly with the Secretary of
the Navy in regard to Catholic missionary work in
Haiti and obtained the approbation of that official
*P-b UiuUiMV
for Catholic work on that island. It also negotiated
with the Treasury Department and with the Attorney
General and obtained satisfactory regulations govern-
ing the distribution of sacramental wine. Catholic
interests were also protected through the activty
of the Executive Department in the tariff
and immigration legislation enacted by the last
Congress.
The department secured from the State Depart-
ment passports for members of religious communi-
ties and others who desired to travel in countries
with which at the time we were technically at war.
The privilege of consecraton of
the graves of Catholic dead of
the World War buried in
foreign lands was received from
the Secretary of War. The
department secured Catholic
representation on the govern-
ment committee supervising the
burial of the American dead in
Arlington Cemetery. A number
of important conferences were
held by the department with the
Secretary of War on conditions
in the Canal Zone, where the
Council maintains a large wel-
fare house that aids materially
the Catholics of the Zone and
the Republic of Panama.
©
HE care of the Catholic
immigrant has been the
special charge of the
Executive Department. Before
the present immigration law
went into effect, 60 per cent of
those entering the country through Ellis Island were
Catholics. Realizing that immigration work to be
efficient must be national, the Executive Depart-
ment secured official recognition of the N. C. W. C.
by the United States Government as a national
agency in immigration work with the right to have
its own workers in every port of entry. The
executive Department created at its national head-
quarters a central immigration bureau in charge
of an experienced director and has already opened
up branch offices in the ports of New York, Boston,
Philadelphia and elsewhere.
The governmental recognition of the N. C. W.
C. as a national immigration organization will not
THE t SIG
N
only enable us to keep statistics of Catholic immi-
grants, to assist and protect them, but it will also
promote, and has in a measure already done so,
closer international relations between Catholics,
secure a kindlier treatment of them in foreign ports,
and lead the foreign born here to realize more
deeply their indebtedness to the Catholic Church.
This national immigrant work brings the service of
Catholic men and women in touch with high officials
and gives the former a vantage-point for wider
public influence and activity.
BT the request of the late
Holy Father, Pope
Benedict XV, the Execu-
tive Department has lent
the aid of its Immigration
Bureau to the Italian emigrant
work. This latter field has
recently been reorganized and
a Bishop, the Right Reverend
Monsignor Michele Cerrati, has
been delegrated to direct and
care for it.
The Executive Department
has also extended its immigra-
tion work to the care of the
Philippine students, thousands
of whom come to this country
for their higher education. In
many cases, they have been
led into neglect of their faith
through being cared for by
Protestant organizations. It
would take too long to rehearse
here even a summary of the
matter. The N. C. W. C. has established offices
with trained workers, speaking Spanish, at San
Francisco and Seattle; and is in touch with the
ecclesiastical authorities in the Philippines, and
there is good prospect that we will thus preserve
the faith of many.
The Executive Department has, through its
Bureau of Motion Pictures, done nation-wide effec-
tive work in preventing increase in the output of
indecent pictures. The N. C. W. C. has presented
a constructive program of motion picture improve-
ment which has elicited commendation from all
sources. It is admitted on all sides that the Welfare
Council has done more than any other organization
of similar character in arousing the consciousness
of the public to the indecency of the films and in
getting producers to agree to a housecleaning
standard which would eliminate filth from the screen.
The Council's Motion Picture Department is planning
more constructive and effective work in this direction
during the coming year.
Successful opposition has been exerted during
the past year to agitation for repeal of the law
forbidding the transmission through the mails of
literature on birth control. The N. C. W. C. aided
successfully in bringing about the defeat of the
Smith-Towner Bill and the move to reduce the
quota of Catholic chaplains in
the Army and Navy. The
Council supported the Shep-
pard-Towner Bill and aided in
its passage through the last
Congress.
Bishop of Portland
M ember Administrative Committee
n
ISTORICAL records of
the Catholic body during
the late war are being
gathered and kept by the
Executive Department. The
fatality records gathered to date
by this department show that
16 per cent of the loss among
Americans, wherever stationed,
during the period of the war,
was by members of the Catholic
faith. The historical materials
housed in permanent files fill
over 12,000 cubic feet of file
area. A ' force of 14 trained
workers is engaged in the work
of this most important depart-
ment, whose findings will have a most important
bearing upon the future histories dealing with the
Church of American Catholicism.
Since the establishment of the Welfare Council
and the consequent expression of unified Catholic
opinion much legislation harmful to the Catholic
cause has already been prevented. Present pro-
moters of legislation are not confining themselves as
formerly to economic and industrial questions; they
are pressing legislation of a paternalistic nature in
matters of education, morals and family life that
directly and fundamentally affects the spiritual and
religious life of the people as well. Only through
constant vigilance can continued success be obtained.
Current Fact and Comment
HOMES, FORSOOTH!
Q LARGE insurance company offers to finance
the building of 45,000 four-room apartments
for working class tenants. Whoever appor-
tioned such a living space to a working man's
family either has no conception of what a home is,
or is deliberately co-operating with the birth- con-
trollers. Others than the deserving working man
will quickly seize upon these snug quarters. The
measure gains favor daily. It is not to late to urge
that it be readjusted to the accomodation of
families of the class needing relief, but under
practical, humane and decent conditions.
EVERY DAY
^^^HE liturgical name of our week day is feria.
V_J Feria is Latin for festival. It was Pope
Sylvester in the fourth century who, retain-
ing the term Sabbatum for Saturday and Dominica
for Sunday, ordained that our Monday should be
termed feria secunda and thus the other week days
in order. The Pontiff's purpose was to remind the
clergy that, casting aside all care of worldly affairs,
they should be free to devote themselves to the
service of God alone.
The laity also should be inspired by the spirit
and motive of this regulation. No one should be
so deeply engrossed in necessary business or family
affairs or legitimate pleasures as to allow the entire
A FESTIVAL
day to pass without recalling that God supports
him the whole day long and without, at intervals,
addressing to God some brief affectionate prayer.
De Maumigny supplies this comparison: "A son,
really worthy of the name, is not satisfied with
seeing his father at meals taken with the rest of
the family, and the short time passed together after-
wards, but profits, moreover, of the hundred oppor-
tunities offered during the day of showing his love
and respect for his father. The soul which limits
itself to holding converse with God during morning
prayer, and omits to speak to Him during the day,
will never attain to familiarity with God."
AMERICAN PROSELYTIZERS IN
ONE of the last acts of the lately lamented
Holy Father was a very direct condemnation
of the proselyizing activities of the Y. M. C. A.
That this condemnation was justifiable is evidenced
in the reports of correspondents from countries
where the Y. M. C. A. and other sectarians are
taking advantage of the distress consequent upon
the war. Cardinal Piffl warns that this propaganda
is spread through every district of Vienna and that
it includes not only the barter of souls for victuals
and clothing but also the undermining of faith
through insidious interpretation of the Scriptures.
EUROPE
He exclaims: "Who would have the hardihood to
believe that God's mercy would permit humanity to
remain for eighteen years in error until a man from
America or England turned up to bring the truth?"
The prospective emigrant is singled out, taken in
hand and cajoled before he departs and provided
with introductions to charming agents who meet
him at the port of landing and at his final destination.
Steps have been taken to institute a definitely
organized campaign to counteract the loss to the
Faith threatening through this latter system.
XN the midst of our own difficulties inseparable
from the high cost of living, the scarcity of
employment and general industrial dissatis-
faction, an appeal comes to us from Austria which
is simply heart-rending. The Board of Health of
Vienna states that 96 per cent of the Austrian
children are undernourished, tubercular or in immedi-
THE CRY OF THE CHILDREN
ate danger of this dread disease. A physician
writes: "We operate in a room scarcely heated; to
provide heat for the sick-wards is out of the
question. The food which we give our patients is
only half-cooked and altogether insufficient
When will God have pity on us and deliver us from
all these woes."
THE 1* SIGN
These Austrian children are our brethren in the
flesh; they are also our brethren in religion. Non-
Catholics are showing a splendid interest in the
welfare of these poor of Christ. We Catholics
should not be outdone by the outsider in this great
time of a nation's pitiful distress. Remember
Christ's appeal: 'As long as ye did it to the least
of my brethren ye did it unto me."
The small sum of two dollars will keep a human
being from starvation for two months. Give the
two dollars if you can. No offering is too small.
Send all donations for the starving children of
Austria to Rev. John Egger, 165 East 88 St., New
York City.
FEDERATION OF COLLEGE CATHOLIC CLUBS
EORTY thousand Catholic students attend the
non-Catholic institutions of learning in this
country: twice as many as attend Catholic
institutions of the same grade. These startling
figures reveal what a proportion of our youth are
being educated in a positively irreligious atmosphere.
Long ago measures to counteract the evil influences
resulted in the formation of Catholic clubs in con-
nection with nearly one hundred non-Catholic col-
leges and universities. It was recognized that these
would derive added efficiency through a united
national organization. Hence the Federation of
Catholic Clubs was established in 1915. It aims not
only to federate but also to encourage organization.
Its success is indicated in a contemporaneous state-
THE BALKY
QLTIMATELY will navigation of the air be
made safe? Experiments with two enormous
dirigibles, embodying the latest features of
stability in structure and security of control, resulted
in their very sudden destruction and the loss of
eighty lives, mostly officers. Any one might be
acquitted of superstition if, standing by such a ruin,
he fancied the Almighty resenting man leaving their
proper terrestial plane, especially if one harked
back to a somewhat similar catastrophe at Babel,
concerning which the Bible makes the rather naive
statement: "The Lord came down to see what the
ment showing that in the East it now embraces forty
clubs, is about to federate twelve more, and is
organizing fifteen others. Last year it began to
organize and federate the middle and far West.
The Federation has secured Catholic faculty mem-
bers and priests to teach the truths of the Catechism,
of the Bible, of sacred history, of Catholic philoso-
phy and sociology. With the sanction of the
hierarchy and under the direction of its zealous
and disinterested officers the federation is supplying
a vital need for many who would otherwise enter
the arena of life without a due appreciation of
the truths of their faith and a corresponding con-
cern regarding virtue and morality.
DIRIGIBLES
children of men were doing." The Washington
Conference did not disarm the nations of their
aerial fighting forces. It would be hazardous, there-
fore, for this country not to keep pace with other
nations in their development of this department
with all its frightful offensive potentialities. With
only the defense of the country in mind, it is
gratifying to learn that others are ready to take the
places of the lamented victims, and with the simple
comment on the disaster: "It is merely a part of
the day's work," are applying themselves to. the
mastery of this arm of the service.
APPLIED COMMUNISM
COMMUNISM rejects the supernatural motive
in its ethical system. When we consider the
natural motives substituted, we ask how the
wildest dreamer could hope for stability from them.
For example, in order to carry out the dole or dis-
tributive principle of Communism, natural honesty
would be absolutely indispensible. How is this
working out in Russia where the system has been
on trail? From Le Figaro we learn that the Bol-
sheviki not only favored matrimony but decided to
encourage it with material premiums from the public
stores. Now when a woman discovers that her
shoes no longer keep out the snow she asks some
man friend to help her get a pair from the govern-
ment. A perfunctory marriage ceremony is per-
formed, the shoes are obtained, and then the couple
go their separate ways. A shrewd physician, a
bachelor with a hearty appetite and small income,
induced the president of the House Committee
where he resided to give him a certificate saying he
THE 1* SIGN
was married. As a result he procured a double
ration. Soon his imaginary wife fell ill and this
entitled him to a milk card. Later a baby came to
bless this fictitious union, and on the strength of
this there was a dole of additional delicacies. Un-
fortunately he became reckless about his dates and
announced the arrival of three children within six
months. An investigation was started, whereupon
an epidemic broke out in his family, which, inside
of two days, carried off his wife, two daughters
and little boy. It was a dreadful massacre on paper
but it served to let the physician off undetected.
THE K. OF C. PLAN FOR THE
^.'HE plan that has proven successful in San
V_J Francisco, has been to invite all the Catholic
Societies, including parish organizations,
sodalities, etc., to delegate some of their members
to act as general committee. This committee should
select as its head, a prominent Catholic layman.
Each organization contributes a small sum to pay
for postage, printing or circulars, display cards, etc.
Small circulars are distributed throughout all the
Churches of the city, and communications are mailed
to employers of labor, professional men and women,
theatrical and amusement people and various civic
organizations, requesting that only urgent business
OBSERVANCE OF GOOD FRIDAY
be transacted during the hours mentioned and that
those in their employ who wish to do so, may be
allowed the privilege of absenting themselves from
their work during these hours. The public at large
is requested to co-operate by attending the Church
cervices, and postpone all business or pleasure until
after 3 P. M. on this day.
Cards are printed, which are distributed among
the stores, and placed in the windows, stating that
the store will close between the hours of 12 and
3 o'clock. This, of course, is optional with the
proprietors of such establishments.
GOOD FRIDAY THROUGHOUT THE YEAR
•^VNCOURAGED by the wonderful success at-
\"~J tained by the Reverent Observance of Good
Friday in San Francisco, the Knights of Co-
lumbus have undertaken to spread the movement
throughout the country.
A frank appeal is made to every sort of
Christian that he devote at least the Three Hours
to prayer and meditation upon the Passion and
Death of Christ.
It is easy to visualize gratifying and far-reach-
ng effects attending this heaven-inspired movement,
in particular the reestablishment of the claims of
the Redeemer upon the affections of multitudes.
There has been too much of the mere toleration
of Jesus Christ.
On this occasion many, yielding to the reason-
able plea, will have their first experience in overtly
professing themselves on the side of Christ, and
their first delightful realization of the propriety
of it.
And to many others, who have professed the
Saviour only in their formal credos, will come the
woeful conviction, that He had not been a reality to
them at all, that the idea of Him had become
diluted almost to a non-entity.
How many have given him wine, and myrrh
willing to cast a spell upon Him that He might not
see their guilt!
We want to halt this drifting away from the
Ages of Faith when the Cross of Christ was em-
blazoned on banners, carved on the coins, exalted
on the highways and worn by noble and peasant
as their most precious ornament.
This call to honor the Savior will bring the
startling REALIZATION to many that:—
If Herod feared Him as a Babe in His Mother's
arms, we should fear Him seated at the
right hand of His Father.
When hi stood meek and forsaken before Pilate,
the creature was judging the Creator.
Those were blessed who went down from
Calvary proclaimng : "Truly this was the
Son of God!"
To be culpable it is not required that you
oppose Him; mere neutrality condemns you: "He
who is not with Me is against Me."
Not as a being from the distant past, vaguely
defined by the scant evidences of geology, does the
Church present Him to us, but as the undying
Christ of the closely linked tradition of these brief
twenty centuries!
"Take Good Friday with you through the year,
And sweeten it with all the other days."
The Sign of trie Cross
II — Its Form and Its Historp
Hubert Cunningham, C. P.
"^^^^HERE is a great variety of words used in
# Cj making the sign of the cross and so it is
^^^^ practiced in many different ways. The
most familiar of these is that which we
make upon ourselves from the forehead to the breast
and from shoulder to shoulder; the second is made
in the air and the third is made smaller and with
the thumb. The first mentioned is used by christians
as called for by the laws of the Church on many
and different occasions and is so well known that
nothing of explanation need be said. There is
a remarkable difference between our practice and
that of Catholics of the Greek rite. We trace the
lines from the forehead to the breast then from
the left to the right shoulder; the Greeks reverse
the second motion and make it from the right to
the left shoulder. The sign is made in the air only,
with an exception to be mentioned later on, to impart
a blessing on man or thing or to direct confusion on
the wicked spirits. The thumb cross, so called
because it is made with the thumb, is a little and
unobtrusive practice but it occurs very frequently.
The priest makes it over his heart during the divine
office, it is made on the lips at the prayer "Oh,
Lord, open Thou my lips and my tongue shall
declare Thy praise." The thumb cross is made for
all anointings of the child in baptism, of the sick in
Extreme Unction, on the forehead in Confirmation;
the bishop the priest, the sacred vessels and altars
and churches are all consecrated by the thumb cross.
These uses of the thumb cross are familiar but
there are three others, varieties of that same thumb
cross, which are not so obvious but full of the spirit
of christian love. In the first the thumb cross is
made upon some object and then kissed; for
example, the laity, after the gospel of the Mass,
marked a cross on the book they held in their hands,
on the kneeling bench before them, on the wall
nearby or on the floor and then kissed that sign.
This practice is still followed by our older Irish
people to whom we of the United States are indebted
for so many ancient religious practices. The only
instance of this that is still retained in the rubrics
is the practice of kissing, after the gospel the cross
which the priest makes on the missal before he
begins the gospel. A second very touching example
of the thumb cross is that of simply placing the
thumb across the index finger and then kissing the
cross so formed. This is a very ancient practice and
it is pleasing to know that it lives to-day among
the Catholics of Spain and throughout the Spanish-
American colonies in all its primitive freshness.
In conjunction with our own familiar sign of the
cross and the thumb crosses just mentioned and
adding besides to our common form of words a set
of words peculiar to the Spaniards it makes the
most elaborate of all the known practices of this
devotion. Here is a description of it: — With the
thumb over the index finger a cross is made on the
forenead, one over the lips and another over the
heart, and immediately the sign is made as we are
accustomed to make it — from the fore head to the
breast and from shoulder to shoulder. Beautiful
words are joined with these actions thus : — "By the
sign of the holy cross (Forehead I from all our
enemies (Lips) deliver us, Oh, Lord, (Heart) in
the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the
Holy Ghost." (Forehead, Breast and Shoulders).
All through these devout actions the thumb and
index finger are kept crossed and at the "Amen" the
thumb is kissed — for there is the cross!
XN the beginning of this article it was said that
the sign of the cross is made in the air only
as a blessing but to this rule there is one
very notable exception and that is a thumb cross
made in the air to which is bent a devout knee.
All have seen this practice though all may not have
understood and interpreted it aright. It has most
likely been observed in those from foreign shores
as they took the holy water at the church door.
These people not merely sprinkle themselves but
they make some sign in the air and courtesy the
while. What is the sign? Why the courtesy? It
is the sign of the cross thumb-traced in the air and
to that symbol they reverently bend the knee. An
ingenious devisement of faith and holy love, indeed!
The law of necessity is the mother of this
practice, and that thought must be expressed if we
are to get any true idea of the origin of this very
THE + SIGN
touching devotion. It is found among the simple-
minded, the rustic, the poor and the remote. It is
common in Italy, in Newfoundland and among the
poor of the West of Ireland and others who were
similarly situated and restrained. They have not
the means to supply themselves with the Holy
Crucifix nor the conveniences to indulge their tender
love for Jesus Crucified. No, but they know from
the instincts of their faith and from age-worn
example how to supply that want, so there above
them in God's free air they trace the symbol of the
Suffering God, their upturned eyes are bright with
faith and love and warm devotion and they can see
that aerial emblem as only the simple and the clean
of heart can ever see the supernatural, and spontane-
ously their humble knees bend in adoration, sweet
and fervent, before that vision of their Crucified
Saviour. It is an artless product of devotion, power-
ful and pent up, the child of a necessity which must
find expression, but which cannot speak better.
XT is comforting to see the crowds of American
Catholics who make the Stations of the Cross
each day in our churches but it is better still
to see the remote rustic in the bogs of Ireland, on
the mountain sides of the Abruzzi or in the ice-
clogged outports of the arctic stream or tossing on
its waters bend the knee of his worship to the cross-
lines which he had traced perforce on the air. To
see the dense masses crowding to the adoration of
the Good Friday Cross is an inspiring sight and we
thank God that they are enjoying the happy freedom
and have the conveniences to do these things. But
they have the freedom and they have the cross to
kiss. It is a spectacle more inspiring still to look
down into the Mamentine prison — that hole there
in Rome dug out of the solid rock and void of the
light of day — and see the chained martyrs there
raise their manacled hands and kiss their own-made
thumb cross. All good Catholics have been moved
while reading the lives of the Fathers of the Desert
and visiting those caves and sand dunes of the
Thebaid to see those holy anchorites withering
away in hungry adoration before two crossed sticks.
But these had at least the dried sticks. It is more
wonderful still to see St. Ignatius Martyr bound with
his "ten leopards" or the Apostle St. Paul chained
below decks, rise in their shackles and bend the
knee of their reverence to the thumb cross they
have traced on the fetid air.
^^=^HE history of the sign of the cross takes us
V^ J far back into christian years. This is very
well known of the sign which we make up
ourselves, it is well known of the benediction which
the bishop makes upon others. Not so much seems
to be known by the laity in general, of the little
thumb cross about which this article is, in the
main, concerned. It might reasonbly be asked why
this is chosen among all the other forms of making
the sign of salvation? There are many reasons
which make it specially interesting but it is chosen
here simply because it is the first, the most ancient
of all of them. This little act of piety is the root
from which all others of its kind have sprung. It
goes back to the days of the early christians, back
to the apostles — to Christ Himself.
It is quite remarkable that such a thing as this
could be reliably traced so very far back through
the years, and yet it is true and its evidences are
plentiful. It was only later, in the days of early
monasticism, that this little sign grew up, as it
were, and passed into the gesture of benediction.
It is not till later still, and many years, that there
appears any evidence of the sign of the cross made
in a large way as we make it over the person to-day
— not till the days of St. Cyril of Jerusalem. Beyond
that there is no trace of it and beyond the second
century we loose all the evidences of the benediction
cross, but the little thumb cross is always to be seen.
QNCIENT records of the Fathers of the Desert
tell us, "our fathers practiced the sign of the
cross most frequently and religiously. They
made it principally on rising and retiring, before
their work and before their meals, on going out and
returning." Scholars glancing at that language would
begin to suspect that the writer was copying the
words of one who lived long before the Fathers of
the Desert, for Tertullian, the great defender of the
cross and one of the earliest of christian writers
says, speaking of the manners and customs of his
co-religionists, "in all our comings and goings, in
bathing and dressing, before sitting down and be-
fore retiring or in whatever occupation we may be
engaged we mark our foreheads with the sign of
the cross." This is very impressive testimony
especially when we remember that it comes all the
way down from the second century. But it is not
the only evidence we can cull from this writer. He
says on another occasion that this practice of making
(Continued on page 28)
The Open Door
By George Henry Waldron
fT. JOSEPH'S stood on a corner where the
winds from two streets had a habit of
meeting early every morning to play tag.
Nobody minded that except the people
who had to wait there for cars to take them out
into the suburbs to work. And they found a way
out of the difficulty. The way led through the
doors of St. Joseph's, which the sexton left unlocked
as he went in each morning to stir up the fires and
ring the six o'clock Angelus.
It was nice and warm in the back part of the
church, especially near the radiator, where Jacob
Wells, treasurer of the non-sectarian and quite
non-Catholic Religious Alliance had staked his claim.
Most of the others seemed to be Catholics. At least
they knelt in pews. Wells saw no reason for kneel-
ing. Not that he was disrespectful. But why kneel
when the big church was all still and nothing going
on?
Accustomed to having his radiator all to him-
self in the darkened church — darkened save for the
little red lamp suspended near the high altar, the
meaning of which, he intended some day to inquire
— Jacob met with a big surprise one Monday morn-
ing when he found the church lighted and comfort-
ably filled. Two men were standing near the place
that belonged to him.
Outside, the first real blizzard of the winter was
getting under way. It was the kind of a morning
on which folks, who do not have to rise, stay in bed.
The congregation present was composed, with few
exceptions, of women.
*" — tf'ACOB recalled the story of the mistake a
\V- sexton of this church had once made in the
ringing of the bell. The Angelus, it seemed,
had long served as an alarm clock for many resid-
ing within hearing distance. One night the good
man made an error. It was only a difference of an
hour in the setting of his own alarm. But it was
sufficient to bring little groups of people out to
crossings and curbs all the way along the street a
full sixty minutes before the first car hove in sight
the next morning.
That day the sexton lost his standing as a
citizen. For a long, long time people paid no more
attention to his ringing of the bell than the scoffer
does, to the prediction of the weather bureau.
With that mistake in mind, Jacob looked at
his watch. It was correct as to time. His first
impulse was to leave the church. Looking towards
the sanctuary he saw that a priest was about to
speak from the pulpit and he felt that the remarks
were not for him. His second thought was, "It will
do no harm to remain. Why go out?" Jacob fol-
lowed his second thought. Doing so, he heard an
able expounding of a Catholic doctrine that he had
long misunderstood.
XT was in the car on the way to work that
Wells learned about the starting of the mis-
sion at St. Joseph's the day before. He was
told that he just happened in, on the short instruction
that followed the mass each morning. He made
mental note of the statement that men were wel-
come to attend the masses during the women's week.
All that week he heard the morning instructions by
the Missionaries. Always did like good speaking,
he told his wife, in informing her of the fact.
When it became known at the plant where he
was employed that "Old Jake" was "making the
women's mission," there followed a merry time at
his expense. As one of the men said "Old Jake's"
characteristic was backbone, opposition usually had
the effect of making him more firm. So the jibes
had about the same relative effect as the proverbial
water on the back of a duck.
HROM only one source was the joking in any
degree annoying. When young Charley
Burlingame, the assistant bookkeeper, and a
member of St. Joseph's Church, atempted to poke
fun at Wells the latter resented it. He did not put
the resentment into words but he felt it none the
less. His sense of the proprieties made it seem
quite out of place for a Catholic to join in such
badinage. So he bided his time for an opportunity
at retaliation.
It came the next Monday. Having occasion to
go into the office, he approached Burlingame.
"Are you making, or are you going to make,
the mission?"
THE + SIGN
The question was only the twenty-first that
had been put to Charley on the subject. There had
been exactly four from each of the five members
of his family. So of course he felt pleased over the
solicitude expressed by the pillar of the Religious
Alliance. His answer indicated his frame of mind.
CERTAIN old fashioned notions about some of
the rising generation did not help Wells to
take the more kindly to this rebuff from one
who already had a none too envied place in his good
graces. And with more certitude he catalogued
Burlingame among "the upstarts."
The select body composing the upstarts in-
cluded those who cared more, for spending money
than for earning it, and, more for dress than was
wise. They did not watch the clock nearly as
closely when it was time to crawl into bed at night
as they did when it was nearing the hour for the
blowing of the whistle that meant the quitting of
work for that day.
Wells returned to the attack the next day by
asking Burlingame a question about the Church's
teaching on a subjest that had been discussed at
the mission that morning.
As Charley, pausing between the adding of two
columns of figures, did not have the answer in just
the form that had been used by Father Lee, Jacob
found his answer an additional reason why Burlin-
game ought to get over being a sleepyhead, for at
least one week, and get up and go to church.
^^=^HE colloquy between Wells and Burlingame
^SJ began to be a subject of interest to the office
force generally. It was to accomodate one
of them, and equally to please himself, that Jacob
manufactured a reason for passing through the
office an hour later and remarking to the assistant
bookkeeper as he did so, about having seen some
other young fellows of about his age, and neighbor-
hood, at St. Joseph's that morning.
"For the love of Pete, forget it, will you?
urged Charley.
"Maybe if you went to bed at night you might
be able to get up in the morning."
The closing door prevented Jacob from being
injured by the look that Burlingame shot at him,
and from his receiving the half dollar that the office
manager, Miller felt like handing him for saying
what he did.
u
ACOB liked real oratory, he repeated at home
and to himself, as the reason for his attending
the evening service that night. Then he
listened to his good angel as well as to the Miss-
ionary and when he went home set his alarm clock
early enough for him to be at mass next morning.
"It seems to me that, after soaking up the heat
all season, when they have services I ought to do
more than just go in after mass is over and stand
around to hear the priest talk," he said.
Attendance at the mission had taken on a
seriousness that prevented it from being made a
subject of further humor with Jacob Wells. He
said no more to Burlingame.
But his silence was more of a rebuke that day
than any discourse he could have delivered. Charley
broached the subject to Jacob during the afternoon
and was surprised to find that he was attending
both the mass and the evening services. To have
a non-Catholic making the mission — as thoroughly
as one could make it — while he lay in bed o'
mornings was too much.
6VEN the hardest armor will give way under
sufficient pressure. Jake Wells was the pres-
sure under which Burlingame's indifference
yielded.
"To tell you the truth, Jake, you make me
ashamed of myself. Wish I had started at the
beginning."
Jacob Wells, generous of heart, formed on the
instant a new estimate of Burlingame. And forgave
him all.
"Start now. I dare you to get up in the
morning."
Charley took the dare. When the fellows in
the office heard that he was making the mission,
after all that had been said, he had to stand a new
kind of attack.
©
,URLINGAME was the Erst one in the office,
morning after he started atending mass.
'You know why Charley's here before the
janitor, mornings, don't you? He's making the
women's mission at St. Joseph's Church."
Only a week later in his calculations, Ferdinand
Wilson said, but with poor effect, trying some of
the repartee that he had heard exchanged between
Burlingame and Wells when the latter first started
hearing the instructions.
THE + SIGN
"Rave on, you scatter-brain," came from
Charley.
Just in time to hear young Wilson's remark,
Wells entered the office with some reports of the
previous day's work out in the plant.
"He and Jake are making it — the women's
mission," continued Wilson.
"They're starting one for children this after-
noon," said Wells. "You'd better go down, Wilson."
"Good for you, Jake," commended Burlingame,
under his breath, "I didn't know you had it in you."
"No," suggested Miller, the office manager,
who had no particular liking for "Ferdy" Wilson,
and furthermore was pleased with anything that
would get Burlingame in on time in the morning.
"Wait till they start the infants' class, Wilson
might get in on that, provided there's no brain test."
m
ILSON quieted down, but not some of the
others, for a period.
Which was the best thing that could have
have happened. What we have to pay for, we
appreciate. Wells and Burlingame were both a little
more sensitive than they would have admitted. So
the joking had in it some of the element of persecu-
tion. It had its due reward. Burlingame stated
frankly that on the days he had forced his lazy
self to get up betimes he had felt the best he had
in months. And that he was a better man in every
way. Certainly his disposition improved, which
was but natural, for he was a better Catholic.
And about Jacob Wells? After the mission
he still went into St. Joseph's each morning, as of
old. But he went in on Sundays, too. And as he
waited for the first car out every morning you
would find him, not standing in front of the radiator,
in the back part of the church, but kneeling with
bowed head near the altar.
It was where he made his daily act of gratitude
for the greatest of all great gifts — the Faith.
TKe Sign of the CrOSS — Continued from page 25
the little thumb cross is so general and so constant tinctly admits that it is not
that "frontem cruris signaculo terimus." Powerful
language! The practice of making that little sign
of the cross is so common among us christians that
"we rub off, wear away the skin from our foreheads"
in its making.
In their time these first christians had seen and
heard the apostles and their immediate successors;
from the hands of these they had received baptism ;
from their lips they had received the faith and its
sublime lessons and from their conduct they had
learned their pious practices. This knowledge and
these holy practices they made the rule of their
lives and preserved them, faithfully and unmixed.
"They were persevering in the doctrine of the
apostles and permitted nothing to be introduced
except what had been from the apostles handed
down. How severely true is this we see from
Tertullian. In the authority just now quoted there
is a very striking circumstance in point. It is this
— though the thumb cross is so general that it
pervades the whole life and the whole church of
those earliest christians and though Tertullian is
writing before the year 200 A D, he formally argues
the antiquity of the practice even then . He dis-
matter of grave obliga-
tion but merely a work of personal piety to make
the sign of the cross, what is more that it is not
demanded by the Holy Scriptures but "it is inherited
from christian tradition and confirmed in the church
by ancient usage." On the testimony of this great
scholar and fighter for the faith in and before the
year 200 A D the holy practice of making the
little sign of the cross reaches so far back as to be
called ancient, beyond the memory of living man
and the ken of the most erudite christian scholars!
It is a venerable and ancent practice, indeed!
With evidence so clear and of such a character
before us we can afford to ignore the temerity of any
man who should place a limit of time to the beautiful
little act or attempt to question the presence of the
use of the shy thumb cross by St. Ignatius Martyr
and St. Paul the apostle. Rather we are disposed to
accept, as of the best authority and undoubted, the
statement, that the great Apostle of the Cross used
that sign to give sight to a blind man, that St. John
made it upon himself before dying, and the teaching
of Monsignor Gaume, that Christ taught it to the
apostles and blessed them with it before His ascen-
sion into heaven.
God's Wonder Book
Marie Ellerker, 0. S. D.
VII
ONE of our first experiences as a child, and
one which continues through our life, is
a realization of the unpleasantness of
things which last a long time. The Church
understands this. We often speak of her as "our
Holy Mother the Church," and we are all, even the
oldest of us, just her children. It is told of the
great Saint Teresa, that when she lay dying, some-
one thought to console her by speaking of her
wonderful visions and of the great things she had
been allowed to do for God. The Saint made no
answer, she seemed not to pay the slightest heed,
but after a time she remarked very quietly : "What
I thank God most for is that I die a child of Holy
Church."
Now one way in which the Church's under-
standing of her children is shown is in the arrange-
ment of her services. In Holy Mass there is great
variety; we are not kept too long at the same thing.
Already we have had psalm and hymn, prayer and
reading. The reading, however, is not finished with
the Lesson, or Epistle, of which we have been
speaking in our last article : there is more to follow.
So at this point there is a change, and we recite, or
sing, the Gradual.
This part of the Mass you will find after the
Epistle in the Mass for the day, and not in the
Ordinary. It usually consists of verses from a
Psalm. In early times a whole Psalm was sung,
but now we have only a short portion.
The Gradual gets its name from the Latin
word gradus, "a step," because it was sung from
the step of the pulpit from which the Epistle was
read. It is followed by the Alleluia verse, or, on
some occasions, by the Tract. These, like the
Gradual, are generally taken from the Psalms,
though not always, as you will see if you look at
your Mass for the Dead.
ON five occasions there is a poem called a
Sequence coming here. The occasions are
Easter, Pentecost, Corpus Christi, Our Lady's
Sorrows, and the Requiem Mass. Some of these
you know quite well : the Veni Sancte Spiritus
(Come, Holy Ghost) for Pentecost; the Stabai
Mater (At the Cross her station keeping) for Our
Lady's Sorrows, which you are accustomed to sing
at the Stations of the Cross.
If you have a procession on Corpus Christi,
you probably know the Lauda Sion, the hymn
written for the Mass of that day by the Domini-
can St. Thomas Aquinas, in honour of Jesus in the
Blessed Sacrament. In it he has managed to tell
us nearly all the very important things which we
believe about Him there.
The other two Sequences are less well known.
They are the Victimae Paschali (To the Paschal
Victim) sung at Easter, and the Dies irae (0 Day
of wrath), a poem about the day of judgement,
which forms part of the Mass for the Dead.
XAM going to give you a translation of the
Sequence which you will find in your Mass
for Whit Sunday. If you will read it slowly
and try to understand it, I think you will find it is
a beautiful prayer to say when you are preparing
for Confession, or at any time you want to ask
God's special help and guidance.
VENI, SANCTE SPIRITUS
Come, O Spirit, Lord of grace,
From Thy heavenly dwelling-place,
Bring forth light our gloom to chase.
Come, the friend of all brought low,
Fountain whence all graces flow,
On the heart Thy love bestow.
Thine to wipe the bitter tear;
Thine the lonely heart to cheer;
Fainting spirits find Thee near.
In our labor Thou art rest;
Tears by Thee are solaced best;
Raging heat by Thee refreshed.
Come, O light most clear and blest,
Come and fill each longing breast;
Be Thy people's constant Guest.
If Thy Deity be hence,
Nothing brings man honor thence,
Nothing is without offence.
Come, to cleanse the guilty stain,
In the hardened heart to reign,
Wounds of sin to heal again.
THE 1* SIGN
To Thy Will the stubborn mould;
Warm and melt the bosom cold;
Bring the erring to the Fold.
Unto us who seek Thy Face,
And in Thee reliance place,
Give Thy seven-fold gifts of grace.
Pardon grant if we offend;
Grant us space till we amend,
Joy above that knows no end.
QEXT comes the Gospel, the last Lesson, and
the Church teaches us in what deep reverence
she holds God's Holy Word by the very
elaborate ceremonies with which she surrounds the
reading of the Gospel; but you only see these at
High Mass.
A young artist, a Protestant, spoke to me once
about the Bible, and seemed surprised to find me
sympathetic; she said she had always heard that
Catholics treated it with a sort of contempt. My
answer was to invite her to High Mass on the follow-
ing Sunday, and what she saw satisfied her, as I
knew it would. I would like you to pray next time
you are at Mass for those outside the Church who
have a great deal of love for the Holy Bible. Ask our
Divine Lord to give them the grace to find out from
it which is the true religion. In the Catholic Church
even the book of Gospels is shown deep
reverence. Before the days of printing the most
beautiful vellum was always chosen by the monks
on which to write it. This was sometimes stained
a delicate color, and the words written in gold and
silver letters. It was often bound in covers of some
precious metal, and richly decorated with costly
jewels.
A French magazine, written by the Benedictine
Fathers, had in it some years ago a most interesting
account of the gorgeous ceremonies, which show us
what our Catholic forefathers thought of the Bible.
On great feasts it was left all day upon the
altar.
It was often carried in procession, and when
a Bishop visited any cathedral or monastery, the
book of the Gospels was brought to the door for
him to kiss.
At General Councils it has been placed on a
special throne, as representing better than picture
or statue Jesus Christ Himself.
If for some lawful purpose you are called upon
to take an oath, you will be given a Bible to kiss,
and a convert making his Profession of Faith at his
reception into the Church does it with his hand
upon the book of the Gospels. St. Dominic always
carried a copy of the Gospel of St. Matthew about
with him on his long and fatiguing journeys.
I think all this will help you to understand
with what reverence and devotion you should
hear the Gospel at Holy Mass.
SOU will find it in your Missal in the part
proper for the day and not in the Ordinary.
At High Mass you can see all the beautiful
ceremonies carried out.
It is the privilege of the deacon to read it.
At his Ordination the Bishop hands him the book
of the Gospels, and commissions him to sing the
Gospel in the Church of God.
At one time it was the prerogative of the
Emperor, vested in rochet and stole, to read the
Gospel on Christmas night. If any of you go to
a Benedictine Abbey church, you will see it is the
Abbot who sings the Gospel from his stall at Matins,
vested in his stole and assisted by two acolytes.
The Missal is now removed to the north side
of the altar, which we call the Gospel side.
The deacon at High Mass takes the book of
Gospels from the little table at the side called the
credence table, lays it on the altar, and kneeling
on the steps, says this prayer, which at Low Mass
is said by the priest bending down in the middle
of the altar, as he passes to the Gospel side:
"Cleanse my heart and my lips, 0 Almighty God,
who didst cleanse the lips of the Prophet Isaias
with a burning coal ; and deign through Thy gracious
mercy to purify me that I may worthily announce
Thy holy Gospel. Through Christ Our Lord.
Amen."
Then, taking up the sacred book, he kneels
before the priest and asks his blessing. The priest
repeats almost the same words as the deacon has
himself said, blesses him, and lays his hand on
the book for the deacon to kies.
Then a procession is formed to the place from
which the Gospel is to be read, consisting of the
acolytes with their lighted candles, the thurifer,
the subdeacon, and, lastly, the deacon carrying the
book.
All the people rise. In ancient times kings and
princes took off their crowns; knights drew and
brandished their swords.
30
^^^HE deacon opens the book and sings:
V, J Lord be with you."
After the reply he announces what he is
about to read:
"The beginning (or the continuation) of the
Gospel according to N." At the same time, with
his thumb, he makes the sign of the Cross on the
book, then on his forehead, lips, and heart. The
people also sign themselves, and it may interest you
to know that this is the oldest form of the Sign of
the Cross.
The answer to the announcement of the Gospel
is: "Glory be to Thee, O Lord."
Then the deacon incenses the book three times,
and intones the passage of the Gospel appointed
for the day. At the end is said: "Praise be to Thee,
0 Christ." At Low Mass it is the server who makes
these answers.
The subdeacon then takes the book to the
priest, who kisses it, saying: "May our sins be
blotted out by the words of the Gospel."
At one time, the book was offered to everyone
to kiss. While the choir sang the Creed, the sub-
deacon, accompanied by the thurifer, presented
it to each person in turn.
The following is the Gospel appointed to be
read on the Feast of St. Joseph of Calasanz :
"At that time the disciples came to Jesus
saying: Who thinkest Thou is the greater in the
kingdom of heaven? And Jesus, calling unto Him
a little child set him in the midst of them and said :
"Amen, I say to you, unless ye be converted
and become as little children, ye shall not enter
into the kingdom of heaven. Whosoever therefore
shall humble himself as this little child, he is the
greater in the kingdom of heaven. And he that
shall receive one such little child in My name
receiveth Me." (St. Matt. XVIII.)
VIII
DOW turn back to your Ordinary of the Mass
to find the Nicene Creed.
There are several Creeds in use in
the Catholic Church. The first you learned
when you were quite small, and I am sure that you
say it every day in your morning or night prayers,
or perhaps both. I mean the Apostles' Creed. One
pretty legend says that the twelve articles were
the work of the twelve Apostles, one Apostle being
responsible for each article. Though this is not
THE + SIGN
The
certain, the Creed is very ancient and dates from
Apostolic times.
The Creed we say at Mass is a development
of the Apostles' Creed. It gets its name of Nicene
from the town of Nic^a, where in the year 325
a General Council of the Church was held. Some
persons had been teaching wrongly on several
points, notably concerning the divinity of our Blessed
Lord. At this Council they were condemned and the
exact teaching of the Church stated more plainly.
Some of the decisions were embodied in the Creed
which is now said at Mass on Sundays, and some
other feasts.
A creed, called the Athanasian Creed, is said by
priests in that part of the Divine Office, called
Prime, on certain appointed Sundays.
There is still another creed of which you should
know — that of Pope Pius IV, compiled after the
great Council of Trent which condemned the teach-
ings of the Reformers. This Creed is repeated as
a Profession of Faith by converts upon their recep-
tion into the Church.
The word Creed comes from Credo (I believe),
the first Latin word with which it begins. A number
of prayers have received their names in this way.
I am sure you can find examples of this ; for instance,
the Magnificat and the Memorare will at once come
to your mind.
XN the early days of the Church, those persons
who were still under instruction and had not
yet received the Sacrament of Baptism were
called catechumens. They were not allowed to be
present during the most solemn parts of the Mass,
but only to the end of the Creed. Hence the first
part from the beginning to the Creed was called
the Mass of the catechumens. At this point they,
in company with those Catholics who were doing
public penance for their sins, had to leave the
church. In our own times the Church is more
indulgent, and all, however unworthy, are allowed
to remain during the whole of the great Sacrifice,
and to join their worship to that which Jesus is
offering to the Godhead in their name and in their
place.
We always kneel at the words: "Et homo factus
est" (And was made man).
This is a little act of adoration offered to God
the Son made man for us and for our salvation.
After these words have been sung at a High
Mass the deacon goes to the credence table and
THE + SIGN
gets the burse. He takes out the corporal and
spieads it over the altar stone.
You should always join the Creed. It is the
Church's own Act of Faith, as the Confiteor is her
official Act of Contrition. By saying it fervently
you strengthen this great virtue in your own soul.
I believe in one God, the Father Almighty,
Maker of heaven and earth, and of all things visible
and invisible. And in one Lord Jesus Christ, the
only begotten Son of God, born of the Father be-
fore all ages. God of God; Light of Light; very
God of very God; begotten not made; being of one
substance with the Father, by whom all things were
made. Who for us men, and for our salvation,
came down from heaven, and was incarnate by
the Holy Ghost of the Virgin Mary, and was made
man. [Kneel in reverence for Christ's Incarnation.']
He was crucified also for us, suffered under Pontius
Pilate, and was buried. The third day He arose
again according to the Scriptures; and ascended
into heaven, and sitteth at the right hand of the
Father: and He shall come again with glory to
judge both the living and the dead : of whose
kingdom there shall be no end.
And I believe in the Holy Ghost, the Lord and
Life-giver, who proceedeth from the Father and
the Son; who together with the Father and the Son
is adored and glorified : who spoke by the prophets.
And One Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church. I
confess one baptism for the remission of sins. And
I look for the resurrection of the dead, and the
life of the world to come. Amen.
IX
^-— -^ITH the Creed the preparatory part of the
W I ^ Holy Mass ends, and we come to the
y£y Offertory.
The priest turns to the people with the
wish you know so well :
"Dominus vobiscum" (The Lord be with you).
"Et cum spiritu tuo" (And with thy spirit).
Then he says: "Oremus" (Let us pray).
But no prayer follows. In the early days,
when the catechumens had left the Church, the
people here were asked to pray for a number of
different intentions. You will understand what I
mean if you will study the Good Friday Mass.
You have in it a collection of prayers for the
Church, the Pope, Bishops, etc. You will find them
after the Gospel because no Creed is sung on Good
Friday. Probably at every Mass there used to
be a similar collection of prayers; but we have not
got them now.
Then in your Mass for the day you will find
an Antiphon called the Offertory. Like the Introit
and Gradual, about which we have already spoken,
this was originally a whole psalm, but the Antiphon
alone is now left.
^^^HE reason for the whole psalm was the ancient
V^J custom of receiving at this point the offerings
of the people. In those far-off days the
faithful brought to the church offerings of what
was needed, both for the service of the altar and
for the support of the priest. While these were
being received the choir sang a Psalm. In another
place I have spoken of these offerings as an expla-
nation of the large corporal which had to be used
in those days to cover them.
From the offerings of the people the priest
selected what was needed for the Consecration.
The rest was used, some for the support of the
priests, some for the poor, and some was given to
those who were not receiving Holy Communion as
"blessed bread."
We no longer make offerings of bread and
wine, but it is at this part of the Mass that the
collection is taken which is used to buy what is
necessary for the church and for the priest. We
should count it among our privileges to be allowed
to give. Too often, alas! it is looked upon as an
unpleasant duty, and sometimes, I think, people
are inclined to forget that there is a Fifth Com-
mandment of the Church which bids us contribute
to the support of our pastors.
There are three principle parts of Holy Mass,
and to miss one of them is to miss Mass. These
are the Oblation, the Consecration, and the Priest's
Communion.
The Oblation is the offering up to God by the
priest of the bread and wine, which are to be
changed into the Body and Blood of Jesus Christ.
The prayers with which the priest accompanies this
Oblation are very beautiful, if only you will try
to undersrtand them. They are found in the
Ordinary of the Mass, to which you must turn back
as soon as you have read the Offertory.
This is the Offertory for the Feast of the Holy
Name of Jesus : "I will praise Thee, O Lord my
God, with my whole heart, and glorify Thy name
forever, for Thou, O Lord, are sweet and plenteous
in mercy to all that call on Thee. Alleluia."
THE + SIGN
into his food and drink to make them bitter or
insipid. He would kneel upright in prayer a long
time, though it caused him pain. He deprived
himself of many things and deliberately denied his
own desires. He acquired the practice of thinking
constantly, of Our Lord's sufferings. The boy soon
surpassed his saintly mother in this devotion to
Christ Crucified; and the records of his life attest
that his father had to restrain him in doing penances,
lest he injure his health.
As a youth, he was accustomed to speak to his
companions about the Cross and Passion of Christ.
With his brother John, and another companion he
often went to a little oratory near his native place,
and there so many people assembled to listen to
him describing the Passion that he had to divide
the crowd requiring that the women and children
come in the morning, and the men in the evening.
He grasped every opportunity to persuade others
to practice some act of piety in gratitude to Jesus
Crucified.
^y^HEN he began to give missions and retreats,
\\y and held aloft his great large Crucifix, the
people gathered around him and his compan-
ions, and many of them were converted from a life
of sin to holiness and an ardent love of the Cross.
With the blessing and assistance of Bishops and the
Sovereign Pontiffs, he succeeded in establishing the
Congregation of the Most Holy Cross and Passion
of Our Lord Jesus Christ, which continues his
wonderful work in many parts of the world at the
present day.
St. Paul of the Cross in truth was an apostle
powerful in word and work, and won innumerable
souls for Christ Crucified. God blessed his zeal,
and surrounded him in his declining years with
saintly men and with many rich favors of the
Church.
Year after year, the Passion seemed to become
more and more his only thought. He devoted much
time to preaching missions and retreats and hearing
confessions, besides building up and directing his
Congregation of Religious, but it was all done to
make known his Crucified God. He manifested his
love for a crucified life especially in time of trial
and disappointment, or when suffering from illness.
Thus he passed eighty one years. His last act on
earth was to kiss and embrace his Crucifix.
(T. PAUL of the Cross, by right therefore is
honored as the patron of the Archconfra-
ternty, because he spent his life in spreading
devotion to the Passion by his words, by his
example, and by means of his institute. As the
purpose of the society is to promote a grateful
remembrance of the sufferings of Our Lord, much
may be learned from the example and labors of St.
Paul of the Cross, and much may be gained through
his powerful intercession.
As patron of the Archconfraternity of the
Passion, St. Paul of the Cross will obtain many
blessings for those members who earnestly strive
to fill their hearts with devotion to Our Lord's
Sufferings. He will be a model to the members
in thinking frequently of the sorrows and sufferings
of Christ. He will show them how to make of the
sorrows of life so many offerings acceptable to their
Divine Redeemer. He will prove himself a strong
protector to the members in times of anxiety and
discouragement. They may feel certain their
heavenly patron will remember them day by day
and assist them in all their undertakings.
QS St. Paul of the Cross was an unwearied
"hunter of souls" for whom Christ suffered
and died, the members of the society should
follow his leadership and seek to persuade others
to join the Archconfraternity and much more to pray
fervently for the conversion of sinners. They can-
not ascend the pulpit to preach Christ Crucified, as
St. Paul did but they can offer their Masses, Holy
Communions, Rosaries, Visits to the Blessed Sacra-
ment, and Stations of the Cross, or other pious works
for the success of the missions and retreats. They
will walk in the footsteps of the patron of the Arch-
confraternity when they kneel before the Crucifix
in fervent prayer, and especially when they speak
of it to others. They will become more and more
like St. Paul of the Cross by the efforts they make
to promote devotion to the Sacred Passion.
A sure and excellent way to honor the patron
of the Archconfraternity of the Passion, and to
acquire his spirit, is to say some prayer to him every
day and by receiving Holy Communion on his Feast
Day, April 28th. The numerous miracles and count-
less divine favors obtained through his intercession
show that he rewards those of the faithful who
seek his aid. How much greater then will be the
blessings he will obtain for his own children the
members of the Archconfraternity of the Passion!
The Passionist Missionaries In Japan
XT was the Vigil of the
Epiphany when we awoke to
find ourselves skirting the
coast of Japan, and within a few
miles of the great sea-port of Yoko-
hama. The morning sun cast its
golden rays on the long low cliffs,
which for mile after mile, form a
sort of natural protection to this
great country. These cliffs for the
most part, were very sombre to
the naked eye: brown, dark red
and grey, with a dash of blue-green
foliage where the sun cast its slant-
ing beams on the jagged peaks.
Quite naturally, the passengers
were early on deck
and alert for the.
first glimpse of Yo-
kohama Bay. On
an exeremely clear
day, we were told,
an excellent view of
Fujiyama, the
sacred mountain of
Japan may be had.
But it was not our
good fortune to en-
joy this privilege.
There was plenty
to attract our at-
tention, in the fleet
of small fishing
boats, or sampans,
which dotted the
surface of the bay.
Curious little boats
they were : red in
color, with small
square sails of yellow, dancing
up and down on the blue lawn of
the harbor, their occupants busily
engaged with their nets and lines.
Now and then the glasses revealed
a small village hidden away in some
protecting cove, or a trim lighthouse
of spotless white, enhanced in its
beauty by the silver flash of a multi-
tude of flying fish who cavorted in
the foreground. A little further on,
we passed between two forts guard-
ing the harbor entrance. Word was
now passed along that cameras must
be put away in order to avoid
trouble with the authorities.
Soon the outlines of the city were
Tkeir Visit And Impressions
marked against the sky. Large
flocks of gulls flew out to greet us,
wheeling around and above the
steamer, like those so familiar in
New York and Boston harbor.
The "Wenatchee" ran her flags
aloft, signalling for the port health
physician to come aboard, and
release us from quarantine. Power
was stopped, and the ship floated
along lazily. Shortly a small tug
came along side and two dapper
little Japs ran up the ladder. Effici-
ency was written on every line of
their bronzed countenances. Deftly
they called for the sailing list,
the Orient, not in picture or in print,
but in actual fact. The dock was
crowded with stevedores and rick-
shaw men, dressed in dark blue
jackets, with Japanese symbols
written on their backs; a sign of
their business or of the concern
which employed them. Here and
there was a dash of color where a
lady filtered in through the assembly.
Here also, but few in number, were
the Europeans and Americans, an
almost startling contrast to the
crowd around them.
Jinrickshaw is the proper name
for the vehicle which simplifies the
transportation pro-
blem in the Land of
the Rising Sun.
For the uninitiated
we shall explain.
The rickshaw is a
two wheeled carri-
age usually offering
accomodations for
one passenger. In-
to the shafts is
harnessed, not a
horse, but a little
brown man, who
patters over the
streets of the city
at a fast clip for a
sufficient number of
sen or yen, as the
case may be.
THAT CARRIED THE FIRST EAND OF PASSIONIST
MISSIONARIES TO CHINA!
counted the passengers, inquired of
the ship's surgeon for contagious
disease, and quickly made their de-
parture.
Passports were then visaed by the
port authorities, and by that time
the "Wenatchee" was made fast to
the pier.
aOKOHAMA is the first stop
in the Orient, and one of the
leading ports of Japan. Its
business was founded on foreign
trade, and now handles the greater
part of the exporting for the im-
mense silk industry of the country.
Here we had our first glimpse of
36
B
GROUP of
c h au f feurs
approac h e d
us. With profuse gesture and a
smattering of broken English they
informed us that the fare was "one
yen an hour," the price on boat
days. With a whoop they ran for
their carriages. Our guide could
speak a little English, and did his
best to point out the principal
objects of interest. Through one
narrow street after another we
wended our way. The feeling was
one of perfect safety, save when a
Ford, of which there are some few
in Japan, threatened to annihilate
us. A short yo ! every now and then
was enough to make the average
pedestrian step sharply aside.
At times it was difficult to make
our way because of the children who
thronged the narrow thoroughfares
playing games. The most popular
game seemed to resemble ping-pong.
With a small paddle they vigorously
struck a small object covered with
colored feathers, which twisted and
squirmed through the air, and
seemed loath to land in any definite
spot. Simple as it was, it amused
the little ones. What more could
be expected? To see a larger girl
darting about with her paddle, at the
same time having a baby strapped
to her back, was not uncommon.
On turning a corner, we came upon
two young men having a fling at
the "national game." An American
baseball and glove furnished the
sport.
OUR guides next took us to the
great temple Zotoku in. It
is situated on one of the
highest hills in the city. Alighting
from our rickshaws at the base of
the sacred mountain, we began the
steep ascent. Landings have been
erected along the way, and booths
were doing a flourishing trade in
holiday trinkets. On one of the
landings was a large tablet con-
structed of slate, on which were
written the names of the donors of
the temple. A few steps further
on was a memorial shaft surmounted
by a large anchor, erected in memory
of deceased Japanese sailors.
Finally, arrived at the summit we
entered the pagan temple. Here we
beheld the pagans at their devotions,
paying homage to their false gods.
Men and women would carefully
remove their wooden sandals, kneel
in adoration for a few moments. A
low prostration would then be made,
after which the devotee would give
three short claps of the hand. This
seemed to be the highest act of
worship. The fact that tourists were
looking on, did not disturb or annoy
them. They were entirely indifferent
to our presence.
"The idols of the gentiles are
silver and gold: the work of the
hands of men" Psalm 113. How
pitiful to see this vast nation in the
darkness of idolotry ! blind to the
light! ignorant of the doctrines of
Christ Who alone can raise them
THE + SIGN
from the depths of pagan supersti-
tion ! Sad to say, the Japanese do
not as readily accept the truths of
Christianity as do the Chinese. The
total number of Catholic Christians
in Japan is about 60,000. The people
are extremely materialistic, a fact
which makes the progress of Chris-
tainty doubly hard. This spirit has
been intensified during the world
war. Profiteering has become the
common order of the day, whether
one does business with the upper
classes, or with the humble rickshaw
man. With a prayer in our hearts
to Mary the Mother of Christians
we departed, hoping that the day
might soon come, when the land will
know the fulness of God's revela-
tions, and the love of Jesus Christ
and Him Crucified.
The weather here is bitterly cold.
This is caused by the dampness, for
the thermometer rarely falls below
zero. The Russian refugees here in
great numbers from Vladivostock,
say they suffer more from the cold
here, in Japan than they ever suf-
fered in the frozen fastnesses of
Siberia.
fflTf
guide offered to take me to
Foreign settlement, so we
went across the city to the
Bluff where the Catholic Church is
located.
Our route lay along the banks of
a narrow canal crowded with boats.
Boys on bicycles were hurrying to
and fro, threading their way through
the congested traffic. Street haw-
kers were busily trying to sell their
goods. Tradesmen carrying their
wares in two small buckets on the
end of a pole walked slowly by.
The hum of voices and the clap, clap
of the wooden sandals made me
realize that I was in a new world,
or rather in an old one, where
civilization had made but little pro-
gress.
On my way to the convent where
I had been told there were English
speaking Sisters, I passed the "Mis-
sion Catholique" with its beautiful
church and gardens. Pressure of
time prevented my calling there
later as I intended. This mission is
in charge of the Fathers of the
Foreign Mission Society of Paris.
It was to this community that
37
Theophane Venard, known as the-
"Modern Martyr" belonged.
After a little difficulty I found the
Sisters' Convent, rang the bell which
was answered by a dainty little
Japanese girl. I finally made her
understand that I wanted to see one
of the Sisters, and I was ushered
into an adjoining parlor. This re-
ception room was very similar to
those we meet with in America : a
few religious pictures on the wall,
a statue of a saint etc. A small
brazier filled with charcoal furnished
the heat.
The Assistant Superior entererd
now. Speaking perfect English, she
explained that the Community was
on retreat. She expressed her regret
that this made it impossible for me
to meet the Sisters. The evening
conference was about to begin, and
I felt sorry I could not accept the
invitation to return on the morrow,
as my time in the morning would
be limited. The Convent and school
is in charge of the Dames de St.
Maur, and is made up of French,
Irish and Japanese Sisters.
(T. JOSEPH'S College, con-
ducted by the Brothers of
Mary from Dayton Ohio, is
on the next property. Everything
was done by the good Brother
Superior to make my short visit a
pleasant one. Two young Brothers
from the U. S. are numbered among
the professors. One a native of
Maryland, the other is from Ohio.
Needless to say they were delighted
to meet someone from their own
country, and chatted merrily about
affairs in "God's Own land."
These brothers have bsen con-
ducting schools in Japan for nearly
forty years, and are thoroughly
conversant with the work. Schools
in Tokyo, Osaka, Nagasaki are also
under their supervision. St. Joseph's
College in Yokohama is for foreign
boys only. The others have a large
enrollment of Japanese. About
twenty Japanese Brothers are mem-
bers of the Community.
It was a pleasure to extend the
greetings of the Brothers of Mary
in Pittsburgh to their brethren in
Yokohama. Th^ Brother Superior
kindly made arrangements with the
rickshaw man to bring me to the
THE + SIGN
College in the morning to say Mass.
True to his word, my man was
awaiting me the next morning as I
stepped off the
boat. I was clad
in my Passionist
habit, the first, I
believe, to wear the
garb of St. Paul of
the Cross on the
soil of Japan.
It was the Feast
of the Epiphany,
the Apparition of
the Star to the
Gentiles, that saw
the first Mass of-
fered by a Passion-
ist on the soil of
Japan. There, in
the modest chapel,
close to the still
more modest crib,
the Precious Blood
of the Adorable
Lamb was raised to
Heaven, supplicat-
ing the Eternal
Father. to have
mercy on this peo-
ple groping in the darkness of Pagan
superstition.
"O God, who by the leading of
a star didst on this day manifest
Thine Only-begot-
ten Son to the
Gentiles ; mercifully
grant that we, who
know thee now by
faith, may be
brought to the con-
templation of Thy
glorious majesty."
Thus ran the beau-
tiful words of the
Mass. Yes, O
Eternal Father, may
the eyes of these,
Thy children, be
opened to the
wonders of Thy
love, revealed in the
Passion and Death
of Thy beloved
Son.
"And opening
their treasures they
offered Him gifts, gold, frankincense,
and myrrh." O Sweetest Saviour,
we the Sons of Thy Passion offer
Thee not gold, but what is far more
pleasing to Thee : the sacrifice of
our lives, for the redemption of
these children, purchased by the
THE SUZUKI FAMILY ON THE "WENATCHEE1
shedding of Thy Most Precious
Blood.
It was on Christmas Eve that
we left America. How propitious
IN JAPAN
that we should make our first stop
in The Far East on the Vigil o-f
the Epiphany, the Christmas of the
Gentiles, and in that country so
3S
aptly called the Morning Star of
the Orient!
BO B E, our
next port in
the Orient,
is about a twenty
four hour ride on
the boat from
Yokohama. The
city is probably the
greatest shipbuild-
ing center in Japan.
The trip along the
coast gave us a
splendid view of
Mt. Fuji, the sacred
mountain, crowned
with perpetual
snow, and dominat-
ing the sky line in
its tremendous ma-
jesty.
We have had the
pleasure of meeting
Mr. Alfred Paul
Suzuki, one of the
leading Catholics of
the Japanese Em-
pire. Air. Suzuki
was a member of the delegation
which greeted Cardinal O'Connell
on his famous mission to the Orient
some years. ago. When this gentle-
nan first took up
his abode in Kobe
some fifteen years
igo, there were only
about fifteen or
twenty Catholics in
the city. On
Christmas, 1921,
there were nearly
600.
Our host wished
us to have a glimpse
o f Japanese life
untainted by the
modernism w h i c h
exists in the cities
along the seacoast.
A c c o r d i ngly we
entrained for
Kyoto, about sixty
miles by rail from
Kobe.
Kyoto, with its
population of 600,000, is, we were
told, one of the most interesting
cities in Japan. It is the religious
center of the Empire, having 87S
THE +SIGN
Buddhist temples and 90 Shinto
shrines within the city limits. For
over a thousand years it was the
capital of the country. Founded
by the Emperor Kwammu in A. D.
794, it remained the capital, and the
residence of the Emperors until
1869. The Imperial court was then
removed to Tokyo.
A Japanese railroad, is like the
people, rather diminutive. The
European custom of having first,
second and third class, is strictly
observed. The engines are small,
but make good time, and the coaches
compare favorably with any in
America.
aT each station the crowd
pushed and shoved in true
American style. Quick-lunch
entrance and exit. The quick-lunch
and newspaper boys cried their
wares. Across the aisle from us, a
young Jap clad in native costume,
dropped his sandals (wooden) on the
floor, drew his legs under him, tailor
fashion, opened his lunch, and began
to wield his chopsticks energetically,
to consume his rice. From the noise
he emitted, it must have been very
appetizing.
XN all the country we tra-
versed, there was hardly a
square yard which was not
cultivated. Rice fields, dotted the
land like a checkerboard. Men and
women worked vigorously at the
crops which, in spite of the chilly
weather, were green and flourishing.
Villages of trim and tidy houses
slipped by, with the sloping roof of
the ever-present Buddhist temple
dominating the town.
After lunch our host had us
driven to some of the places of in-
terest. In Kyoto are to be found
the best specimens of Japanese art,
for in spite of the removal of the
capital to Tokyo, it still remains the
center of art, religion, and literature.
The Emperors gardens were next
seen. Formerly these could not be
entered except by special permit
from the Imperial household. Now,
however, they are open to all.
Nothing in America can surpass
these grounds in beauty ; and our
only regret was that we had not
the privilege of seeing them in the
summer tune, wne
acres are in bloss
bed in Fairyland.
e two hundred
like a flower-
jYOTO, as we mentioned, is
the religious city of Japan.
"Cliion-in" temple, our next
visit, is built on a charming eminence
near Maruyama park. The bonzes
have chosen well when they selected
sites for their temples, the character
Grateful acknowledgement
is hereby made for the follow-
ing donations for the
Pas-
sionist Missions in China
Anon. Dunkirk, N. Y. .
$5.00
Miss C, Newark, N.J...
1.00
Rev. C. Scranton, Pa.. . .
8.00
M. S. J. Pittsburgh
1.00
Miss M. R. Boston
10.00
Anon, Cambridge, Mass.
2.00
P. R. Cincinnati
3.00
Miss B. C. Baltimore. .
5.00
Rev. C. Scranton
3.00
Miss E. C, East Orange,
N. J
1.00
Miss W. Scranton
1.00
C. C. Montclair, N. J.. .
4.00
Miss W., New York.. .
5.00
Anon, Lakewood, N. Y..
6.00
Anon, Crown Pt., N. Y.
30.00
S. Charlestown, Mass.. .
10.00
Anonomous
17.00
Mite Box, Philadelphia.
3.50
Requests have come
for
"Mite Boxes." These
>oxes
are now ready for distribution,
and will be sent on request to
THE SIGN.
of the countryside lending itself
beautifully to this type of building.
The approach is always up a giant
stairway of stone which cannot fail
to impress, and give an air of im-
portance to the temple itself. This
particular shrine is the head temple
of The Jodo sect of Buddhism, and
was built by Honen-Shonen in the
12th century. Formerly the Lord
Abbot of Chion-in held the office
of Imperial Prince.
Our disappointment was keen
when we found that we were just
five minutes late to attend services.
The temple closes promptly at four,
as the old sandal-keeper informed
us. At times hundreds of Bonzes
take part in the imposing ceremon-
39
ies, dressed in gorgeous vestments,
and intoning the service in a mono-
tonous chant. Standing on an enor-
mous dome on the hillside is the
great bronze bell from which sounds
the solemn warning that the time ol
prayer is come.
IIYOMIDZU Temple to which
we next bent our stops is
situated to the south on the
same range of hills. Dedicated to
Kwannon, the goddess of mercy, it
is under the control of the Shingon
sect. Here we had an opportunity
to view the devotions of the people
at close range. Men and women
were praying, or doing what looked
like praying. This consisted mainly
in many bows, etc., but nobody
seemed serious with the exception
of one or two.
We were privileged to see a real
Japanese funeral. Up the street
came the procession, led by two men
carrying what looked like Christmas
trees, gaily decorated with tinsel
and colored ribbon. Next came a
rickshaw bearing what looked like
the chief mourners: a mother and
her child. Then appeared the casket
carried on two poles, the end of
each pole resting on the shoulder of
four sturdy Japs. The rear of the
procession was made up by a body
of young men in uniform, most
likely the school or organization to
which the dead man belonged, as
our host informed us.
^ir^E were soon on our way back
f J 1 to Kobe, satisfied that we
^*^ had a glimpse, at least, of
real Japanese life. And we could
not help feeling the greatest respect
and admiration for this Japanese
gentleman who continues to lead
such an ideal Catholic life amid
these pagan surroundings.
The next morning which was
Sunday, Mr. Suzuki called at the
boat with his wife and family. He
kindly consented to be snapped with
the Fathers, and we felt justly proud
to have our picture taken with these
Japanese Catholics, who give such
great hope for the future of the
Catholic Church in Japan.
At last we are on our way to
China!
FR. CELESTINE, C. P.
Index to Worthwhile Reading
The Home World. By Francis
Doyle, S. J. New York; Benziger
Brothers. Price, Cloth $1.25. Paper
25 cents.
No subject can be of more vital
interest than the home. It is the
foundation on which is built alike,
church and state, and neither can
be indifferent to its influence. Con-
sciously or not, every one is influ-
enced by, and is influencing the
home. A book setting forth in
bold relief the ideal of the Christian
Home is ever opportune : but in
these days of light housekeeping —
boarding — and hotel apartments, it
is emphatically so, for unto the
many, home as it once was, is fast
becoming a mere memory.
Unfortunately the influence of
those who no longer esteem the Old
Fashioned Home, has extended to
many who are possessed of the
makings of a happy home, but do
not seem to realize the extent in
which it is a factor for happiness in
life. In consequence recreation and
pleasure are sought outside the
hallowed walls of home, often at
the frightful cost of faith and more
frequently of innocence and virtue.
The blame for this condition is many
sided ; some parents are to blame ;
some children are to blame, and at
times both parents and children
are to blame because of the
conditions of modern social life.
However it must not be forgotten
that we may and at times must rise
superior to conditions, when duty
beckons us to follow in her path.
This the Author of Home World
clearly points out as possible, if the
"Friendly Counsels of Home Keep-
ing Hearts" are followed.
The book is interesting, we might
almost say fascinating, and no book
can claim a place on the living room
table with better right, where all
the members of the family might
read with profit. Fr. Doyle has pre-
served for the present generation,
the plans and specifications which
our forefathers followed in building
those wonderful homes from which
came forth both genius and sanctity.
It was a happy thought to publish
this multum in parvo in pamphlet
form, to make wide distribution
possible, as well as ready sales on
Mission Stands and Parkh Book
Racks.
The Ascent to Calvary.. By Pere
Louis Perroy. P. J. Kenedy & Sons.
New York. $1.50.
The avowed mission of "THE
SIGN", is to make Christ Crucified
better known and greater loved.
With particular joy, therefore, it
welcomes and introduces to its kind
readers, a new and attractive work
on the Sacred Passion — "The Ascent
to Calvary," by Pere Louis Perroy.
In the pages of this book, the
undying story of divine love and
bitter suffering, is again retold, but
with a beauty, freshness and vivid-
ness, that makes it a veritable gem,
in the treasury of Passion Literature.
The book is divided into three
parts. The first part is entitled,
"The Instruments of Torture."
Herein, the author depicts, in short,
striking chapters, the pains and
sufferings inflicted upon the Inno-
cent Victim, by the cords and whips,
the thorns and nails. Practical re-
flections close each chapter, and
afford abundant food for personal
thought and meditation.
"Tortures of the Heart" are re-
vealed in the second part. "Out-
raged Dignity," "Imprisoned Ten-
derness," "Love Disdained" and
"Jerusalem-Rejecting and Rejected"
— such are a few of the torturers
which the Heart of Love endures,
and which are so admirably por-
trayed in these chapters. Only a
devout lover of the Master, could
penetrate so deeply and paint so
touchingly the tortures of His
Sacred Heart.
In the last part, the Divine Victim
ascends Calvary and reaches "The
Summit of Torture." Once again
are heard the sweet words of mercy
and forgiveness ; of tender solicitude
and love; mingled with the derisive
cries of hate and mockery. At
length the "Summit of Torture" is
reached in the utter desolation and
the abandonment even by God Him-
self, of the dying Saviour. Thus,
tortured in body, tortured in mind,
and tortured in soul, the Man of
Sorrows dies.
Both the devout and religious will
find in these pages inspiration and
the awakening of a greater love for
Chrirst and Him Crucified.
The book is well typed, and makes
Christ and Him Crucified.
Cobra Island. By Neil Boy ton,
S. J. New York. Benziger Brothers.
Price, $1.25.
There is no end of stories, but
gripping stories for the young can-
not be too many, so a welcome is
in store for COBRA ISLAND, not
only from the young, but from every
wonders how the author has found
of the book, chosen at random. Th«
action is rapid and one thrill suc-
ceeds another without interruption
from start to finish. One often
wonders how the author has found
it possible to conjure so many hair-
breadth escapes, with pirates, sea
monsters, alien enemies, carefully
concealed death traps, etc, within
the compass of one small 12mo.
volume. However it can be safely
said, that everything the reader has
learned from dry-as-dust text books,
about long sea voyages, sea fights,
ship wrecks, and thrilling adventures
he will find clothed in living form
in COBRA ISLAND. It is such a
story, that will make any juvenile
reader forget the more serious things
of life, and neglect study, and even
forget food and rest, till the book
is finished.
Possibly COBRA ISLAND is too
highly spiced for the ravenous ap-
petite of the young, hungry for the
marvellous and extravagant.
4
A NATIONAL <J> CATHOLIC
/MONTHLY MACAZINEX
MAY, 1922
No. 10
ffififfifrffiWiffl
wflmmMMm
Saint Teresa and the Crucified
D.C.N.
'AINT Teresa, the great Saint of Spain
writes in the seventh chapter of the 'Inter-
ior Castle,' "Fix
youreyesonJesus
Crucified and nothing will
seem hard to you." As
we visualize her life of
heroic work and suffering,
we know that Teresa of
Jesus, in this as in all else,
first practised what she
taught and that she passed
through the sixty-seven
years of her earthly exile,
with enraptured gaze lift-
ed up to Jesus and Him
Crucified.
This year of our Lord,
1922, marks the 300th
anniversary of her Canoni-
zation, and to-day as three
hundred years ago, when
the Cortes declared her,
conjointly with St. James
the Apostle, the Patroness
of Spain, she is still the
idol of her enthusiastic
countrymen, la Santa, the
incomparable Doc tor a
and to us of less ardent temperaments. Would that
we could melt our icy hearts in the seraphic flames
of her love for Jesus
Crucified!
Teresa Sanchez
"epeda Davila y Ahumada
was born in Avila of Old
Castile, on March 28th,
1515, and passed her
childhood in the healthful
atmosphere of a truly
Catholic home. After her
mother's early death, her
sainted father placed her
in the Convent of Augus-
tinian Nuns to complete
her education, and at the
age of twenty she entered
the Carmelite Monastery
outside the walls of her
native town.
Here at theEncarnac-
ion, beloved of her com-
munity and sought in the
Convent parlour by the
elite of Avila, — for her
personal charms were
OUR LORD AT THE PILLAR "^^ TereSa P3SSed eigh"
the vision which converted st. teresa teeri years in cruel bodily
Mystica of Avila! Her influence is not confined to
the country that glories in her birth : hers is an
universal mission, she belongs to our modern times
sufferings, struggling as well with aridities in prayer
and desolation of spirit, until as she says in her
Autobiography her soul was grown weary. It was
THE 1* SIGN
the vision, at this crucial period, of our Lord, bound
to the Pillar of the Flagellation, most grievously
wounded, robed in the royal crimson of His Precious
Blood, that wrought what the humble Saint ever
after termed her conversion.
"So keenly did I feel the evil return I had
made for those Wounds that I thought my heart
was breaking. I threw myself on the ground, my
tears flowing plenteously, and implored Him to
strengthen me once for all, so that I might never
more offend Him. It seems to me that I said to
Him that I would not rise up until He granted my
petition."
Y?=xOW fully our Lord heard her may be judged
IP by the Saint's life from that day forth. Yield-
ing herself completely to the exigencies of
Divine Love, she gave herself unreservedly to that
wonderful life of prayer, recorded at the command
of her Confessors, in her "Autobiography" — one of
the treasures of the Church of God ! In those early
days her meditation was daily on the Passion, even
in later years when she had received the highest
supernatural graces, St. Francis Borgia and Fra
Juan de Padranos advised her always to begin her
prayer with the consideration of a mystery of the
Passion "the Source of all good that ever came and
that ever shall come." (Life, ch. XIII)
"As I could not make reflections with my
understanding" she says, "I contrived to picture
Christ within me. ... in particular I used to find
myself most at home in the Prayer in the Garden
whither I went in His company. I thought of the
bloody sweat He endured there; I wished if it had
been possible to wipe that painful sweat from His
Face, but I remember I never dared to form such a
resolution — my sins stood before me so grievously.
I used to remain with Him, as long as my thoughts
allowed me — and I had many thoughts to torment
me. For many years, nearly every night before I
fell asleep, when I recommended myself to God,
that I might sleep in peace, I used always to think
a little of this mystery of the Prayer in the Garden,
even before I became a nun. I believe that my soul
gained very much in this way, because I began to
practise prayer without knowing what it was."
(Life, ch IX.)
We think of St. Teresa as the Mater Spiritu-
alium, the great authoritative Mistress of Prayer,
and some of us may be tempted to feel that her
sublime teachings are not for us, but who is there
that cannot find help and encouragement in this
most easy method, wherein there are no points nor
preludes to alarm us, but simply a loving bearing
our Lord company in the abandonment of His
Agony? It is indeed principally to beginners in
the holy ways of prayer that she addresses the
whole of the XI Chapter of her Life, urging them to
resolve firmly, once and for all, to help our Lord
carry His Cross. "He who shall discern this resolu-
tion in himself has nothing to fear" and has already
made great progress on the road.
©EARING about in her the Lord Jesus Cruci-
fied, the Saint naturally makes choice of a
mystery of His Passion, in giving us a practi-
cal example of how to make a meditation: "We
set ourselves to meditate upon some mystery of
the Passion : let us say our Lord at the Pillar. The
understanding goeth about seeking for the sources
out of which came the great dolours and the bitter
anguish which His Majesty endured in that desola-
tion. It considers that mystery in many lights. . . .
the sufferings He there endured, for whom He en-
dured them, Who He is Who endured them, and the
love with which He bore them. But a person should
not always fatigue himself making these reflections,
but rather let him remain there with Christ, in the
silence of the understanding. Let him employ
himself in looking upon Christ, Who is looking upon
him; let him humble himself and delight in Christ,
and keep in mind that he never deserved to be there.
This is a method of prayer which should be to
every one the beginning, the middle and the end:
a most excellent and safe way." (Life, ch. XIII.)
It would almost seem that this mystery of our
Lord bound to the Column — the Vision which had
changed Teresa de Ahumada into Teresa of Jesus —
was ever after her mystery of predilection. When
in obedience to inspiration from on High, she com-
menced the stupendous work for which God destined
her, the reform of the ancient Order of Carmel, in
the first Monastery she founded, St. Joseph's at
Avila, that little "rinconcito di Dios" as she loved
to call it, she arranged in the garden a lonely and
most devotional hermitage dedicated to "Christ at
the Column." It exists there today with the same
picture, which St. Teresa caused to be painted for it.
Mother Isabelle of St. Dominic, in her 2nd
Deposition for the Canonization, relates that the
Saint prayed much over this painting, and explained
to the minutest detail, to a good artist, how it was
THE 1* SIGN
to be done — the cords, the wounds, the hair, the
Face, even to a fragment of flesh literally scourged
out of the left arm near the elbow. When the paint-
ing was finished, the holy Mother drew near to
examine it, and fell into ecstasy in the presence of
the painter, who had succeeded, according to his
own testimony, miraculously. The Saint acknow-
ledged to Mother Isabelle that it had indeed cost
her many hours of prayer, for God had given her
such a lively desire to succeed in representing this
subject, "O my daughter" she added, ".may He be
blessed for having reduced Himself to such a state
for love of us!"
XN the mystic Espousals of St. Teresa with
Jesus, it
was this
Sponsus Sanguinis
Who came to wed
this royal-hearted
lover of His
Cross, not with a
ring as to St.
Catherine, nor by
an exchange of
hearts as with St.
Gertrude, but with
the blood-stained
Nail of His Cruci-
fixion. Extending
His right Hand,
Our Lord said to
her: "Behold this
Nail! it is the
pledge of thy being My bride from this day forth."
(Rel. III.)
He dowered His bride with the sorrows of His
Passion. "Thou knowest of the betrothal between
thee and Me ; and therefore all that I have is thine ;
and so I give thee all the labours and sorrows I
endured, and thou canst therefore ask of My Father
as if they were thine; and the Saint goes on to say
that though she knew we were partakers therein,
according to the words of St. Peter, "Communicantes
Christi passionibus gaudete," this was in a way so
different that it seemed as if she had become pos-
sessed of a great principality, and from that time
forth she looked on Our Lord's Passion as on some-
thing that belonged to her. (Rel. IX.)
And in this ineffable marriage what was the
bride's escutcheon to be? The Five rosy Wounds
THE BRIDGE
LOWER BRIDGE USED BY ST. TE
of her Bridegroom! "O Lord Jesus Christ, King
over all things, Son of the Everlasting Father, what
hast Thou left in the world for us Thy children to
inherit? What were Thy possessions? Only toil
and sorrow and insult. Thou hadst nothing but the
hard wood to rest on when undergoing the bitter
anguish of death. It is not fitting that we should
run away from suffering if we would not renounce
the inheritance. Thine armorial bearings are five
wounds: this must also be our device." (Founda-
tions, ch X.)
"Thinkest thou, My daughter, that meriting
lies in fruition?" said the Divine Lover to her one
day. "No; meriting lies only in doing, in suffering
and in loving. Thou hast never heard that St. Paul
had the fruition of
heavenly joys
more than once,
while he was of-
ten in suffering.
Thou seest how
My whole life was
full of dolours,
and only on
Mount Thabor
hast thou heard
of Me in glory.
Do not suppose
when thou seest
My Mother hold
Me in her arms,
that she had that
AT AVTT A i • 1
RESA IN FLIGHT FROM HOME W Unmixed With
heavy sorrows.
From the time that Simeon spoke to her, My Father
made her see in clear light all I had to suffer.
Believe Me, My daughter, his trials are heaviest
whom My Father loves most; trials are the measure
of His love. How can I show My love for thee
better than by desiring for thee, what I desired for
Myself? Consider My Wounds; thy pains will
never reach to them. This is the way of truth : thus
shalt thou help Me weep over the ruin of those who
are in the world, for thou knowest how all their
desires, anxieties, and thoughts tend the other way."
{Rel. III.)
^tt^ITH her feet planted in this way of truth by
\|/ Jesus Himself, St. Teresa, in her turn, left
her daughters under no illusion: Carmel was
Calvary rather than Thabor, and the desire to suffer
THE 1* SIGN
much in our Lord's service was the one she strove
to kindle in the hearts of her children. "She who
does not feel this desire must not look upon herself
as a true Carmelite nun, because the aim of our
desires must be not rest but suffering that we may
be in some measure like unto Him, our true Bride-
groom." (Life, ch. XXVIII, 37).
That her nuns were generous enough to savour
such hard lessons is evidenced by the following
extract, taken at random from the writings of Mary
of St. Joseph, one of the first Carmelites of the
Reform, and St. Teresa's best loved daughter: "If
you give your hand to Christ as His bride, a nail
will fasten it to His. He is a Spouse of blood :
if then you desire the King to be taken with your
beauty, if you would be like to Him, deck yourself
out in garments of blood. Mockeries were His joys -
insults, His honours; scourges, His pleasures; blas-
phemies, His music. Gall was His refreshment,
and thorns, His crown. If He repose on the bosom
of His bride He cannot but wound her. If you have
not felt the piercing of His thorns, it is clear that the
Well-Beloved has not yet embraced you, giving you
the kiss of peace. Had you received it, certainly
you would have tasted the bitterness of the gall
which drenched His lips." ("Ramillete de mirra,"
Prologue.)
It was to afford her suffering Lord a place of
consolation and rest with such souls as this, that
Teresa built seventeen Convents for the Nuns of her
Reform, and fifteen for the Friars, but all at the
cost of incredible labours to herself, for as she said :
"If His Majesty show His love for us by such
torments, how can we desire to please Him by
words only? We must be the slaves of God, if we
would be truly spiritual — signed with His mark
which is that of the Cross."
^^^HIS sacred sign stamped Heaven's approval
I J upon every work undertaken by Teresa.
Sufferings overwhelmed her, increasing with
the years. God gave her soul "to feed upon strong
and substantial meat, the sufferings of the Cross of
His Son." (S. John of the Cross, "Ascent," ch. XXI)
Truly she could say:
"Pars mea praeclara
Sit crux et vulnera,
Spinae sint corona,
Clavi monilia,"
for her love waxed in suffering, and as its flame
burned purer and higher, she longed with all a saint's
intensity for more fuel to feed it, nor was this ever
wanting. Bodily pain afflicted her continually —
we have her own testimony that for more than forty
years, she was never for one day free from it. She
was cruelly tried by the malice of demons; by the
opposition of good but timorous or prejudiced men;
as well as by the imprudences of the impulsive
among her own children.
But neither man nor devil could hush the song
of Teresa's soul : "Misericordias Domini in
aeternum cantabo" — those mercies which the Blood
of the Passion had purchased for her!
One day after Communion, her mouth was
filled with warm Blood, and the sweetness she felt
was exceedingly great, ravishing her out of herself.
"Daughter," said our Lord to her, "My Will is that
My Blood should profit thee. I shed It in much
suffering and as thou seest, thou hast the fruition of
It in great joy." {Rel. V.)
On another occasion, when her extreme weak-
ness prevented her eating, Christ appeared to her,
and breaking the bread, put it in her mouth saying:
"Eat, My daughter, I condole with thee in thy
suffering; but it is good for thee now." The Saint
says the word condole made her strong and all her
pain disappeared. "Oh how soon does all that is
endured for love heal up again" she exclaims.
OF her inner crucifixion what can be said? Of
that agonizingly sweet pain inflicted by the
Seraph's dart, which transpierced her heart
and left her dying because she could not die? Of
the torture of the enraptured soul "crucified between
Heaven and earth, enduring its passion?" For all
this sharp martyrdom full of mystic sweetness, was
her portion for long years, as she traversed Spain,
from North to South, from East to West, braving
the snows of winter, or the burning heat of the
Andalusian sun, as she founded everywhere her
Monasteries for the Friars and Nuns of the Reformed
Carmel. Avila, Medina del Campo, Malagon,
Vallodolid, Toledo, Pastrana, Salamanca, Alba de
Tormes, Segovia, Veas, Palencia, and the rest — what
memories their names evoke for every student of
St. Teresa's life and times! How often she passed
from one to another of her houses, strengthening,
encouraging, teaching, forming her nuns to her own
ideal : "There is nothing worth living for but suffer-
ing." (Life, ch. XL.)
The last journey of her life was a true via
dolorosa which led to her Calvary. The Saint was
THE + SIGN
in an exhausted and dying condition when she left
Burgos for Avila in the summer of 1582. In obedi-
ence to the Father Provincial she visited the various
Carmels on her route, and reached that of Alba de
Tormes nearly dead, on September 20th. The last
illness was short — September 29th to October 4th —
or rather was it not the sudden ending of a long,
long illness, the malady of Divine Love, which had
slowly consumed her, ever since the Vision of her
torn and bleeding Spouse, in the Oratory of the
Encarnacion ?
As the falling shadows of the last day of her
exile closed about her, Teresa's eyes sought her —
Crucifix. The year before, while making the founda-
tion at Soria, she had written an exquisite little
poem "To the Crucifix." Perhaps it gives some clue
to her dying thoughts. We quote only one stanza :
"I do not fear the anguish rife
In that last parting's bitter sting
If unto Thee, My Christ, I cling,
For in that hour of final strife
I hold within my clasped hands — Life."
We are told by the privileged witnesses of
Saint Teresa's last moments, that during the wonder-
ful extasy of fourteen hours, which preceeded her
precious death, she lay upon her left side, her face
transparently beautiful and radiant, gazing upon
her Crucifix "within her clasped hands," nor was
It removed until her blessed soul had fled to the
everlasting embrace of the Crucified.
A Tribute of Love
DOT long since an incident occurred, trivial in
itself, but deeply significant and instructive
to those who saw and understood. An un-
usual concourse of people had gathered to pay the
last respects to the memory of one, locally promi-
nent. The remains had been lowered to their last
earthly resting place, prayers of Mother Church were
finished, the clods of earth dropped onto the rough
box, and all wended their way from the grave, and
back to the affairs of everyday life.
On the fringe of the crowd were two small
urchins of the neighborhood, who stood silent
throughout the service. When all were gone, they
whispered to one another, then approached one of
the men of the cemetery, and proferred their re-
quest, for a lone flower, that had fallen from the
mass of bloom, that lay near the open grave. An
affirmative nod from the man, and they picked up
their prize and off they went, lest it might be re-
called. They go further into the cemetery, and
come to the plot, marked by a number of small
white crosses, beneath which rested the Sisters of
Mercy. Reading the names of the various deceased,
they finally come to the grave of one, "Sister Mary
Thomas." They laid the drooping rose upon her
grave, and removing their caps, on bended knees
send up a prayer to heaven for her soul's repose.
^he before whose grave the boys knelt had
spent the few years of life granted her, in the class
room, plodding on day by day in the hope of in-
stilling lessons of virtue and love for God in the
hearts of the little ones entrusted to her care; dis-
heartened and discouraged that her efforts were
not blessed with success she had prayed often that
God would deign to make fruitful the seeds she had
planted.
The boys, were her former pupils, and the ones
who caused not a little of the discouragement that
came to sister, were the most mischievous of all.
When anything went wrong in the class room, when
some new prank was discovered, suspicion usually
fell with good reason on the same two. And now
when death had taken her from her daily cares,
they came unbidden to pay the tribute of gratitude,
reverence, and loyalty, which unknown to all but
God, had taken root and grown in the hearts of two
fun loving boys.
The Labor Probl
em
Rev. R. A. McGowan
III. — Strikes and Industrial Peace
■^-p-^ORKING people strike because that is often
W I ^ the only way they can get a decent living
\l/ for themselves and their families, and
decent conditions on the job. They do not
strike because they like it.
The working people in a trade or an industry
or a business concern decide that they want better
wages and working conditions. They may be in a
union or they may have decided it by talking among
themselves. They send their spokesman to the
employers. If the employers refuse to meet them,
or refuse the terms demanded or a reasonable com-
promise, the employees decide to work no longer
for their employers until some agreement is reached.
They go on strike.
They use economic force in striking. The
employer needs men to work for him. Otherwise,
he will not make any money and will probably lose
some that he has. If his employees will not work
for him and he can get no others and if they can
hold out long enough, the employer is finally com-
pelled to grant all or a part of the demands.
The strike means hardship to the employees,
but they are willing to bear it in the hope that later
on they and their wives and their children will have
better food to eat, a better house to live in, better
clothes to wear, better recreation, better chances for
education, and a more respected position in the
community. They know that they have a certain
dignity as men and women, and they are willing
to suffer the hardships and the abuse heaped upon
them in time of strike to get the employer and the
public to recognize their worth as human beings.
They will lose the strike if the employer can
hire others equally competent or nearly so to do
their work. They try, therefore, to keep the em-
ployer from hiring other workers, and if he hires
them to persuade them to quit and join the strike.
They have found that a good way to accomplish
this is to march up and down near the plant and try
to convince the strike-breakers to quit employment.
They call this picketing.
At times violence breaks out during a strike.
The employers or their agents are sometimes to
blame for this, and at other times the strikers are
to blame. The public authorities are often at fault,
also, when they fail to have a neutral and adequate
police force on guard.
gRE working people acting within their rights
when they strike ? If they are to remain free
men and women, they have the right to refuse
in a body to work for a certain employer or group
of employers when their cause is just and they
cannot settle the matter in any other way. Cardinal
O'Connell in a recent pastoral said to his people :
"A strike can be just and may be necessary. It is
man's natural defense. It existed prior to the State
itself, and is a right which no society can annul."
The possibility of strikes is fundamental to
freedom of contract in an industrial country. Since
employees will not always be satisfied with their
terms, it is even probable that there will be strikes
as long as the present division between one small
class of employers and a large class of employees
continues. But strikes should not lightly be called
or voted for. Like war they are the last step to be
taken, and they ought to have a just and propor-
tionate reason.
Strikes are symptoms of a disease. They are
signs of a grave conflict of interests between the
owners of industry and the propertyless. One
section owns industry and uses it for its primary
advantage. The other larger section has to work
in industry to live and live decently, and it is often
unable to get work and when it gets work, a large
part does not receive enough to live decently. The
strike is the clash between them. It is tragic not
merely in the suffering undergone by employees
and the general public. Its deeper significance is
even more appalling. It and its causes are a stand-
ing denial of brotherhood.
But instead of forbidding strikes, the govern-
ment, the employers, the employees and the general
public should see to it that the causes of strikes
are done away with. As a help towards this, it
seems well to establish national and district boards
of investigation. Such boards would investigate
questions of wages, etc., and make recommendations
for public opinion to enforce. These boards would
THE f
not forbid strikes. They would learn and publish
the facts and make recommendations, and then leave
it to the general public to enforce the decision.
^^s^O stop strikes the causes of strikes must be
^^^ reached. What is needed most of all is a
change in the relation of men to the things
with which they work. Now they are hired to work
only when they are needed, and many are given a
more or less harsh and inadequate livelihood when
they are hired. The whole relation of those who
work must be changed to fit less unsatisfactorily the
dignity and worth of human beings. It must be done
however within the limits of the institution of
SIGN
private ownership, for an era of common ownership
would mean greater, and not less, harm and wrong.
The first step appears to be assured collective
bargaining, and the larger union of both employers
and employees in associations that will emphasize
matters of common interest, such as the improvement
of the quantity and quality of the work. Greater
industrial peace can be secured by the employers
agreeing to collective bargaining, and then by the
employers and employees joining in associations
where matters of common interest will take the
edge from bad feeling. This will not insure indus-
trial peace, but it will bring a measure of peace into
industry.
At tke Cross Roads of Life
D. S. L.
nERE we are at the cross-roads. There stands
a radiant angel, who directs all travellers. He
is Conscience. Stand back, for here rides the
warrior on his mettlesome steed. Listen! He asks
for the road to fame and the angel says: "To the
left, but do not go too far." Another comes in great
haste. It is the statesman! What does he want?
Oh, it is power he wants. "To the left," the angel
says, "but don't go too far." Again another. Why
it is the financier! The road to fortune, he demands,
and again the angel says, "To the left, but don't go
too far." Now comes a traveller on foot, a workman
with his bag of tools upon his back, a child in his
arms and a woman by his side. "What road do you
wish?" asks the angel. "The road to happiness."
"Then take the road to the right," says the angel
with a smile. "At the end of the road you will find
heaven." The woman, with the curiosity of Eve,
turns and asks the angel whither the other road leads
and the angel answers her: "Ruin."
Fame! What is it? The most famous deed in
history, one that has been told for nearly 2,000 years
in every village, hamlet and city in the world; yes,
even among the savage tribes, and it will be told as
long as the world lasts. This story is the deed of
the good Samaritan, who found his fellowman
robbed and wounded and left on the highway to
die. The Samaritan dressed his wounds and took
him to the inn and paid for his way until he was
able to be about his business. If you would be
famous, imitate this great deed.
Power! What is it? Napoleon in his last days
said that the three most powerful men were Alex-
ander, Caesar and himself. Alexander, he said,
died a drunkard's death, Caesar fell by the knives
of his enemies, and he, Napoleon, on a barren rock
in the Pacific, was ending his days. But he said:
"Our power was the sword, but Christ, whose
weapon was love, has triumphed and his great
dominion grows greater and greater year by year."
It is said that the massive gates of heaven swing
open to the push of the strong arm of a Trappist
monk and to the gentle touch of a little child. If
you would be powerful, imitate these.
Riches! What are they? There are no riches
but spiritual riches, for they alone bring happiness.
An old Dominican told me in boyhood that, years
before, in France, a committee of Jews and Gentiles,
Catholics and Protestants, Agnostics and Atheists,
went through France and reported unanimously that
happiness was found only where the ten command-
ments were observed. The Gospel tells you where
it is found: "My Father will take up his abode
with those who keep His word." If you want riches,
take your lesson from the Gospel.
A Mystery Ckapel in Rome
Rev. Gabriel Demey, C. P.
fif
'OR six hundred years now there has been
a mysterious chapel in Rome. Six hundred
years would make that a very old place,
and it is very old as well as being very
mysterious ; for six hundred years ago when it began
to be strange, it was already over a thousand years
old and rich and celebrated.
But about six hundred years ago something
happened and ever since, that oratory has been
silent and unused. Now, besides, everybody said,
there were wonderful things in that chapel — riches,
great riches, that
used to belong to
the popes in the
middle ages when
the church and the
popes were so
wonderful — and
gold and silver
and gems and a
lot of other things',
e x t r a o r dinary
things, indeed —
everybody knew
that — but nobody
knew just what.
Whether they
were things or
persons one was
not just sure, but
whatever they
were — those other things that lived there in the aged
silence and isolation of that chapel — they were
surely not bad; everything that was there was good
but may be a little ominous and so —
It was always bolted and barred and nobody
is allowed to get inside. There is a real "keep
out" command coming from somewhere about it
but nobody knows where, for there are no signs
up and no soldier guards watching and protecting
the place and so, may be all the really precious
things were taken away long ago and there is
nothing there now to protect.
^^^HERE are two apertures, small and square,
V/y so cut through the walls that you can look
into the chapel and when you look in you
can see it must be a very rich and very important
place, for although by day or by night you will
never see a Mass nor prayers nor any kind of
devotions going on, and all the people will tell you
that, in spite of the fact that there are always priests
some way connected with the chapel, that stillness
and barrenness and emptiness has been there all
through the place and all through those particular
six hundred years, yet it is not abandoned; it is
never used but it is always strangely cared for.
That chapel is certainly attractive and every-
thing seems to im-
pel you to go in
there but you can-
not; even those
small apertures
are barred so that
it is altogether
irritating. You can
look in; yes, you
;an see the beauti-
ful artistic finish
of the past and
the evidences of
present day care,
but you can look
also into the
silence and the
stillness and the
emptiness of a
vault in the
cemetery. And that has been the condition for six
hundred years! It is all very strange, and as it
were just to add to all this curious condition the
Chapel has the haunting name of the Sancta
Sanctorum, that means the Holy of Holies. Well,
well, stimulant, mystery added to mystery!
V|^E had heard and read about the Scala Sancta,
\gj that is the Holy Stairs. Our steps were more
than usually eager, our conversation sporadic,
subdued, intense on our way to make the
pilgrim's visit to that holy shrine. Just then we
were interested in nothing besides. The motly
Roman mobs that poured from all the narrow streets
and eddied into and crisscrossed the Square of St.
John Lateran did not attract us; not even the blatant
ASILICA OF ST. JOHN LATERAN
THE *f SIGN
cries of the baker as he hawked through the tangled
lines of people Rome's skimpy breakfast perilously
poised on his head drew from us a comment or a
glance. We saw as seeing not just then. It is only
now that these local tints and phases come to mind.
It was 6:30 on a July morning; we were pre-
possessed not only with the pilgrim spirit that was
leading us to make the devotion of the Holy Stairs
but we were also on our way to that shrine to cele-
brate Holy Mass. Yet early though it was there
were others of the devout there before us making
that devotion and one at least was a citizen of Rome.
But the subject of this article is the Sancta
Sanctorum — the chapel of years of mystery; then
why bring forth this pilgrimage and practice of the
Scala Sancta that __
is the Holy Stairs
but it is not the
Sancta Sanctor-
um? That is a
very natural ques-
tion and so is the
Holy Stairs a
very natural way
to lead up to the
Chapel of the
Sancta Sanctorum.
It is' the only way,
for the Sancta
Sanctorum is the
mystery chapel
beside the Palace
of St. John
Lateran and the entrance or steps leading up to that
chapel are called the Scala Sancta.
We ascended these 28 marble steps in the only
way that is permitted, that is crawling prayerfully
on our knees from step to step and after finishing
our devotions at the top we celebrated Mass in the
adjoining monastery.
y^^HE Sancta Sanctorum Chapel and its holy
y_ J entrance, the Scala Sancta are in charge of
the Passionist Fathers who occupy the Monas-
tery which was built for their accomodation by
Pius IX in 1858 and is immediately connected with
the celebrated oratory on the south side. It was
in one of the chapels of this monastery that we
celebrated Mass. After Mass we visited the Chapel
of the Sancta Sanctorum or Holy of Holies and
there listened to the fascinating story of this extra-
ordinary spot — a story entrancing indeed, but
entirely unkown to millions of our Catholic people.
To listen to its telling there — to listen as we looked,
was to wake from the sweetest dream and to find
it all a genuine reality of splendors as gorgeous as
the beauties outside of heaven can ever be made,
and set in a background of antiquity that is so
ancient as to make it delightfully confusing, em-
barrassing to our young America's mind; the real
was romantic or romance was reality. The emotion
was unearthly, aerial, celestial.
On entering this chapel of the Sancta Sanctor-
um you are immediately surrounded by an undoubt-
able presence of majesty and this is not merely
because history has set and woven and festooned
its walls and pil-
lars and arches
with popes,
pageants and
patriarchs though
'^S^a *\'\ j these rose up
aplenty in the
moving lines
which history
wrote here ; nor
because our eyes
were struck by the
glare of gold or
a profusion of
sculptured orna-
mentation, for
these are not to
be seen. No; our
souls were filled with a sentiment far removed from
such material causes; it was a subtle and profound
veneration superior to all that is earthly and which
says in language more expressive than any words —
with the voice of the soul, "Vere locus iste sanctus
est!" This spot is surely holy! And there as usual,
the impulse of the soul rings true as the story of
the Sancta Sanctorum, unfolded by that scholarly
Passionist demonstrated.
X
'N Rome years take away your American breath
unless you hold tight on to it. We had
recently arrived in the city that is well called
eternal but even so we had already learned that
lesson; however we were not prepared to hear
that this Chapel of the Sancta Sanctorum was the
domestic chapel of the Popes for hundreds of
years, back as far as the fourth century to the
THE 1* SIGN
year 313. Yet such is its actual history and this
its enviable purpose. That interesting Passionist
must have seen the astonishment and doubt in our
expression as we heard this. We knew that Popes
about that time had private chapels and they were
very private but they were down in the bowels of
the earth, catacombs; so he added: —
"You Fathers are forgetting that Constantine
not only freed the Church from persecution but
promptly endowed her with the richest possessions.
One of the first of these munificent acts was to give
the Lateran Palace as the residence of the Bishop
of Rome. This was the Pontifical Chapel of that
former Lateran
Palace, the first or
original Lateran
Palace, the pre-
decessor of the
Lateran Palace
which you see
standing now on
your left in the
Lateran Square.
The Sancta
Sanctorum is the
only part of the
ancient palace
that is standing."
He then pro-
ceeded to give us
the history of the
first Lateran pal-
ace. It goes back
very far and was
called after the
"Laterani" one of the aristocratic families of pagan
Rome. The Laterani built and occupied it. The
last member of that family to reside in it was
Plausius, in the days of the Emperor Nero. Plausius
was detected in the same conspiracy against the
Emperor as Seneca and was dispatched after the
manner of dispatching with Nero, and all his goods,
including the ancestral Palace, were confiscated.
^^^HE Lateran must have been one of the richest
I J and most extensive of the old Roman palaces.
Juvenal spoke of it in his tenth satire as enor-
mous. (Aegregias Laternorum obsedit aedes.) In
305 it was assigned to the use of Fausta the favorite
daughter of the reigning emperor and so it is some-
times called the palace of Fausta. But when Con-
Ife
r
■ f* **&} &
wk
..-*;'
■ i
Ellf
IN^tl
f 2
?'/£& wS9H
'Tr-rjsgaf'r
1
stantine came to Rome as emperor he abandoned
the ancient palace of the Caesars on the Palatine,
ended the line of the pagan rulers of Rome and
made his home in the Lateran Palace. Very soon
thereafter, though the exact year is not quite certain,
the Lateran became the abode of the Popes. From
that time the Sancta Sanctorum dates back as the
private chapel of His Holiness and it continued as
such till 1589; that is for nearly thirteen hundred
years this Sancta Sanctorum was the private chapel
of the succeeding Popes. There the Vicar of Jesus
Christ celebrated quietly his private Masses; there
that long line of saintly men performed their
devotions; there is
the altar and the
tabernacle where-
unto their weighed
down shoulders
carried the bur-
dens and their
quick steps the
triumphs and they
told the stories of
the joys and the
sorrows and the
fears of the uni-
versal church.
There is solemni-
ty, indeed. Truly
THE SCALA SANCTA OR HOLY STAIRS
this is
place.
But
thought
a holy
another
pushed
itself forward; it was the appreciation as never
before so keen, of the folly of all human effort
against the Lord and against His Christ and against
His Church on the one hand, and on the other the
gentle but constant play of His Almighty and Eternal
Power, which (I had almost said "smilingly") turns
the instrumentalities of the opposition and their
works to co-operate in His Own wise time to His
Own wise purposes — to His own honor and glory.
As He turned the Pantheon and this extraordinary
sanctuary utterly aside from the intent of their
builders in the days of pagan Rome, and as we and
millions who are gone testify to this and similar
things, so minds shall marvel in the future to see
the vast and beautiful piles now being constructed in
different parts of the world turned to purposes far
THE 1* SIGN
other than those of their projectors — the purposes
of the God Who knows no years and in Whose
Almighty Hands man and his doings and all things
else are plastic.
^I^^HERE is sublime influence behind thoughts
V_J like these and we knew that it came from
the subtle majesty of this place. Subtle,
indeed, for it does not rise from the vast extent of
this sanctuary. The Sancta Sanctorum is not vast;
it is surprisingly small, smaller, indeed, than we
had thought; its limited space was one of the most
surprising elements which contributed to make this
visit one of delightful surprises. In comparison to
the Sancta Sanctorum the domestic chapels in the
palaces of the ancient crowned heads of Europe are
really large. The regal chapel of the Hungarian
palace in Buda-Peste could well be called a church,
the chapel of the Austrain Imperial family in
Schoenbrunn Palace in Vienna will accomodate a
good sized congregation and so La S Chappelle in
Paris, though little, it is four times as large as the
Papal chapel of the Sancta Sanctorum. With the
exception of an alcove-like space, called the apse,
and which is occupied by the altar, the Popes' chapel
here is a square of less than 25 feet.
But this mysterious chapel is very beautiful.
The gravity, the simplicity, the harmony of its pure
lines make it a little picture or a gem of architecture
of the gothic family. It could not be anything else
but perfect in art and architecture not only because
it was the chapel of the Popes who are the world
builders, but it was always under the care of the
greatest living masters in architecture and in art.
"Do you not think it is exquisite?" asked our
priestly guide. We answered, "Yes, but it is small."
"Oh, yes, it is small; "the Sancta Sanctorum is
very small, indeed," he assented, but he hastened
to add, "Still it is very great." "This sanctuary is
great in importance and in dignity, great in its riches,
but in its holiness it is pre-eminent." He put forth
this apology with characteristic style and with the
confidence and enthusiasm of the man who knows
and is sure of his ground. That Passionist knew
his ground and every inch of it. He was not only
a scholar of unusual ability but he was at that time
making a special study of the Sancta Sanctorum
and of all its treasures and he was besides the official
custodian of the mysterious and interesting little
place.
y?<E reminded us that it was venerable not merely
I P because for so many centuries it had been the
private chapel of the August High Priest of
the Lord but also because, notwithstanding its
diminutive proportions, it enjoyed the dignity and
position of a basilica and was therefore on an equal
footing with the greatest christian temples in the
world; that within those walls some of the most
important ecclesiastical functions of history had
taken place. In that small chapel the first council
ever held within the famous Lateran walls had
been conducted and that was as far back as 313
under Pope Melchiades. St. Augustine refers to a
fact which transpired in that very council. The cause
of Cicilianus, Bishop of Carthage, was brought be-
fore this body, and resulted in the condemnation of
Donatus. It is on this finding that the saint makes
the remark that Donatus and not the poor bishop,
was the cause of all the trouble.
The very important position held by the Ponti-
fical Basilica in the estimation of the Church will
appear from this that it has been decorated with the
honor and dignity of the Golden Rose. This is an
ecclesiastical privilege which goes back as far as
Pope Leo IX.
^^^HE Golden Rose is blessed with great
V_J solemnity on the fourth Sunday of Lent each
year and is valued by its fortunate recipient
not for the worth of its metal nor for the delicate
artistry with which it is executed but because it is
a testimonial of the highest appreciation that the
Church is accustomed to express. It is conferred
on some member of the Catholic Royalty-king,
queen, prince, or on some personage of extraordinary
worth as a reward of great service done for Christ
and the Church; perhaps it is given to a city or
republic for its conspicuous activity. But occasion-
ally it has been bestowed on some church or sanctu-
ary as a special token of the Holy Father's devotion.
This, however, is not done very often. In Rome St.
Peter's has received this honor four or five times,
St. John Lateran twice, the Basilica Liberiano twice,
but this mysterious chapel of the Sancta Sanctorum
has been the recipient of this exalted testimonial
of devotion, the Golden Rose, on four different
occasions : in 1443 from Eugene IV, in 1530 from
Clement VII, in 1567 from St. Pius V, and in 1610
from Paul V.
( To be continued)
Saints and Sinners
Luis Coloma, S. J.
Copyrighted 1922, by The Sign
SYNOPSIS OF PREVIOUS INSTALLMENTS:
Scene in a Catholic College outside Madrid on the day of the closing-exercises of tne year. Luis, having
read the valedictory poem and gathered up his prizes looks in vain for his mother's face among the crowds of
parents and friends of the other students. Some sympathetic women draw away in horror when they learn
that he is the son of the Countess of Albornoz. A groom arrives late with a coach to take the young student
to his home.
Another scene in the drawing room of the Duchess of Bara showing the leaders of Madrid society in
the midst of their intrigues for the return of the ex-Queen Isabel and her family who are now in exile in
Paris, and the expulsion of King Amadeo, the Savoyard prince who has been occupying the Spanish throne
in the interim. They have discovered that one of the old Spanish grandees has permitted her name to be sug-
gested to the Italian Queen as first lady-in-waiting. This is the result of the intriguing of Curra the Countess
of Albornoz who fancies that the ex-Queen in Paris has insulted her and desires revenge, and also to obtain the
position of secretary to the present monarch for her young friend John Velarde. In the face of the indignation
aroused Curra attempts to deny her part in the intrigue. She has no time to give to her little son Luis and
passes him on to her servants.
The Government in anger at the Countess' treachery demands that she fulfil her agreement to accept the
position at court. She tricks the Minister of the Interior and destroys the letter that compromises her, where-
upon the police are sent to break forcibly into her house and carry off all her papers under the charge that she
has been conspiring to overthrow the Government. Her friends and partisans hurry to her house and the
outrage ends in a sort of picnic party.
But among the letters carried off by the police there was a certain package from an old lover of the Countess,
and as it was necessary for the police to return these papers, the scheme was hit upon of returning these
letters to her husband with a note calling his attention to their very compromising contents. Curra having
forgotten to destroy the letters when the evening before she had prepared for the raid upon her house now felt
that some satisfaction was due to her standing, particularly as the Amadist newspapers had printed articles
reflecting on her respectability and the courage of her husband. She chooses her friend John Velarde to
challenge the editor of an insulting reference, assuring him that it will be a mere formality of shots in the air,
and arranging a breakfast for him immediately after the meeting. John Velarde, a type of the well-educated
but erring young Spaniard, is shot dead at the first fire.
The Countess pretends that she had tried to prevent John Velarde from fighting the duel ; his death has
utterly prostrated his mother. The lottery ticket which he purchased shortly before his death has won a prize
and the Countess' servant, Kate, who was sent to gather up his letters so as to keep the Countess' correspondence
fro/n falling again into the hands of the police, brings the ticket back to her mistress. She collects $15,000. and
sends it to Velarde's mother, pretending that it is a donation from the Duke and herself. The mother scenting
the nature of Curra, promptly returns the money without a word.
The scene then shifts to the Grand Hotel in Paris where Jacob Tellez arrives from Constantinople, where
he has been ambassador for the Amadist King. He meets Diogenes who tells him of the flight of the Italian prince
from Spain, and also attracts the favorable attention of Curra. Other arrivals are the typical Spanish dandy
Uncle Frasquito, and the wife of the rich Lopez Moreno who has escaped the Spanish mobs. The Duchess of
Bara plays a political game in offering to present the banker's wife to Ex-Queen Isabel, so that she may give
the former Majesty the news from her lost kingdom.
CHAPTER XIII.
v — f'ACOB TELLEZ was of the opinion that he causes vertigo in the brain, and hurls a man into a
ff L had been born at the wrong time and in the thousand infamies, in constant search of new pleas-
^^^ wrong place. In the French Revolution, he ures to arouse his deadened sensuality,
was persuaded, that, he would have been either a There are few things so dangerous for a man
Mirabeau, because of his talents, or else a Lafayette, as to pass through the illusions of a lifetime in a
because of his bravery. But in the Spanish Revolu- short period of his life; and Jacob, with that frantic
tion of 1868, he had been, in the opinion of those desire for pleasure and excitement which pervades
who knew him, but a poor politician and an egregi- society, which fears to put off till the morrow the
ous fool as a political leader. pleasures which it can enjoy today, had passed
This revolutionary gentleman had not descended rapidly from youth to complete maturity in evil —
from the aristocratic circles in which he had been he had made the journey in less than thirty years,
born to the plebeian circles in which he had after- At the age of fifteen, disembarrassed of tutors
wards moved, by any sudden fall or rapid, dis- and teachers, he had been one of the most gallant
integrating process. He had slipped down slowly, youths who ever aspired to a barber's razor, and to
gliding down the incline which leads from pleasure lead cotillons at the Court. At twenty he was a
to vice, from vice to aberration, aberration to dis- successful Don Juan with an unsavory reputation,
gust, and that terrible emptiness of the heart which who paraded his objectionable adventures in the
THE + SIGN
Veloz Club. At twenty-five, he was an elegant and
aristocratic profligate, eager for a duel, a bet of
twenty thousand dollars, or any wild adventure.
He flung his wife's millions away to right and left.
At thirty, he wept like Alexander that there were
no more worlds of vice to be conquered, his heart
hardened, his brain dulled by the premature riot of
his passions, he was but a rotten fruit which had
never really ripened, a worthless ruin of vice and
impiety, who had wrecked his home by his reckless
prodigalities. Through a fever of restlessness and
boredom, he had become a politician. Garibaldi
had initiated him into the Masonic lodges in Italy,
and in England the Spanish revolutionaries had
inveigled him into plots against the Spanish throne.
The Revolution triumphed, and Jacob succeeded
to the illusions and intoxications of victory, as mobs
carried him on their shoulders, won by his verbal
felicities, his elegance and beauty, and vowed to
send him to the Parliament to defend their liberties
— him, the dainty aristocrat, renegade but in name,
who jeered at them behind their backs, calling them
idiots, clowns, and asses, and who washed the
stenches of the canaille from his hands with disgust
as soon as he had finished shaking hands with them.
But it was not long before a black vista opened in
his life, before which even slander fled terrified,
for fear of falling into a pool of blood.
ONE day General Prim, the leader of the Revo-
lution, was shot in the streets of the capital.
His most intimate friend, Jacob Tellez, Mar-
quis of Sabadell, suddenly disappeared from sight
at the very moment when the rumor spread that
Prim was not mortally wounded, and that appalling
revelations had escaped from him. But Prim died,
carrying to his grave the key of the mystery. Three
months later it was announced that the Marquis of
Sabadell had been appointed Ambassador of Spain
at Constantinople by the new king.
"I feel," the newly-appointed ambassador wrote
to his government, "that Oriental life appeals to me
particularly, and that I can indulge my illusions in
Cairo, Bagdad, and Constantinople."
The illusions referred to soon bore strange fruit.
One morning, the wife of the Cadi did not appear
at her window to gaze over the mountains of Asia,
and the door of her apartments remained closed.
There was a rumor in the palace that a groan had
been heard the evening before, and that two
shadows, which wandered through the ghostly
corridors, had carried away some dark object. The
sentinel on a tower by the Sea of Marmora had
heard a splash in the dark water.
y^HE following day the body of a strangled
l^ ) eunuch had been found on the shore of the
^"^ Bosphorus. The ambassador had not seen
this, for he had fled from Constantinople that night,
with but a bag for luggage; and with this bag we
have already seen Jacob arrive at the Grand Hotel,
after spending two dark months in the lodges and
gambling hells of Italy. Now he had a room on the
fourth floor of the hotel, which cost twelve francs
a day, luxurious for one who possessed in the entire
world nothing but a debt of one hundred and fifty
thousand dollars at fifteen per cent.
Here Jacob feverishly read the Spanish journals
with their reports of the political changes in Spain.
He cursed frequently, and finally tossed the papers
aside in a violent rage. For a long time he sat silent
in his chair, his eyes fixed on the fire in the grate,
whose flames cast a lurid glow on his countenance.
He looked like a man planning some crime, and
had also decided on one when he suddenly leapt up,
pounding the arm of his chair with his clenched
hand. The mirror above the mantel-piece reflected
his twisted countenance, and noticing his distorted
face, he was for a moment overcome with one of
those sudden, violent frights which pluck the wings
of daredevil courage with a single stroke.
He looked behind him. In an alcove a curtain
stirred. He leapt at it quickly, tore it aside, and
then, with a laugh for his childish fear, wandered
over to the bureau at the other end of the room. His
dispatch-case lay open on top of it, and in a drawer
of the bureau he had locked his papers. He opened
the drawer, and taking out the large official-looking
letter, laid it on a small table in the middle of the
room.
QSTEP resounded in the hall outside, and
Jacob ran to the door on tiptoe, listened for
a moment, and then quietly locked it. He
then picked up a small knife, with a fine sharp
blade, and heated it carefully in the fire.
But he still hesitated, listening cautiously to
the sounds that penetrated from the Boulevard.
Then of a sudden decided. He carefully inserted
the blade under the waxen seal and with great skill
loosened it completely, leaving it intact so that it
could be stuck on again without possibility of detec-
tion. He placed the seal with caution on a piece of
white paper on a corner of the table.
The mysterious letter was open, and Jacob
began to read it. It was written in Italian, in the
same large handwriting as the address, was short,
and signed by Victor Emmanuel. Inside the
envelope were two other blank envelopes, sealed
with the insignia of the Freemasons upon green
sealing wax, a compass and square in the form of a
pentagraph.
Jacob inspected these carefully, and then with
equal skill loosened these seals from their places.
The first envelope contained a very closely written
letter in the same handwriting as the previous letter
and address. Jacob read this slowly, without mani-
festing any surprise, as though he already was well
acquainted with its contents. Finally he turned to
THE + SIGN
the last envelope, which was heavy and more
voluminous. Two blank documents fell out of it,
and then a third, upon which was written a name
which made Jacob start and utter one of those gross
oaths, common in moments of surprise even to the
most cultured. He was terrified; his heart beat,
his knees shook under him, and he read the papers
again and again with all the frightened eagerness
of a child who suddenly finds himself in the posses-
sion of the fabulous riches of a giant. Twice he
glanced cautiously at the door, as though he thought
to find it open in spite of the key which locked it
from the inside.
He had before him an arsenal of compromising
papers, important because of the names signed to
them. It was a treasure of infinite value which,
carefully managed, could ruin all the revolutionary
politicians in Spain in a short time. They were
letters of exchange payable at sight, which anyone
could collect either in influence or in money.
^t^HEN Jacob had finished his perusal of the
vly Papers, he was pale, and the cautious glances
^*S which he threw around him showed the fear
which every criminal feels, that prying eyes are
watching him. He rose and walked up and down
the room. The light of the candles annoyed him,
and he blew them out. Then he opened a window
wide, and leaned out. It was bitterly cold, but the
Paris crowds defied the inclemency of the weather,
and thronged the boulevards, a restless, impatient
mass which wandered incessantly like a reprobate
soul condemned by God to an eternal feast.
His eyes blurred by the eddies of the crowd
and the thousand lights which played over the
boulevards, Jacob turned over in his mind various
plans through which he might profit by his posses-
sion of these compromising documents. Yet how
avoid the suspicion of this theft? How cast the
blame on some other than himself? How explain
his act to the outraged monarch's angry accusations ?
He laughed many times at the ridiculous masquerad-
ing of the lodges, but through them all had run that
mysterious menace which he had heretofore inter-
preted lightly but which now filled him with fear : —
"Neckan!" "Vengeance!"
He must act carefully. Yet he must decide
immediately. And as though he might find in move-
ment some of those inspirations which come to one
in turning the corners of streets, he rushed out into
the air, first carefully locking the papers in the
bureau. He walked up the Boulevard des Capucines,
down the Boulevard de la Madeleine, and after
wandering for hours through the streets, at two
o'clock in the morning, he returned to the hotel
weary and still without a plan. For Jacob, for all
his audacity, was one of those irresolute people in
whom prolonged thought, far from clarifying his
ideas, seems merely to confuse the more, exasperat-
ing and bridling the will, which of a sudden breaks
loose from the mind's control at the most inop-
portune and dangerous time.
An old man was limping up the stairway,
enveloped in a long cloak. Sabadell took this to be
Uncle Frasquito, and hurried up the stairs to over-
take him. But the old man seeing that he was
followed, drew himself into the collar of his cloak,
and hiding something which he had in his hand in
his pocket, hurried on and rushed into the room
next to Jacob's. The latter, startled and suspicious,
and doubting if this were Uncle Frasquito, entered
his own room.
gT one side of the room was a small door cut
into the partition which divided what had
once been a single room into two, and which
was secured by a bolt on each side. Jacob ap-
proached the door on tiptoe, and listened cautiously.
He heard his neighbor strike a match and lock the
hall door. Then he heard soft steps approaching
the little door, and the bolt on the other side slid
back slowly. Jacob jumped back, startled, and
threw a hasty glance at the bureau which held the
papers. He drew a revolver out of his pocket.
His neighbor was spying on him, and his heated
imagination visioned the traitor Mason, with the
daggers of all the lodges of Italy pointed at him,
determined to regain their precious papers. The
bolt creaked again. His neighbor was either draw-
ing it or securing it, and as he naturally thought it
drawn, he suspected that his neighbor wanted to
try the door. The door, painted with care, did not
have a hole or a crack through which one could see.
The soft steps were heard again, this time
retreating, and Jacob drew near, attentive, with his
revolver aimed. Presently there was a suspicious
cough. It was not the soft and dainty cough of
Uncle Frasquito, but the asthmatic cough of an old
man. His uneasiness was increased by another
strange sound. He heard a sharp metallic noise,
like a dagger's blade scraping along a marble sur-
face. Perhaps the old man was sharpening the
point; or poisoning it!
^^^HEN there was silence. Then again soft steps
l^J moved about in different directions, toward
^""^ the door and away from it. Then, as the hotel
clock struck three, a thud was heard as when a
heavy body falls on a mattress; then a prolonged
sigh and a yawn, which set Jacob's uneasiness at
rest. A criminal about to commit murder does not
begin by yawning.
Tranquillized, he placed the revolver on the
table, and gave himself up again to a delighted
perusal of the papers. Suddenly he leapt from his
seat, and seized his revolver. In the next room,
he had heard the sound of a violent leap, hurried
footsteps, wild knockings at the door, and a terrified
1 1
THE f SIGN
voice which shrieked in Spanish: "Help! Help!'
Then he heard a groan, and the voice shrieked ii
French : —
"Au seceurs! An secours!"
CHAPTER XIV
aNCLE Frasquito was in bad temper when he
returned to his hotel that night. He had
spent a dull and sombre evening among the
exclusive gentry of the Union Club, and had been
bored to tears. He had often complained of tooth-
ache before, and on this occasion he showed with
a sad gesture a fine set of teeth, even as the keys
of a piano, for which he had paid ten thousand
francs to Ernest, the famous dentist of Napoleon
III. He complained that
he suffered acutely even
with such fine teeth, tak-
ing pains not to add that
his real trouble lodged
in an overlooked molar,
his only real tooth, which
existed in solitary state
like a milestone in the
desert of his gums.
When he left the
Club, the cold air pained
his fossil tooth, and he
hurried back to the hotel
to gargle with a potion
which alone would pre-
vent his having a sleep-
less night. Half way up
the stairs, he gazed cauti-
ously around, and seeing
no one who might dis-
cover his secret, he
hastily took out his set
of false teeth and hid
them in his handkerchief.
This relieved the pain,
but gave his face the ap-
pearance of a mere
caricature of its former self. Uncle Frasquito's
room was on the fourth floor, and when he had
reached the second, he noticed that some one
was following him upstairs. He hurried on, noticing
that it was the Marquis Sabadell, who was mounting
the stairs two steps at a time with the manifest
intention of catching up with him. What a hurry
the man was in! Frasquito drew his face into the
fur collar of his cloak, hid the set of teeth in his
pocket, and ran up the stairs until he reached his
door, completely out of breath.
Sabadell had followed him, and had stopped
at the door of his room, looking him over from head
to foot, surprised, suspicious, but without approach-
ing him.
"He is on to me!" thought Uncle Frasquito.
"Everybody in Paris will know by to-morrow that
I haven't any teeth!"
He entered his room hastily, struck a light, and
hurried to bolt the little communicating door, lest
his neighbor should continue to spy on him. This
seemed to be his intention, for Uncle Frasquito
overheard distinct noises in the next room, which
startled and upset him. But there was not a crack
in the door through which anyone could see, and this
partially relieved him. He gargled his mouth, and
his toothache disappeared completely. He then
cleaned his set of teeth with a silver-handled brush,
which hitting against the marble of the wash-stand,
gave out a metallic sound. Uncle Frasquito com-
menced to take off his various impedimenta before
retiring, after having made a third voyage of dis-
covery to the little door.
His neighbor was quiet.
Heaven
Nicholas Ward, C. P.
Tho' sometimes the vJa$ has been dreary
And toilsome the path I [\a\>e trod,
Full soon 1 shall be where tke weary
Find rest in tke arms of tkeir God.
How blissful will tken be tke meeting
Of all tke dear friends of tke Lord!
Compared vJitk its raptures kov? fleeting
Tke pleasures tke w"orld can afford.
Ok! sweet is tke tkougkt tkat I ne\>er
Skall lea\>e tke brigkt city above;
I skall dvJell vCitk my Saviour forever,
Eternally blest in His love.
EJ
E took off his per-
fumed wig, and
placed a pyrami-
dal nightcap upon his
head, ending in a little
tassle. Enveloped finally,
after a half hour of un-
dressing, in a nightgown
and this night cap, he
jumped into bed, and by
the light of a candle,
began to read a romantic
tale of Vizconde d'Arlic-
court. A sleepy nod
made him bang his nose
on the night table next
his bed; the novel fell to
the floor. He bent over
to pick the book up, as
he wished to finish the
chapter he was reading.
A little later he
smelt a strong odor of
burning linen. He sat
up hastily, and looked
around. He could see nothing on fire. He looked
around the room, under the pillow, between the
blankets — absolutely nothing on fire!
Perhaps something had fallen into the fire-
place, a handkerchief or a sock. He jumped out of
bed and looked at the fireplace. Again nothing!
"How peculiar!"
He thought that the fire might be in the next
room or in the corridor. He ran to the outside door,
to the communicating door between the rooms, with-
out finding any signs of a fire; but he noticed as he
passed from one side of the room to the other, that
the alarming odor was yet more distinct.
"What can be burning, in heaven's name?
It's like some magical trick!" said Uncle Frasquito,
standing in the center of the room, and sniffing
THE + SIGN
suspiciously. Then he thought he felt that the top
of his head was growing hot. He looked up at the
ceiling. Nothing there! He turned round, and a
cry of horror escaped him as he caught his reflection
in a mirror. Crowning the nightcap on his head
was a small red flame. The fire was there!
The fear which seized upon Uncle Frasquito
drove all reason from him. He did not understand
that when he had bent over to pick up his book,
he had ignited his nightcap by the candle on the
table. He completely lost his head, rang the electric
bell, shrieked for help, and pounding on Jacob's
door, cried: "Ausecours! Au secours!"
The little door was burst open violently, and
here stood Jacob, a revolver in his hand. He did
not recognize Uncle Frasquito in this apparition,
and would not have done so, had not the latter held
out two helpless hands in anguish: "Jacob! Jacob!"
Jacob, still understanding nothing, hit him a
blow on his head, and the burning cap fell to the
floor, exposing a bald skull, as white as a winter
melon. This farcical episode took but a moment,
yet that moment sealed Jacob's fate forever.
^^^HE servant on the floor, knocked loudly on
l) the door. Uncle Frasquito suddenly realized
^*^ the foolishness of the situation, slapped his
wig on his head, pulled on a fur coat, put in his
teeth, and hastily ran for cover in Jacob's room,
crying in a supplicating voice : "You answer, Jacob.
Don't let him see me!"
Sudden as this affair had been, and paralyzing,
as it had for the moment, Jacob's natural quickness
of mind, he yet saw that this foolish episode had
placed the rich and influential Uncle Frasquito in
his power, considering the effeminate weaknesses of
the old man. A plan began to form in his mind,
vague and incomplete as yet, but still luminous and
satisfactory.
He dismissed the servant, saying that Uncle
Frasquito had given a false alarm. He returned to
his room, where Uncle Frasquito was already
examining with the eyes of an expert, the three
wax seals loosened from the letters by the traitor
Mason, which he had left on the table in the excite-
ment. The papers were locked in the bureau at
the end of the room.
"What a foolish fright!" said Uncle Frasquito,
and then passing hastily over the painful subject,
he asked: "What seals are these? I don't know
them."
Uncle Frasquito collected diplomatic seals,
as we have already said, and kept them in an album,
seals which he had purchased at fabulous prices.
"Royal crown on a Savoyan cross," continued
Uncle Frasquito. "That's like the one I have of
Victor Emmanuel. But I don't know these."
Jacob was embarrassed at seeing the proofs of
his theft in Uncle Frasquito's hands, and could not
reply; and the old man asked again: "Whom do
they belong to? Do you want them?"
Jacob, still more embarrassed, and in order to
make some reply, answered: "Can't you guess?"
"Ah! Of course I can!" suddenly cried Uncle
Frasquito. "Compass and square! How stupid!
These come from the lodges!"
Jacob forced himself to laugh, and Uncle Fras-
quito, overcome with the enthusiasm of an amateur
who makes an important discovery, cried enthusi-
astically: "Give them to me, Jacob! You can't have
any use for them, and I have none like them. At
least let me have one]"
EOR four hours Jacob had been struggling with
himself, without being able to decide what
he would do with the seals, and then, sud-
denly, in a moment and in six words, he burnt his
ships behind him. "Take all three, if you want!"
he said, shrugging his shoulders.
Alea jacta est! He could not return the seals
now, once having rid himself of them; and he must
now run all the risks attendant on his crime, as it
was already too late to retreat from it. Uncle
Frasquito had not waited for him to repeat the
offer. He wrapped the seals up in a piece of paper
and hid them in his pocket hastily, as though he
feared that Jacob might retract the offer. The latter
watched him, smiling strangely, and as the seals
disappeared into the old man's pocket, he murmured
in Turkish: "Olsum!" "Amen!"
Suddenly jumping from the chair in which he
had been seated, he suggested that Uncle Frasquito
join him in a bowl of hot punch. The latter excused
himself, pleading the lateness of the hour, but Jaeob
insisted. Would he deny him these few moments
of relaxation? He was so lonely, and down in his
luck.
Uncle Frasquito gazed at Jacob with curiosity
and stayed in his chair. Perhaps, if he remained,
he might learn something of the mysterious scandal
about a certain Turkish lady with whom Jacob's
name had been entwined on his arrival in Paris.
He accepted the offer of the punch with enthusiasm,
and awaited any revelations regarding the mystery
which might be forthcoming.
He was not disappointed. Jacob in the voice
of a man oppressed with trouble, confided to him
that he was crushed under the weight of a horrible
catastrophe, which had forced him to flee from
Constantinople, with a broken heart and his fingers
stained with blood. Uncle Frasquito gave a start,
while Jacob unfolded the tale, and at the end, cried:
"This is serious, man!" "He had shrunk further
and further into his chair, as Jacob narrated the
appalling details of the tragic end of the Cadi's
wife. He was overwhelmed, and yet fascinated
with the idea that he would be the person who
would scatter the unpleasant scandal to the four
winds. Jacob watched him with a smile. His first
purpose was accomplished. The history ot his
intrigue with the Cadi's wife would be the talk of
all Paris within a day or so, and would place him
TH
E + SIGN
on the pedestal of scandal and of novelty upon which
a degenerate society worships the decadent idols
of the day.
Uncle Frasquito at last bade Jacob good-night,
saturated with horror at the gruesome scandal which
had been unfolded so graphically before his eyes,
shuddering at its ghastly suggestion of crime, yet
overjoyed at his own importance as the winged
messenger who would carry the foul news over Paris.
Before he left, he said: "Jacob! I think that it
would be wise to say nothing about what happened
this evening — the fire, and the nightcap!"
"Ah! yes. I had forgotten all about it."
"Naturally, naturally! A very foolish affair!
But people are so tiresome : they laugh at one and
make one appear ridiculous!"
"Rest easily, man. I will say nothing."
"Good-night, then, Jacob. If anything should
happen, just knock on the door. I sleep like a bird.
In this I am like an old man."
Uncle Frasquito finally went to bed, well satis-
fied. But when he had blown out the light, this
time with every precaution, he shuddered in a cold
sweat. He thought that the shadows in the room
were floating rapidly round, and on them the body
of a strangled eunuch, a rope round his neck, his
eyes starting out of their sockets, his arm stretched
out stiffly, which, gradually approaching him, sud-
denly pulled his nose.
Uncle Frasquito disappeared under the sheets,
closed his eyes tightly, and hastily crossed himself
three times.
CHAPTER XV.
V?=^EARING of some handsome women who had
I I won prizes for beauty in Spa, and later in
^~ ^ Budapest, Curra decided that her next move
would be to spread the reputation of her beauty
throughout Europe. Nothing but a European fame
would satisfy her. Unable to travel everywhere in
person, she decided to have her portrait painted by
Bonnat, and then to send it to exhibition after
exhibition, so that not a corner of Europe would be
ignorant of her charms. The fulfillment of this plan
kept her in Paris until November, and thrice a week
she posed for the great artist in his studio for the
benefit of humanity. This delightful idea cost her
about forty thousand francs. To be sure this was
an expensive luxury, but for what had God given
her money.
One morning Curra sent a messanger to Bonnat
to say not to expect her, as she was accompanying
Her Majesty the Queen to the Chapel of Expiation
on the Boulevard Haussmann. The clock of the
Grand Hotel had already struck eleven, and the
Duchess of Bara had sent a maid to tell Curra
that she was waiting downstairs. Curra was im-
patient and irritated, and asked Kate if the Marquis
had not returned as yet.
"No, madam," answered the girl.
"But when did he go out? Why did he get up
so early?"
"He did not go out."
"What do you mean?"
"He did not return last night."
"Ah!" said Curra.
The Duchess, who had waxed impatient at the
delay, now came in search of the missing lady.
"What is the matter, Curra? You will keep the
Queen waiting, if you don't hurry."
"My dear Beatrice! You don't know the lady.
It will be twelve before she ever leaves her
royal room." And she continued to arrange her
mantilla
Kate entered to announce that the Marquis had
returned.
"Excuse me a second, my dear," said Curra
quickly. "I must say au revoir to Ferdinand."
The Duchess made a gesture to express admira-
tion at the conjugal affection of her friend. "What
a pair of turtle doves!" she said. "You really
make me envious."
HERDINAND had just come in, and if the truth
must be told, it has to be admitted that he
did not look as though he had been at his
prayers. The collar of his overcoat was open, his
shirt was rumpled, his hat showed a conspicuous
dent, his eyes were red and weepy, and his breath
smelt of stale wine. He was startled and upset at
seeing Curra, and with a forced smile, said weakly:
"I have just returned from seeing the animals at
thejardin des Plantes."
He carefully buttoned up his overcoat,
as though to hide from Curra that out of affection
and consideration for the animals he was dressed in
evening clothes at ten o'clock of the morning. She
in her simplicity, did not, of course, notice this;
but asked ingenuously: "And did you do what
I told you?"
"Told me?"
"Of course. Didn't I ask you to call on Jacob
Tellez?"
"Jacob Tellez? Who is Jacob Tellez?"
"Jacob Sabadell, of course. My cousin Elvira's
husband."
"My dear, if you asked me, I must have for-
gotten. What had I better do?"
"Do it at once! Do you understand? Invite
him to breakfast. Be sure that I find him here
when I return."
"Of course, my dear, don't worry about it.
What's the man's name again?"
"Jacob Tellez, and he is a distinguished gentle-
man whom I want you to treat decently, as he is
my cousin."
And Curra delivered a little lecture upon family
love, leaving Ferdinand quite convinced of her
disinterested affection for her relative.
As the ladies were entering their carriage, the
exquisite and elegantly dressed Uncle Frasquito
THE *t SIGN
appeared and leapt into the carriage with them.
He accompanied them a short distance, telling them
a long tale, which caused intense interest and amaze-
ment to show on the countenances of the two women.
Meanwhile Jacob, secluded in his room, was
turning his plans over in his mind. Upon awaken-
ing that morning, after his conversation with Uncle
Frasquito, free from the wracking happenings of
the evening before, he had surveyed the situation
clearly. He worked out his plans carefully and
exactly. He saw now, that while his alliance with
Uncle Frasquito might result, indeed would result,
in his winning his way to the pinnacle of scandalous
success, at the same time this very success might
interfere with his general plan of campaign. He
might have been wrong in making Uncle Frasquito
the bearer of scandalous tidings; he felt more and
more, as he turned the matter over in his mind, that
he had made a misplay. Yet who could now stem
the current of rumor and scandal? He wished to
find someone in the world of virtue and honor,
outside of his own vicious circle, who could aid him
in the plan which was maturing rapidly in his mind.
He must find someone; and chance threw Diogenes
in his path.
OIOGENES had hastened to visit him that
morning, enticed by the money which he
thought the ambassador had brought back
from Turkey. He had decided to breakfast with
Jacob, for he had no hesitancy in inviting
himself unasked to a meal; then he would take
him to the Petit Club to try his luck, with the
intention of securing something for himself on the
way. He was greatly surprised when Jacob, with
the austerity of a St. Anthony in the desert, refused
to go out, and stated emphatically that he would
no longer walk the impure streets of Paris, that he
had sworn off card playing, and that he had decided
to go to Biarritz the following morning, to make an
attempt at reconcilation with — Polaina! — his wife !- !
Diogenes loked at Jacob in silence, and, when the
latter had finished talking, he said to him seriously:
"What nonsense! I know what you are up to. Your
wife has gained her lawsuit with the Monterrubios,
and now has a large income. You are as hungry
as the prodigal son, and you want to eat the fatted
calf."
Jacob was angry at having his thoughts read
so correctly, and with an offended air, exclaimed:
"I assure you "
"Jacob, my boy! I can tell a cripple from the
way he walks!"
"You can say what you like, but I "
"Look here, child! Don't try to deceive your
elders. Neither you nor I have any self-respect;
but to be a rogue, one must have cleverness, and
while you are merely on the way, I have passed
on and returned. Do you understand?"
Jacob's offended dignity seemed mollified; and
he said, after a moment's pause : "You think my
plan absurd?"
"Absurd? For you it is excellent business:
for her it is just highway robbery."
"So you think that Elvira "
"Would be willing to be robbed? Of course!
Raise your little finger: that is enough for her. She
loves you as much to-day as she did the day you
first deceived her. It's incredible but true!"
"Well, what of it?"
"What of it? You now have to go to head-
quarters."
"And what are headquarters?"
"My dear boy: at Father Cifuentes'."
"Ah! I have been told that already."
"Well, you are not mistaken."
**■ tf'ACOB was lost in thought for a moment; then,
tf L scratching his head, he said with a jeering
^"^ laugh : "I suppose that I shall have to confess
to Father Cifuentes?"
Diogenes suddenly became serious.
"Look here, Jacob," he answered. "I may be
a fool, a drunkard, and a lost soul : I may have
done everything except commit murder. But I have
profound respect for anything that has reference to
God. I have inherited that respect. I am not good,
because it would take too much trouble to be so;
but I have veneration for the man who is good,
and who does take the trouble to be so. Just be-
cause I wallow in the mud, is no reason for my not
seeing that there are stars in the heavens."
Jacob was immoderately surprised at this
strange speech of Diogenes. "Why all this
harangue?" he asked finally.
"Why? So that you will leave your wife in
peace, for by the very act of thinking of her, you
do her an injury."
"You are very complimentary! A valiant de-
fender of my Elvira! When did you happen to
meet her? I don't suppose that it was in the con-
fessional of Father Cifuentes."
"Certainly not. I have seen her and learned
how to appreciate her at the home of her intimate
friend, Maria Villasis."
"Then she is an intimate friend of your intimate
friend Maria Villasis? I understand. And how is
that perfect widow getting along? You must admire
pure ugliness, my boy! And I suppose that you are
the confidant of my wife?"
"Stop, canaille, or I'll break your head!" cried
Diogenes, thrusting his heavy fist under Jacob's
nose. "What do you want? Money? Go to the
Countess of Albornoz, a miserable thing like your-
self! She'll hand you out all you want. But leave
decent people alone!"
Jacob was annoyed, but fearing a verbal duel
with Diogenes, he answered: "My dear Diogenes,
you are not yet recovered from yesterday's party.
What makes you think that I am going to sell myself
to my wife for a few dollars?"
"My friend, remember the gypsy in the fable!
THE + SIGN
When he confessed that he had stolen three pennies,
the priest said to him: 'You ought to be ashamed
of yourself, condemning yourself for three miserable
pennies.' To which the gypsy replied: 'What else
could I do, when there were no more to be had?' "
BT this point the argument was interrupted by
the arrival of the Marquis of Villamelon,
who entered, perfectly restored after the
debauch of the night before. Diogenes, seeing him,
disappeared behind a newspaper at the other end
of the room. The Marquis went up to Jacob, and
seizing his hands, said to him in a most affectionate
tone of voice: "My dear Benito, how are you? I
must ask pardon for not having come to see you
before. But I did not have time. Curra expects
you to breakfast, at two o'clock; a trifle late, but
to-day she is out with the Queen. You understand?"
Jacob was about to decline the invitation, when
Villamelon stopped him: "Not a word! Under-
stand? I will not accept excuses, Benito. Curra
would be frightfully upset. She loves your family,
and is always talking about you — Benito this, Benito
that."
Diogenes shouted from his chair: "Villamelon!
Idiot! His name is not Benito!"
"Not Benito? What is it, then?"
"Jacob."
"Oh, yes! Jacob. You must excuse me, Ben
Jacob! I have such a poor memory. And each day
I think that it is growing worse."
Ferdinand complained with reason of his fre-
quent lapses of memory, a sure sign of softening
of the brain. He obtained Jacob's consent to break-
fast with Curra and himself, and departed hastily
from the room.
(To be continued)
Home Made Picture Framing
^^^HE SIGN aims to avoid the commonplace in
^/^ its illustrations. Some of these our readers
wish to preserve and keep in view — such as
the unparalleled photograph of St. Gabriel and his
brother in the February number. There are
exquisite specimens of rotogravure art and our own
camera work whch we might wish to save from
oblivion. Unprotected, they soon gather dust, curl
up, fade and just litter the room.
There is the touch of charm and refinement and,
in the case of sacred subjects, of edification, in
neatly mounted photographs on the walls of the
home.
Anyone can indulge in this pleasing and useful
hobby without special skill and at small expense.
The only outlay required will be for glass and paste.
Use photographers' paste or make it from starch :
these will not discolor the paper. For glass, old
negatives from which the film has been removed
may be used.
For the simplest method of framing you require
only a piece of glass, a sheet of cardboard of the
same size, and some strips of brown paper. Brown
usually contrasts more pleasingly with the high
lights in the photograph. White mounts more often
make the small pictures look dull. This simple but
artistic method is suitable for sizes up to about
18 x 12 inches.
The photograph or clipped picture should first
be mounted on card. Brush the paste into the back
of the picture until the paper has become quite limp.
Then press the picture on the cardboard and leave
it to dry.
All that is necessary is to lay the glass over
the mounted picture, trim off the projecting edges,
and bind glass and card together with strips of
dark-colored paper. Brown wrapping paper will
serve the purpose. You get clear, straight edges
by cutting the strips over glass with a sharp pen-
knife guided by a ruler. Each strp should be about
% inch wide.
The strips well moistened with paste should be
placed very accurately over the edges of glass and
mount and pressed down neatly. A light coat of
thin varnish over the binding and back of cardboard
will give permanent protection against dampness.
For hanging purposes loops of tape glued to the
back will serve quite as well as metal rings.
Current Fact and Comment
PASSIONIST
HATHER Victor, C. P., until recently Rector of
St. Paul's Monastery, Pittsburgh, and Father
Valentine, C. P. for over twenty-seven years
continuously engaged on missions throughout the
States, sailed for Rome in April. Their ultimate
destination is Germany where they will remain and
establish a foundation. It is planned to make it the
nucleus of a Passionist Province. Germany as a
result of the partition of her territory loses five
ANGLICAN
BNGLICANS are asking whither the shortage
of their clergy in England is leading. That
shortage now amounts to 4000 and to meet the
wastage only 158 deacons were ordained last year.
In 1914 they had 24000 clergy; to-day there are only
18500. A novel plan of relief has been projected:
the ordination of men still engaged in professions
or trades. One writer urges: "Certainly we should
press at once for permanent diaconate for such men
in large numbers, unpaid of course, and thus dis-
FOUNDATIONS
million Catholics out of the seven million of popu-
lation detached from her. Excluding the Saar dis-
trict, the Catholic proportion of Germany's popula-
tion is now 33.5 per cent.
Four Passionists from Argentine Province have
established a mission at Montevideo, Brazil. They
will have charge of the English-speaking Catholic
residents of that city and will give missions through-
out the republic.
DIFFICULTIES
tinguished from the professional class of clergy.
Such men would be in closer contact with their
fellows and help to bridge the gulf which seems
often to exist between layman and cleric to-day.
They would lighten the duties of the existing clergy
both at home and abroad and enable the sacraments
to be administered in many cases where the rapid
diminution of the present ministry will soon make
this impossible.
^^=^HE rank and file of the Russian Orthodox
^ J Church are a remarkably devout people.
Recent travellers in Russia invariably refer
to their indomitable faith although beset by terrible
hardships and the severe restrictions of a Com-
munistic government. As there are signs of dis-
integration in that vast ecclesiastical establishment,
and as flattering overtures towards union are being
made by heretical bodies, we should pray that the
Orthodox leaders may realize that only in union
with the Holy See can they find consistency and
stability. Thousands in the Ukrainian section are
PIUS XI. AND THE ORTHODOX
about to detach themselves from the Patriarchate
of Moscow. At the same time the critical decision
presents itself: whether they should yield to the
overtures of the Anglicans or submit to Rome. Very
opportunely at this juncture the Chair of Peter is
occupied by one who as Nuncio to Poland and
Apostolic Visitor to Russia, Latvia and Lithuania
became intimately acquainted with their political
and religious conditions, and whose sympathetic
understanding should be particularly effective in
directing their decisions.
^w^lTNESS the productivity of the Baptist organi-
f I 1 zation when planted in Italian soil. Someone
having stated in the "New York Times" that
the Methodists were the only Protestants carrying
on mission work in Rome, that newspaper receives
and prints a correction to the effect that Baptist
mission work has been carried on in Rome for fifty-
two years, that in Italy they have thirty-seven
churches, twelve schools, (including a theological
BAPTIST ACTIVITIES IN ITALY
seminary), two kindergartens, total students, 690,
and that during the war they distributed more than
half a million copies of the New Testament and
portions of Scripture. Here we have a rather im-
pressive organization and over half a century of
effort described and then the total membership
frankly set down at 1546. The writer failed to state
how many of that number were Italians!
THE 1* SIGN
IDLE CONDEMNATION OR
KITHERTO the degradation of the stage and of
amusements such as the cabaret in particular
has stirred only helpless indignation among
the decent public. It is gratifying to learn that at
last good and determined men have organized in
opposition. Success should be assured for the
reason that they will procede not by attacking
managers and producers but by co-operating with
these. In place of criminal prosecution or official
censorship, judgment will be left to juries selected
ACTIVE COOPERATION?
from a panel chosen by city officials, theatrical
interests and representative lay citizens.
Unless parents are quite certain that the London
County Council are blindly prejudiced, they should
ponder with fclarm upon that civic body's recent
regulation barring from the movies all children
under seventeen not accompanied by parent or
guardian.
SIGNOR PAPINI
/ef\UCH attention has been aroused by the con-
vfJ version of Giovanni Papini, the noted Italian
critic. His // Storia di Cristo, undertaken
immediately upon his rather sudden conversion, is
an enthusiastic proclamation of what he himself
styles the "glad message." The prayer with which
Signor Papini concludes the book and which
expresses the source of his convictions, proves the
still wondrous potency of the prophecy of the
Saviour :
"And I, if I be lifted up, will draw all things to Myself":
WHICH
^^HE Catholic parent, seeking the best in educa-
V J tion for son or daughter, should not be
influenced in the choice of a college by the
glamor of the numerical patronage of that college.
Examination of the recent claims as to the largest
enrollment revealed that some colleges now have
close to ten thousand students in attendance. But
thoughtful educators see in this overwhelming
growth only a menace to efficiency. Dr. Chas. F.
Thwing, President Emeritus of Western Reserve
University, frankly describes the results of over-
enrollment. There is an excess of students in pro-
portion to the number of professors or to the
efficiency of the material facilities for giving an
education to a vast multitude. Lecture courses take
the place of recitation or quiz courses in subjects in
"Mankind, removing itself from the gospel, has found
desolation and death. More than one promise and one
menace have found their accomplishment. Now we have,
we despairng men, only the hope of Thy return ....
We await Thee, we shall await Thee, despite our im-
worthiness and every impossibility. And all the love
that can be won from our devastated hearts will be for
Thee, the Crucified, Who wert tormented for love of
us, and Who now dost torment us with all the power of
Thy unappeased love."
According to a non-Catholic reviewer, this book
is a cry from the Christian soul of Italy, and supplies
a note in the gamut of Christ-literature which we
cannot afford to miss.
COLLEGE?
which the personal contact of teacher and student
is highly desirable. Having heard of lecture courses
in several universities given to audiences of students
of a thousand or more, Dr. Thwing is reminded of
Aristotle's remark that "eloquence never teaches."
He also hears of freshmen classes divided into some
sixty-four sections in which the teachers are them-
selves members of the senior class. The laboratories
are overcrowded. Carelessness in experimentation
is the inevitable result. It should also be said that
the students are far too many for each other, as
well as for their teachers and for the equipment.
Students educate each other by many and unconsci-
ous conditions. But this mutual education diminishes
in the inverse ratio of the number of the educating
and educated.
THE PROPS OF EVOLUTION
^^HE recent country-wide discussion of Darwin-
V/ J ism and evolution was of immense advantage
in setting those theories back within their
very limited and hypothetical confines. As such
discussions arise periodically it is discovered that
the radical evolutionists while left unmolested have
been enlarging their theories and promulgating them
with characteristic presumption and arrogance.
With the zeal and ingenuity, if not the malignity,
peculiar to all radicals they have so thoroughly come
into possession of the field of education — literature,
the lecture platform, the public museums — as to have
many under the impression that they have definitely
established their claims. As a result of the afore-
THE + SIGN
said discussion many have had revealed to them
on what a slender foundation evolution rests especi-
ally as applied to the origin of man.
A bill barring the teaching of evolution failed
to pass in the Kentucky legislature by a single vote.
Undoubtedly it would have had a different fate had
it provided exclusively for a fair and honest pre-
sentation of the theory. The college professor in
presenting his conclusions to his students should be
obliged to distinguish between discovered fact and
the surmises of a lively and spacious imagination.
This would apply, for example, to that most notori-
ous of all the missing links with the impressive name
of pithecanthropus erectus artfully restored from
the fragment of a skull, a shin bone and two molar
teeth. It should also be frankly pointed out how
barren of proof are the wide-open pages of geology
regarding the requisite intermediary forms of the
transitional theory. No science has generated more
credulity than evolution or given more occasion for
imposture. Impartial exposition will suffice to strip
it of its sneer and pretence.
THE CROSS OF CHRIST THE SUPREME MOTIVE
V|^E pluck these gems of truth from a wierd
\I/ setting — these evidences of zeal and experi-
enced piety from among certain observations
of the Rev. C. E. Raven, who is ranked as "easily
the most influential among the younger leaders
standing for a new interpretation of the Christian
faith in terms of progressive thought and of undying
human need." His theme is the now very trite one ;
the call to world service.
"We can no longer stop short at the Galilean
ministry, we must go on to the Cross. Sooner or
later the disciples must come to terms with the
Cross; must learn — often through anguish of soul —
what it means to be crucified with Christ. . . My
quarrel with the student Christian movement has
been that it has tended to bring youth in contact
with the Galilean Jesus, and then virtually said,
'Oh, let us be joyful!' ... It was by giving up
His life for the world that Jesus served it; and we
cannot go very far, if our discipleship is genuine,
before we realize that only a crucified life can serve
— that the man who scorns merely to save his own
soul but wants to devote himself to the kingdom can
be effective only if like St. Paul, he is crucified with
Christ. And that is a grim, often a long business.
With St. Paul it meant a daily warfare against the
flesh ... In the end there is no other principle that
can bear the strain but the principle of the Incar-
nation, no other power than the constraining love of
Him Who emptied Himself of His glory. And,
again, how can we meet the sins and sorrows, the
wrongs and disabilities of those we want to help
except in the light of the Cross of Christ, in the
vision of a Christ Who suffers for our sins and is
pierced by our sorrows?"
WHAT THE CENSUS SHOWS
QCCORDING to the latest official report there
are more than eighteen million Catholics in
the United States and over ten millions more
in the possessions. In the States proper the increase
for 1921 was 219,158. A huge number— but are we
justified in heralding it with enthusiasm and as a
great gain? Is a scant two per cent increase some-
thing to boast of when we consider what should
be due to natural growth alone? Moreover, immi-
gration, although, restricted, contributed substanti-
ally to that increase. But there is another source of
increase — conversions — which, had it claimed that
whole increase for itself should have given no cause
for astonishment. Catholic zeal and good example
are not functioning as they should in the direction
of conversions. In our faith we have the most
reasonable and appealing message for the multitudes
craving certitude and seeking a spiritual anchorage.
The ease with which new sects find adherents and
impose upon them the most incredible views of God
and morality should make us wonder where the
blame lies for our not forestalling them. Of the
millions not affiliated at all how many are as well
disposed as those who have made their submission,
how many need only a hint, a helpful word, a guid-
ing hand! Recently on the occasion of his Silver
Jubilee a priest modestly recalled that he had
brought 250 converts into the Church — an average
of ten a year for his priestly career. It has been
shown that there are not enough priests for ordinary
parochial demands, otherwise work for converts
might show larger results. But what about the laity
and the contribution from their efforts to the sum
of converts? Consider the splendid gains were
every Catholic able to claim — not one convert a
year, or in every ten years — but even one in his or
her lifetime! Contemplate seriously the feasibility
of thus influencing even one of the many with whom
you come in contact socially or under other intimate
circumstances.
The S
onnam
John Ayscouch
bulista
DO, Carluccia," declared Sholto Maxwell,
"I would far rather you didn't see me
"But I wish to! It was a settled arrange-
ment with me. I should have thought you would
like to see the very last of me — to see me up to the
last moment possible."
Carluccia's tone was petulant, obstinate, and
hurt. He certainly did not wish to hurt her. Pro-
bably nine people out of ten would have said that
Sholto Maxwell was singularly fortunate in his
engagement, that he had much the best of the
bargain. Carluccia was a beauty, acknowledged as
such everywhere (everywhere, that is to say, in
society, and she herself knew no other opinion) :
she had considerable "distinction" : she was well
born: she sang well, and painted much better. Sholto
Maxwell was also well born: but he was only a
subaltern of the new Army; he was not handsome,
though of a stalwart, fine figure; he was not quite
of the same social ring as Miss de Bolesme — was
not, indeed, of any social importance; and no one
considered him brilliant. He was merely reKable
and solid : with good brains, and excellent common
sense. Of fortune he had a sufficiency, but no more.
Their engagement was a very sudden business.
He had only known her three weeks when he asked
her to say she would be his wife. She said Yes at
once; and she was, indeed, altogether in love with
him.
Sir Eustace de Bolesme had held a diplomatic
appointment in Italy, and had married a Roman
lady of high rank. Lady de Bolesme was now a
widow, and spent half her time in England, half in
Rome : but since the war began had not left London.
Her daughter's name was Carola, but Carluccia was
her mother's pet-name for her, and now everybody,
who knew her well, called her by it.
Carluccia's beauty was very southern : she was
extraordinarily dark, and perhaps too pale, but her
features were faultless and her eyes were large,
brilliant, and expressive.
Her father had always spoiled her, and she was
her mother's mistress : Lady de Bolesme was an ex-
beauty, with very few ideas, but those few eminently
correct.
Carluccia was all ideas — she was a prey to
them, and they were always changing. She entirely
forgave Sholto for having, as she thought, none at
all. Her father had been like that, and she had
sincerely loved him.
[HOLTO MAXWELL might be proud of the
beauty and distinction of his future wife,
and of her intense devotion to him : but she
would be pretty sure to give him trouble. She was
petulant, unreasonable, as obstinate as a mule, and
fiercely jealous.
" I intend to go down to Dover to see you off,"
she announced obstinately. "Your sister is going."
"Elspeth is going to nurse in a base-hospital.
She cannot bring you back."
"That doesn't matter. Mamma can come too."
"She told me she was quite unfit for it."
"All right. Let her stay at home. / shall go.
I have a special reason."
He smiled, and said the most special reason
was to see the last of him : but she had another
which she did not tell him.
Finally she got her point, as she always
intended.
"There's another thing," she said presently.
"I want you to come with me — this afternoon — to
Elsa Nerida. I telegraphed for an appointment, and
she has given me one. I will go and get ready now."
"Who is Elsa Nerida?"
"Don't you know? She is the greatest living
sonnambulista, clairvoyante as they call it here."
"Carluccia, I wish you would not go near those
people. I beg you not to go to her."
"1 am certainly going. If you choose, on your
last afternoon, to leave me, you can : only I shall go
alone."
Sholto loathed the whole idea of clairvoyantes,
and hated going near such a woman: it was quite
against his conscience to take Carluccia to her.
"Will you go if I earnestly beg you to give it
up
he asked gently.
"I will not give it up. With you or without
you I shall go. It was Elsa Nerida who told me
I should meet you. She described you, and said
you were coming into my life. The moment we met
I recognized you 'il maestro della mia vita,' the
Master of my life. You ought to be grateful to her."
THE + SIGN
"The master of your life," said Sholto with
a little smile of protest, "and you will not do any-
thing I ask!"
"Everything you ask. But this you must not
ask: come — or let me go by myself."
XT was Elsa Nerida who had described to her
the sailing of a ship full of soldiers, from
a haven under white cliffs with a castle on
their summit, had described herself, Carluccia (very
accurately), watching the ship go.
Elsa Nerida received her client in a flat not
far from Piccadilly. The door was opened by a
elderly woman with a blank face, who did not admit
them till Carluccia had handed her the telegram
from her mistress giving an appointment. She then
led them into a tiny waiting-room, a little like that
of a fifth-rate dentist. After two or three minutes
a door opened and a young man's face appeared in
the doorway : the face of someone quite well known
to Carluccia.
"No," said a voice beyond him, "not that door
now."
The young man immediately closed the door,
another was heard to open, leading evidently to the
narrow hall or passage : then the entrance-door was
opened and no doubt the blank-faced woman let
him out.
"That," whispered Carluccia, "was Steenie
Lackland. I can't abide him."
So far as could be seen in the moment he had
stood at the door, he was a man of about Sholto's
age, and the same build and height, with fair hair
like his, and blue-grey eyes like his: but with no
other resemblance whatever.
Adesso, Signorina," said the blank-faced
woman, coming in. "Tutti due?"
"Tutti due."
"Allora." And the woman crossed to the window,
pulled down a black blind and drew thick black
curtains completely across.
"That," said Carluccia, in a low voice, "is lest
Elsa Nerida should see you even during the moment
the door is open. Take my hand. I will lead you."
"I hate it."
"Hate taking my hand!"
"The whole thing. I wish you would come
away."
"I certainly shall not. Come, or I shall leave
you."
She took him by the arm and piloted him to
the door in which the other young man had
shown for a moment. Their footsteps were quite
noiseless on the thick felt floor-covering. The door-
way was broad and low.
"Stoop," said Carluccia. And they passed
through together. Then the door closed behind them.
They were in pitch darkness. The place had
a queer eastern smell, and was almost airless.
"There are two of you said a very tired voice.
"I gave Lave only for one."
It was true that in her telegram Carluccia had
made no mention of Sholto, but she had previously
promised to bring him.
"One of us," said he, "is here very unwillingly."
"Then why do you come?"
"To please someone else. In this I am wrong
to please her."
"You had better go." And the voice was full
of anger.
"If you do I shall not forgive you," whispered
Carluccia in his ear.
V?=^E was quite resolved not to leave her in that
I I horrible place alone. He felt it to be simply
horrible — the darkness was full of a hateful
Presence, weird, ghastly, abominable.
"If he is afraid, let him go," said the voice:
it was intensely displeased and scornful.
"Of course I am not afraid."
"I never asked you here," said the voice, "but
I know you though I never saw you."
She then described him — not flatteringly: the
description, however, answered. Perhaps it might
have served nearly as well for the other young man
who had just gone out.
"Now," said the voice when the description was
finished, "I wish you to see there is nothing here.
I wished to describe you before I had seen you."
Immediately a light — an ordinary electric light
bulb — pendant from the ceiling was turned on, and
the room and its occupants became visible. Every-
thing was black: ceiling, walls, floor, furniture. The
walls were not covered with curtains but painted
or papered black : so was the ceiling. The furniture
consisted of two settees, covered with black cloth,
having wooden legs, and a black tripod of iron
holding a black metal bowl containing a few lumps
of charcoal. Apparently there was no window: the
doors into the hall and into the waiting-room were
black, with dulled black handles. The covering of
24
THE +
the floor appeared to be of what is called "cork
lino" but black. Elsa Nerida was very tall and her
face was quite colourless. Her black robe reached
up almost to her chin, but it was not long: her
stockings must have black, for against the black
floor they did not appear at all, and her feet could
not be seen, either, in their black felt slippers. Even
with the electric light turned fully on, only the
woman's face and hands showed, on account of the
blackness of her clothing, the floor and walls.
"Sit down there,"
she said, pointing a long
finger to one of the
settees. On the finger
was a queer ring of
black iron, like a tiny
cage, in which was a
bit of cord — part of the
strand of a halter with
which a famous mur-
derer had been hanged :
but of that Sholto knew
nothing.
The moment he
and Carluccia had sat
down the electric light
went out. An instant
later the charcoal in the
bowl of the tripod
glowed a dull red, and
a very slight blue flame
wavered up from it.
There was a queer
smell, not nasty but
faint and sickly.
Elsa Nerida was
quite invisible. Sholto
concluded she had
merely turned her back.
"Of course she is there," he thought.
"Certainly I am," she said scornfully.
But almost instantly the electric light shone
out again, and there appeared no sign of her. Still
it seemed to him that against all that black back-
ground were she but to cower in a corner, with her
face averted and hands hidden, she would not be
visible.
"Go and search for her," Carluccia whispered.
He did so, walking quite round the walls: but
he did not find her. She was not there.
As soon as he returned to his place beside
Carluccia the electric light went out. He sat down
Ma>) Hymn
Don Theodore Bailey, O. S. B.
O Lady, Mother mine,
Most high ana fair thou art,
And fairer than all the fair,
And virginal of heart.
O Lad>), Mother mine,
TKe moon beneath thy* feet,
And seven stars thy crown vJithal
TKe sea's clear star and sv?eet.
O Lady, Mother mine,
Rose mistical, most pure,
Whose perfume gladdens Heaven
Be thou our refuge sure.
O Lady, Mother mine,
Queen among Seraphim,
Throne of thy" lovely Son,
For us beseech thou Him.
SIGN
and Carluccia took his hand in hers, laying her
other hand upon it.
"Do believe," she whispered eagerly.
At that moment something touched him on
the cheek; it felt like the skin of a mouse, and it
somehow disgusted him. He jumped up angrily,
and Elsa Nerida's voice said quietly from the other
side of the room :
"I am here."
He turned sharply and saw her face low down
near the floor. It dis-
appeared and a moment
later he saw it again,
quite high up in the air,
four or five feet from
where it had been. It
disappeared and re-
appeared— it seemed
to be everywhere. But
there were no eyes in
the face, nor any eye-
brows. It was all a
white blank.
This lasted per-
haps for two minutes.
Then Elsa's face
showed above the tri-
pod, and her great,
sombre black eyes were
bent on the wavering
blue flame.
"Ask what you
want to know," she
commanded.
"I want to know
nothing."
"It is a pity you
are inimical. Your
spirit is not. It is only
your temper. If I were a common medium I should
say that your opposition of will balked the vision.
Nothing can balk it. I will tell you what will be."
"You shall tell me nothing," said Sholto, not
only with decision but with a certain anger that was
distinctly perceptible in his voice. "I will listen
to nothing that you may choose to say. Carluccia,
I shall not stay here, nor do I intend to leave you
here."
B
E had risen and was standing with his back to
the Sonnambulista, turned to Carluccia, whose
face was only barely visible, for the little
THE +
flame in the tripod now gave a very faint glimmer.
Her eyes glittered, and she was trembling.
"Come, dear Carluccia," he asked her earnestly,
but quite gently. In speaking to her there was no
angry inflection in his voice.
Nevertheless she knew he was angry, though
not yet at all events, with her: she was afraid —
afraid of losing him: she loved him with a strong
though recent passion, and the dread of losing him
frightened her. If she had been quite sure of keeping
him, in spite of disobedience, she would have dis-
obeyed.
While he bent towards her, pleadingly, some-
thing crept against his cheek: it felt like another
cheek, very hot and dry. But though he started up
at once, and threw up his hand, there was nothing :
as soon as he had turned round he saw Elsa Nerida's
face wavering in the air, rocking, as it were, to and
fro, but several feet away.
"Go with him," said her voice; "I am tired
of him. Obey him this time. Another time you
will disobey him, and it will cost the fair man dear."
Carluccia stood up.
"I am coming," she said in a tired voice.
Almost instantly the electric light was turned
on, and they found that they were alone in the room.
Outside in the street they got into a taxi.
Carluccia was still afraid because his face was so
grave and his mouth looked so hard and determined.
"I have lost caste with him," she thought, and
again she trembled.
"Sholto," she asked gently, "are you angry?"
"Yes."
"With me?"
It was a pity she asked that second question:
because his answer reassured her.
"No, of course not with you. With myself.
I had no business to take you there. I knew I
was wrong and ought not to have yielded."
"Then I should have gone alone. But I wanted
her to say what would happen to you."
"Carluccia," he said, turning to her and taking
her hand, "you must promise me that you will never
go near that horrible place again."
"I can't promise," she said, truthfully enough,
because her will was enfeebled by the hold she had
allowed the Sonnambulista to gain over her.
"Then—"
And she thought he was going to declare that
their engagement must end.
"Then," she said hurriedly, "I promise."
26
SIGN
It was the first real lie she had ever told in her
life. She was petulant, obstinate, and wayward,
but her nature was frank and courageous, not the
liar's nature: but the wretched influence to which
she had wilfully subjected herself had corrupted
her nature.
Her cheek reddened, for she knew she was
lying: but he was not looking at her, and he
thoroughly believed in her truth.
fi
II.
OR some time after his departure to France
Carluccia did not go to see Elsa Nerida —
because she did not yet want to go.
She had carried out her plan of seeing
him off at Dover, and her last memory of him was
as he had looked leaning over the ship's side.
Oddly enough the man next to him had been Steenie
Lackland. When, at last, the ship moving, she had
waved to Sholto, saying "Au revoir," she had seen
Steenie smile and seen on his lips her own words
"Au revoir." This had made her angry, for she
thoroughly disliked him, and knew that he wanted
to marry her. And intensely as she loathed the man
he had a hateful sort of "influence" over her — so
she called it to herself, meaning really no more
than that, whereas she would wish to be simply
oblivious of his existence, she often found herself
thinking of him with a sort of repulsion that re-
sembled dread.
In one of his letters, and only one, Sholto
alluded to Elsa Nerida. "Thank God," he wrote,
"that you gave me your promise not to go near that
abominable place. I can see where there was
imposture : vulgar imposture. But there was worse
than imposture, something foul and evil : something
not explicable. There was in the room a Presence
worse than hers : a Power greater than mere roguery,
but easily linked to every form of untruth."
So far besotted was she that the accusation of
trickery angered her, whereas the other insinuation
oddly pleased her.
For longer, much longer, than usual Carluccia
had not had a letter from him. And she was "on
strings": frightened. There had been, everyone
said, a new "push" out there. Irresponsible rumour
said a disastrous one: and rumour lied, for it had
achieved its object, and there was to follow a lull,
and officers were being granted leave.
THE + SIGN
GARLUCCIA now cared only for one thing in
life — Sholto. Her love was no longer merely
a passion, it was an obsession. Yet it hurried
her to disobedience and ruin — of his life and her
own.
"I must know," she said to herself. "I must
know."
And she telegraphed to Elsa Nerida asking for
an appointment.
"May we come again?" was her message.
"That will prove her," she told herself, really
believing entirely in the woman.
"Yes, come. At five this afternoon. Both of
you," was the answer.
The reply did not shake her confidence, because
it could not be shaken: it was gone beyond the
control of evidence or reason. But it shook her.
She went to her appointment trembling.
The blank-faced woman noted that she came
alone, and no doubt reported it, but she showed no
surprise.
"I knew," said Elsa Nerida when Carluccia
was in the black room, "that he would come again."
"He is not here," whispered Carluccia, shiver-
ing.
The room was entirely dark. The tripod was
unlighted.
"He is here," the Sonnambulista insisted, "at
your side."
"No," the girl stammered. "He is over there —
in France. I came for news. I have not heard of
him. I was frightened, and I came for news."
"You said 'we' : and you spoke truth. He came
with you. He is here. Beside you. His hand will
touch yours. . . ."
And a very cold hand, that shook perceptibly,
touched Carluccia's. The girl herself was trembling
from head to foot.
"Turn to him, if you dare," whispered Elsa
Nerida. "If you turn to him he will know that you
love him — always."
Carluccia could hardly move : she had heard
that Elsa's own voice, usually so impassive, was
tense with excitement.
"Ah!" said Elsa, "she dare not."
Then Carluccia turned and other lips met hers,
and withdrew instantly. She stretched out her arms
but they met nothing.
"I bade him come," whispered the Sonnambu-
lista. "His spirit is of us. Only the tempter, a
bodily carnal thing, was averse, obstinate. His
spirit is free now — and obedient. He came with
you. . . ."
For a long time there was no other sound
except the awful beating of Carluccia's own heart.
"His spirit?" she stammered at last, a horri-
ble chill creeping all over her.
"Yes. It is free now. It comes to you. Released
from the churl-body it is free. . . ."
"He is killed then," thought Carluccia, in a dull
amaze of despair.
"Yes," said Elsa Nerida. "Otherwise he would
not have come."
III.
GARLUCCIA sat alone in a narrow, but long,
plot of garden: tall houses behind her,
then the garden, then the road, the embank-
ment, then the river, at high tide.
Steenie Lackland had found her there : how,
she did not guess. He had sat beside her and had
assured her that she would be his wife.
"It is willed," he had said.
"I loathe you."
"That is nothing. Your fancies are nothing to
Fate. It has spoken. One fair man, grey-eyed,
hard-mouthed, of masterful temper was to woo
you. But not to win. For him death. Another, of
the same description, spared by Fate, shall possess
your whole heart. He is near you. . . . Ask Elsa
Nerida."
The horror of the threat of Fate overpowered
her with loathing. The man saw it, and for the
moment chose to leave her. His lips had once
touched hers, though she had no suspicion of it.
For the moment it sufficed him, and he rose and left
her.
For a long time after he had gone she sat there,
quite alone, with ineffable sorrow and inexpressible
loathing.
With two tags of poetry she ended it.
" 'No man can be more wise than Destiny,'
and
" 'Man is man and master of his fate.'
Till it was dark. Then she too rose: went out
of the garden : climbed the river wall — and ended it.
At that moment Sholto Maxwell was asking
her maid:
"Do you know where she went?"
"I don't know, Sir: but I guess. To Madame
Elsa Nerida's."
fi
Tke Oldest Man
Mark Moeslein,'C. P.
'ATHER Hill, the pastor of a large city
parish, was busy planning his first pro-
longed vacation in many years. Far-reach-
ing travels did not appeal to him. What
he wished for was the leisure and quiet of a mountain
hotel, far away from the rush of city life and of
popular or fashionable pleasure resorts. The hope
of association with people of scholarly attainments
lurked in his vacaton plans. Manitou, at the base
of Pike's Peak, was the place chosen.
An important item in his planning was restful
occupation for the summer months amongst the
anticipated delights in the mountains of Colorado.
He was not minded to spend all of his time in
climbing mountains and exploring canyons. Much
of the time would be given to resting his body while
refreshing his mind with reading. Fictional reading,
stories for children excepted, had no attractions for
him. He would employ the weeks of leisure in
getting into better touch with the progress of
biological studies. In his younger years that study
fascinated him. Later, what little time he could spare
from his pastoral duties, was given to reading of
the works of both conservative and revolutonary
theorists of whom Henri Fabre is an excellent
representative of the former, and Chas. Darwin of
the latter. He admired the vast range of information
and experiment of both classes of theorists; but the
use which the radicals made of the mountains of
evidence amused him much and pained him more.
The amusement was in the fantastic inferences from
most interesting evidence. The pain was caused by
the realization of the immense moral and spiritual
harm to mankind from such an abuse of reasoning
indulged in by men who were in the lime-light of the
world. Among the books which the Father packed
into his trunk for vacation reading, was: "Men of
the Stone Age," by Henry F. Osborn an octavo
volume of 500 pages, learnedly written and bristling
with the hardest kind of foreign words . The Hon.
Theo. Roosevelt's laudatory notice of the work in the
National Geographical Review for February of 1916,
prompted the selection. Personal regard for the
reviewer influenced the choice. Rather heavy read-
ing for a vacation; but then the good Father's
literary tastes ran to extremes like children's stories
and Mr. Osborn's book.
XN the early days of July, 1918, Father Hill
was comfortably settled at the cheery Hotel
Ramona. The first two weeks were devoted
to getting acquainted with the delightful neighbor-
hood of Pike's Peak, the Garden of the Gods and
several interesting canyons. Much of his time at
the Ramona was spent on the spacious verandas,
reading and re-reading Mr. Osborn's book. One
afternoon, Mr. Levi Strauss, professor of biology
at the University of Chicago, expressed surprise
to see him, a Catholic priest, devote so much time
to the deliberate reading of so radical a book.
Father Hill asked him : "What is it that surprises
you ? Is it the fact that I am whiling away the hours
of vacation in the reading of so heavy a production?"
Mr. Strauss replied: "Not that nearly so much
as that you dare read such a book at all. It is
bound to undermine your faith in so many beliefs
which you are in duty bound to preach to your
people."
"Will you please mention some of the beliefs
to which you refer," said Father Hill.
"As an instance, answered Mr. Strauss," take
the Catholic belief about the first man; Adam.
Catholics are obliged to believe that he was specially
created by God; that he lived not earlier than
twelve thousand years ago, most likely later,
certainly not earlier. Now science has proved that
he was not the first man; that he was not specially
created by God, but was evolved from lower forms;
that men of the 'homo sapiens' type dwelt in
France as far back as 25,000 years ago; that the
Neanderthal man not quite so human as the former,
lived from 25,000 to 40,000 years ago; that the
Piltdown man of Sussex, England, still less human,
was in evidence from 100,000 to 300,000 years back;
that the ape-men of Java hunted, it is estimated,
as long as 500,000 years ago. The name of the last
shows that man came from apes, and not from God,
that man is product of evolution and not of a special
creative act of God. You cannot possibly reconcile
these scientific findings with Catholic belief. For
this reason I am surprised to see you read Mr.
Osborn's book so intently; for you will have either
to give up your faith and professional calling,
reject science, or lead the double life of preaching
what you do not believe.
"What you have so tersely stated, has the ap-
28
THE "t SIGN
pearance of a knock-out against Catholic belief
and of an admonition of danger to me," replied
Father Hill. "But you will readily admit that ap-
pearances are often deceptive."
"You are undoubtedly right about appearances
being often deceptive," answered Mr. Strauss; "but
surely, you do not mean to insinuate that Mr.
Osborn's contentions about the origin and age of
man, are deceptive!"
"To say that I insinuate it, is putting it very
mildly. The evidence adduced by Mr. Osborn and
the use made of it, are more than deceptive," de-
clared Father Hill." However, I would much prefer
to have you state the evidence, because you are, at
least sympathetic towards the radical theories so
learnedly presented by Mr. Osborn. Will you kindly
explain how the author came by the pictures of the
men of so long ago. Are they portraits made from
living subjects? They cannot be photos unless
some prehistoric beings were smarter than men of
centuries very close to ours. It is not likely that
pre-historic men mislaid films to be picked up by the
curious of later centuries."
"Father," spoke Mr. Strauss, "it is incredible
that any one, even the most illiterate, could so much
as imagine that these pictures are given as copies
of portraits made from life. The author states
plainly that they are nothing more than pictures of
restorations. Of course they are not photos from the
original subject."
EATHER Hill answered smilingly, "Do not take
it quite so seriously, Mr. Strauss." "I knew
that these pictures are neither protraits nor
photos from life; but some times it is helpful to
call attention to the obvious. These pictures are
nothing more than well-printed copies of restorations.
Whilst I believe that I understand what is meant
by restorations, I shall appreciate very much your
explaining what they are. The theories presented by
Mr. Osborn do not appeal to me. They impress me
as very unscientific. He is not the originator of
these theories. He is at best a chronicler of the
findings of other scientists. The Hon. Theo. Roose-
velt assures readers that the book is the latest
authoritative word on the ape origin of man. Not
seeing my way to agree with this distinguished
gentleman's view, prejudice may distort my under-
standing of what the word restoration is meant to
convey. Yet it is an important word in books of the
type of Mr. Osborn's."
"It will be a pleasure to do so," said Mr.
Strauss. "Of course, the word has different mean-
ings, according to the profession of the people who
use it. In books like Mr. Osborn's it has two
meanings. The Century Dictionary gives these
meanings as follows: 'The putting together in their
proper places of bones and other remains of an
extinct animal; also the more or less ideal repre-
sentation of the external form and aspect of such
an animal, as inferred from its known remains.'
The pictures we are talking about, belong to the
second class of restorations. They are inferred ideal
representations of prehuman and of prehistoric
men."
"Good!" exclaimed Father Hill. "A restora-
tion is the product of a scholarly artist's trained
imagination. The basis for the imagined picture or
statue, is the remains of extinct animals, near-men
and men too. The more complete the remains are,
the less play will there be for imagination; and the
more scanty these remains are, the more will the
artist in color or clay have to draw on his imagination
to supply what is wanting. It is understood that the
one time fleshy and ornamental parts will depend
entirely on the inspiration of the artist's fancy. He
will be forced to imagine them."
"Quite so," remarked Mr. Strauss. "However,
I am not in sympathy with your use of the word,
imagination. The words, ideal, idealized, inferred,
would be more elegant and more suitable ; but I will
not make an issue of it now, lest we get away from the
subject. Permit me to call attention to a very
important item, whether imagination or inference
be used. The restorer must be both an artist and
either a scientist himself in what pertains to the
structure of living and extinct animals and men,
or he must be guided by a scientist in working up
the ideal representation. Were it otherwise, the
restoration would be the work of an unqualified
artist."
EATHER Hill admitted the added explanation
to be most reasonable and continued: "Pro-
fessor, will you kindly enlighten me on the
subject of laws which govern both artists and
scientists in working up these idealized representa-
tions of the long ago. If there are no laws of rather
uniform application to fossil remains, too much
would be left to individual imagination. When
dealing with fiction, the imagination is supreme;
yet there are laws which may not be overstepped,
unless the artist's aim is caricature or other grotesque
29
THE t* SIGN
fanciful production. I am confident that evolution-
ists would not care to have their restorations
relegated to the land of fiction or caricature."
"I see, Father, whither you are leading me,"
replied Mr. Strauss; "but for the purposes of a
friendly scientific chat, I am willing to be led. Your
lead is towards a statement that restorations are
very largely the products of imagination and that
laws of uniform application to fossil remains are no
more available
than like laws of
uniform applica-
tion for animals
and men of to
day. Consider-
ing that animal
forms in those
far back ages
were in a greater
condition of
flux, gradually
moving from
lower forms to
higher, the laws
of structure were
of less uniform
application than
now. Then as
now, there were,
no doubt, tall
and short speci-
mens, lean ones
and stout ones,
angular and
rotund, well-
formed and de-
formed, even
ai o n s t r osifies.
There were ideal
heads and facial expression and there were freakish
heads and repulsive faces. In primordial times some
animals were partly normal and partly abnormal.
Some members of the Trinil race to which the ape-
man of Java belonged, may have had spinal curva-
ture, hip disease, mal-formed thigh bones, etc.,
whilst the rest of the body was quite normal, con-
sidering the degree of evolution which they had
reached."
"Thank you, Professor," said Father Hill.
"Your answer and explanation are very satisfactory.
There are laws governing these restorations, but
The Miracle of the Roses
To Thomas Walsh
Francis Kean MacMurrough
King Diniz IrOed a thousand years ago,
And saintly then as now was Portugal
A land of hills and dales and flocks and herds,
And people truly mild and pastoral.
Many a monastery and fair shrine
Of Gothic, Doric or of Arabesque
Raised its proportions in the flowered scene,
And marked for Christian what was once Moresque
Don Diniz' Queen was Santa Isabel,
Daughter of Pedro Third of Aragon,
Who one day had her apron filled with bread,
When that the King with questrOe e^e looked on.
"What have you there my Queen?" he, laughing, asked,
"Roses, my Lord," she smilingly replied.
"Let me behold them;" which and when he saw,
Roses vJere indeed ^Cith ribbons tied.
X
they are so elastic that necessarily much must be
left to the fancy of the individual artist-scientist."
"But it does seem reasonable that eminent evo-
lutionists should be agreed at least on one of two
extremes. The extremes are: more and more man-
like; or, more and more ape-like. To be sure,
there is also a middle course between these extremes.
Information on this phase of the matter will be very
welcome."
REGRET
to be com-
pelled to
admit that there
is no agreement
whatever among
eminent evolu-
tionists on these
points," Mr.
Strauss replied.
"There is great
divergence
among them as
to the rule which
should be fol-
lowed. Mr.
Osborn disap-
proves of
German and
French restora-
tions, because
they are too ape-
like. He tells
us how insistent
he is with his
artists, requiring
them to produce
the most man-
like restorations,
considering the
requirements of the available remains. Hence,
it is not so very improbable that a strong believer
in radical evolution would make his restorations
look more and more ape-like in proportion as
the available remains are scantier and older. A
believer in the Bible's narration of the origin of
man could use the very same remains as the basis
for the ideal representation of a presentable speci-
men of present day manhood."
"These admissions, Professor," said Father Hill,
"are more than I expected even from a person as
gentlemanly as you are. The value of these restora-
THE 1* SIGN
tions as evidence in favor of evolution is practically
worse than nothing, if there can be anything lower
than nothing. I have read and re-read Mr. Osborn's
story of the ape-man of Java. I have examined his
pictures of the same creature so much, that the
wonder is that I do not dream about them. I do not
envy the poor specimen his looks; but I do not
believe it necessary to go back quite 500,000 years
to find men of somewhat similar appearance. A
few years ago, I accompanied a friend to an exposi-
tion of an electric score board giving the progress
of a game between the pennant competitors of the
major leagues of American base ball. In the seats
immediately ahead of us, sat a gentleman accom-
panied by ladies to whom he was explaining the
progression of the score. I whispered to my friend :
'Catch a profile view of the man sitting ahead of us;
for he looks for the world like one of the immediate
descendants of the ape-man of Java.' I had been
comparing him with my recollections of restorations
of the Java specimen reproduced by Mr. Osborn.
Yet the gentleman explaining the score-board could
hardly have been more than fifty years old. He
was every bit as human as the other patrons of the
theatre. — May I ask you how much of the remains
of the Trinil race of Java had been found up to the
date of the publication of Mr. Osborn's books?"
"I see, Father, that you persist in harping on
the vagaries of the scientist-artists' imagination,"
replied Mr. Strauss. "Your aim is to show by
leading questions that the claimed great antiquity
and ape-origin of man, rest on no better foundation
than the learned fiction and personal bias of other-
wise scholarly men who would rather trace their
origin to some unchangeable principle of upward
progress stored away in monkey nature than
acknowledge themselves to be descendants of a
human couple specially made by the personal God.
You imply throughout that the theories reproduced
by Mr. Osborn do not rest on anything like scienti-
fic grounds."
"I do not put it quite as pointedly as that,"
Father Hill answered. "I am content to weigh the
evidence adduced. The way you put it expresses
my convictions; but let us pass this over and discuss
the evidence. It is not my good fortune often to
meet one whose professional studies qualify him to
give information on the supposed evolution of the
human race, who is sympathetic towards Darwinism,
and who is so gentlemanly in giving the desired
information. But lest we get too far afield, permit
me to repeat my question : 'How much of the remains
of the Trinil race of Java have been found?"
"Thank you, Father, for the compliments," said
Mr. Strauss, bowing. "You have come to the
weakest point in the story of the ape-man of Java.
The remains found so far are scanty indeed. They
are: A SINGLE UPPER MOLAR TOOTH; THE
TOP OF A SKULL; A LEFT THIGH BONE;
and A SECOND MOLAR TOOTH.
^^^HE priest inquired: "Is this all that has come
\^_J down to us of the remains of the ape-men
of Java?
"Father," spoke up Mr. Strauss, "you surprise
me. Do you not consider it marvellous that even
so much should have come to us from a period so
remote as 500,000 years ago!"
"It is more than marvellous," mused Father
Hill. "To believe that any animal remains buried
in the earth, unless petrified, could have withstood
the wear and tear of 500,000 years, taxes credulity
to the limit. But let this be as it may, let us take
the word of scientists for it that the discovered
remains of the ape-man of Java are as old as
estimated. As the dinner hour is drawing near, I
would very much like to bring this most interesting
conversation back to what started it. Are eminent
scientists who advocate the ape-origin for our race
agreed that these four fossil remains of the ape-man
of Java belonged to the same individual?
Mr. Strauss: "I am sorry to admit there is no
such agreement."
Father Hill : "Do they at least agree that these
remains belong to individuals of the same race?"
Mr. Strauss: "I must again admit that they do
not even agree as to the race identity of these
several specimens. Some say they are specimens
of the same race; others say that they belong to
different races."
Father Hill: "Surely they agree among them-
selves that the top of the skull is a transition form
between ape and man. Do they so agree?"
Mr. Strauss: "They disagree no less on this
important point. Here is the way Mr. Osborn sums
up the situation: 'This great discovery of Dubois
aroused wide-spread and heated discussion, in which
the foremost anatomists and paleaeontolgists of the
world took apart. Some regarded the skull as that
of a giant gibbon, others prehuman, and others as
a transition form. We may form our own opinion,
however, from a fuller understanding of the speci-
al
THE + SIGN
mens themselves, always keeping in mind that it
is a question whether the femur and the skull belong
to the same individual or even the same race."
Page 77.
Father Hill: "Has it not the appearance of
trifling with the intelligence of the non-professional
public, to discuss on evidence so scanty and uncertain
the Trinil race of Java as a something which really
existed?"
BFTER a considerable pause, Mr. Strauss
answered: "Though unwillingly, I must con-
cede that evidence so inconclusive would be
entirely discarded by our courts of justice. It is
true that Mr. Osborn's treatment of the existence
of the Trinil or ape-man race is apt to mislead
uncritical readers of whom there are so many. How-
ever he safeguards himself by restrictive expres-
sions, such as: "probably" and "possibly" or their
equivalents as in the above citation."
Father Hill: "What you say, is true not only
of Mr. Osborn's book, but also of all the books
published by radical evolutionists, which have
fallen into my hands. They are great collectors of
facts about the animal world and this world cf
ours and about the heavens; but when it comes to
using these facts as evidence to bolster up their
degrading theory of the ape-origin of man, they shy
at the science and art of inference as children do.
They do not hesitate to infer a general statement
from one or other particular fact, as in the case of
the Trinil race."
Mr. Strauss: "I see, Father, that you have a
very poor opinion of the inductive methods of
radical evolutionists !'
"To me," replied Father Hill," their reasoning
is often like the burlesque of Mark Twain's "Huckle-
berry Finn" and "Tom Sawyer." Their processes of
inference compare favorably with Don Quixote's
attempts at chivalry. In a maze of facts more or
less uniform and labeled with the hardest kind of
foreign names, they infer the descent of higher
forms from lower ones on no better evidence than
lesser or greater likeness. Descent is in no wise
implied in the fact of similarity. Their style of
argument is very much akin to the reputed one of
ancient sophists: "Roosters walk on two legs, so
does man; therefore, roosters are men or, if you
prefer, men are roosters."
"Oh, Father," exclaimed Mr. Strauss, "You do
not mean that our scientific reasoning impresses you
as anything so incoherent as you have just stated!"
^^^HEY concluded their discussion in the best of
y, J humor and agreed to continue the same at
later dates. In parting, Father Hill addressed
Mr. Strauss : "Do you still think that reading Mr.
Osborn's book is apt to undermine Catholic faith in
man's coming from God as a special creation?" Mr.
Strauss replied : "If the evidence adduced in support
of evolution does not appeal any more to Catholics
than the evidence in favor of the ape-men of Java
appeals to you, I can readily see how the reading
of such books will not undermine faith in Catholic
doctrine anent the origin of mankind. I am not,
however, quite so sure that such reading will not
be harmful to the young and unlettered."
Father Hill for a moment assumed the role of
a mild monitor, saying: "It is in this that radical
evolutionists prove themselves the enemies of
mankind. They mislead the young, the unlettered
and those people of somewhat scholarly habits who
have been badly trained in their letters. There is
nothing elevating in proclaiming the ape-origin of
man. Belief in it is bound to degrade the individual
and the race. It is doing so now."
^tt^E recall how the now stilled voice of the
\\j Shepherd of Christendom was raised in pro-
test and warning against the new peril in
the Holy Places. The outlook grows no brighter
with Sir Herbert Samuel disregarding his pledge
that Jewish immigration would be restricted. Cardi-
nal Bourne claims that the British authorities should
say whether they promised a National Home for
the Jews or the National Home. And he added
that unless this distinction is made clear firmly and
beyond all doubt, it may be settled in blood. Know-
ing the Arab nature, all must share his outlook.
I believe that the only way you can make sure
that submarines will not be abused in future wars
is that there should be no submarines.
— Viscount Grey.
What Do You Know About:
Vocations?
ONE'S vocation is among the most serious
of all questions presenting themselves
during one's life-time. And observe that
it must present itself at a time when we
are least capable of giving it a satisfactory answer —
when as yet we have not settled on our own lot in
life, nor have had the experience of others to guide
us. In order, therefore, to put at your service what-
ever study and experience and personal dealing
with many others have taught regarding vocations,
and to clarify what is often spoken about but little
understood the following notes are submitted on this
important subject.
Ordinarily, what is understood by vocation is
realized when a young man expresses a desire to
enter the religious life, or feels that he wants to
become a priest; or when a young woman grows
conscious of a longing for a retired life in a convent,
or of a desire to devote herself as a religious to some
great work of charity. We say in these cases that
such a young man or such a young woman has a
vocation.
Now there are two very important remarks to
make about this idea of vocation. In the first place
there may be something in it. It may be the
beginning of what will lead up to or bud and flower
into a vocation if it is followed up. However it
may be something entirely different, merely a pass-
ing fancy, a whim of some sort, or even an hallucina-
tion. If such a state of soul persists, however,
notice should be taken of it.
The second observation amounts to this; it is
strange that we hear so much about vocations to
the priesthood and to the religious life, but no one
ever talks about a vocation to the state of marriage.
There exists a perfect horror of being unfaithful to
an imaginary religious vocation, and there is even
a still greater fear of entering, unbidden by the
Holy Ghost speaking interiorly, into the sanctuary
of the priesthood. But it seems to be the common
belief that outside of these two states of life any-
body at all, no matter what their condition, of body
or soul, is free before God, to enter the holy state
of matrimony.
What is the reason of so evident an error? Is
it because marriage is of no consequence before
God and men? Is marriage after all less important
than the religious life or even the priesthood? Or
is marriage less holy than either of these and there-
fore, has God no special interest in it? As a matter
of fact can anybody at all make a success of the
very fundamental institution of life? Or are there
no requirements for a married couple, no fitness of
mind and heart, of body and soul, no moral qualifi-
cations demanded? Has marriage no responsibili-
ties, no serious duties before God?
Common sense condemns such notions as false!
For marriage, both for the individual and for society,
is just as important as the religious life, and can
easily be compared to the priesthood. Marriage is
not only a sacred life-long contract, but a great
sacrament. "I speak in Christ and in the Church."
And not every one is free to enter it, but only they
who are called by God. Only they dare marry who
have the fitness of body, and only they who can
fulfill its weighty responsibilities. Otherwise they
enter it not only at their own peril, but at the peril
of all concerned. To hold the contrary of this is
an error about vocation. There is another, which we
will examine and treat along with this in our next
installment.
Concerning this most important subject, St.
Alphonsus Liguori, makes the following remarks : —
"It is evident that our eternal salvation depends
principally upon the choice of our state of life. If
in the choice of a state of life we wish to secure our
eternal salvation, we must embrace that to which
God calls us, in which alone God prepares for us
the means necessary to our salvation. In the world
this doctrine of vocation is not much studied by
some persons. They think it to be all the same,
whether they live in the state to which God calls
them, or in that which they choose of their own
inclination, and therefore so. many live a bad life.
Whereas it is certain that our state in life is the
principal point with regard to the acquisition of
eternal life. He who disturbs this order and breaks
this chain of salvation endangers his salvation. With
all his labors and with all the good he may do, St.
Augustine will tell him 'thou runnest well, but out
of the way', that is out of way in which God has
called you to walk for attaining to salvation."
ArcKconfraternit}) of
the Sacred Passion
Tke Compassion of Mar>)
OURING the month of May, all devout Catho-
lics turn their attention to the Immaculate
Mother of God, for this is the season de-
voted to a greater veneration of her. This
is the time the Queen of Heaven favors her children
on earth with very many gifts and blessings.
Naturally the members of the Archconfratern-
ity of the Passion entertain sincere love for the
Mother of Jesus. As they spend much time beneath
the Cross, they are in her company. With the
Apostle St. John, they behold her, "who stood at
the Cross," and often think of the sorrows she
endured during the Passion.
The Church has given to the blessed Virgin
Mary the glorious title of Queen of Martyrs. The
feast commemorating her part in the sufferings of
her Son has often been called the Compassion of
Mary. At the presentation of the Child Jesus in the
temple, Simeon foretold her sorrows. "Behold,"
said he, "this Child is set for the fall and for the
resurrection of many in Israel ; and for a sign which
shall be contradicted ; and thy own soul a sword shall
pierce." The ignominy, the insults, the wounds
inflicted on Him pierced her heart like a sword.
This was especially true when the soldier opened
the sacred side of Jesus with a spear, for although
He was dead, Mary then suffered the most.
"The martyrdom of Mary," observes Father
Petitalot, "began with the first knowledge which
the prophecies gave her of the sufferings which the
Redeemer would have to endure. It increased when
she was chosen to be the Mother of that Redeemer,
destined to die a cruel death for the sins of the
world."
' It became more intense," he continues, "when
she heard the words of holy Simeon, and saw flowing
the first drops of blood of Our Savior. It con-
tinued during the thirty three years of Our Lord's
life. It attained its greatest intensity during the
hours of His Passion."
"Even after the Resurrection and Ascension it
did not entirely cease. Mary suffered as long as
she lived, for she could not forget any of her
sorrows. It is believed she recalled the painful
remembrance every day by visiting the places where
she beheld the sufferings of her Adorable Son."
"As salt is found in all the waters of the ocean,
so this suffering spread itself throughout the entire
life of Mary. This is why the name of Mary is
equivalent to the Latin words: Mare amarum, the
sea of sorrows."
o
LEVOTION to Mary the Mother of Sorrows
has always been a special characteristic of
men and women, who devoted much time to
the study of Our Lord's Sacred Passion. It would
seem as if they went to her as to their teacher and
guide in this holy mystery. It was her courage and
her patient perseverance that kept them in the way
of virtue and holiness, in the practice of penance
and self denial, but particularly in the humility
and obedience of the Cross.
Some saints venerated the Mother of Sorrows
by keeping a picture of her constantly with them.
This was the practice of the great founder of the
Jesuit Order, St. Ignatius of Loyola. It was a small
picture representing the Blessed Virgin standing
at the foot of the cross, and showed a sword trans-
piercing her heart. To her this saint addressed his
frequent prayers. In giving this picture to his
nephew, St. Ignatius said: "Since the day of my
conversion, when I exchanged my secular dress for
the garb of a penitent, this picture has never left
me. I have always had it on my heart with my
crucifix, and I have received from it wonderful
help."
Much the same is told of St. Gabriel of the
Sorrowful Virgin. All during his religious life,
where he succeeded in reaching the highest sanctity,
he ever kept near him a small picture of the Mother
of Sorrows. When dying, it was this picture he
pressed closely to his heart.
We learn from the example of other saints to
repeat some prayer every day in memory of the
sorrows of Our Lady. St. Gabriel's favorite prayer
was seven Hail Marys with the invocation: "0
Afflicted Mother, 0 Virginal Heart, all buried in
the Wounds of Thy Son, make my poor prayers of
value by thy intercession." He would also repeat
the verse : "Holy Mother, pierce me through, in my
heart each Wound renew, of my Jesus Crucified."
THE + SIGN
XN the thirteenth century, seven noblemen of
Florence, in Italy, were inspired by the
Blessed Virgin to found an order of religious
men, who would spread devotion to her sorrows
throughout the world. They became known as the
Servants of Mary, of the Servites of Mary. Through-
out Europe they preached the Passion of Our Lord
and devotion to the Sorrows of Mary. To them
we owe the beads of the Seven Dolors, which have
been endowed by many Popes with the richest
indulgences of the Church. An indulgence of two
hundred years is granted to all the faithful who
recite the beads of the Seven Dolors after going
to Confession. An indulgence of ten years is granted
to those, who carry this chaplet around with them,
and say it from time to time.
Many people also honor the Queen of Martyrs
by saying the hymn: "Stabat Mater Dolorosa."
This hymn is found in all prayer books, and is
usually said with the Stations of the Cross. It is
said of Sir Walter Scott, the famous novelist, that he
admired the Stabat Mater so much, that he would
have given all his works to have been the composer
of it. His last prayer when dying was his favorite
hymn the "Stabat Mater."
y^^HERE are many other devotions in honor of
V J the Mother of Sorrows. A visit to the Shrine
of the Sorrowful Mother, or the reading of
some book which makes known her Sorrows are
ways of honoring the Blessed Virgin and obtaining
her favors.
"Whoever desires to know the Mother of God,
Mary Most Holy," says Father Faber, "must enter
into her broken heart to do so. It is the Sorrowful
Mother, who illumines the Immaculate Conception
and the wonderous glory of the Assumption." In
his book "At the Foot of the Cross," Father Faber
also tells us there are four favors that are granted
to those who practice some devotion in memory of
the Sorrows of the Blessed Virgin. "A perfect
contrition of all sins before the moment of death;
2. A particular protection at the hour of death;
3. The mysteries of the Passion of Our Lord
deeply imprinted on the mind; 4. A special power
of intercession in all the prayers offered through
the Sorrowful Mother."
HATHER Faber in the same work quotes an old
writer as saying: "A man may put before
himself as a most assured sign of salvation
the fact that he has had compassion for our Most
Afflicted Mother. For the ancients tell us that it
was conceded to the Blessed Virgin by Christ Our
Lord that whoever should remember her sorrows
may be sure of obtaining any favor which concerned
the salvation of his soul, and especially the grace
of true penance for his sins before death."
"The Compassion of Mary," continues the same
pious author, "is a continual source of holiness. It
actually leads a multitude of souls to Jesus Cruci-
fied. It breaks the bonds of sin and evil habits.
It melts cold hearts and stimulates the torpid and
worldly minded. It pours light and tenderness, a
spirit of prayer and a thirst for penance into count-
less souls."
The more devoted the members of the Arch-
confraternity are to the Mother of Sorrows the better
they will know and love the Passion of Our Lord.
This is the sphere in which the most wonderful
divine operations mingle with the woes and suffer-
ings of this world. With Mary the Mother of
Sorrows and with Jesus Crucified, we can overcome
sin and the world and the devil and secure for
ourselves and for others innumerable blesings.
That rare, sweet singer of the South, Sidney
Lanier, bringing the vision of a poet to bear upon
his Master in the garden of Gethsemane, depicts
the Victim much as He represents Himself to us in
our meditations — forsaken, helpless against the
wiles of His enemies, yet, somehow, with a note of
impending triumph softly ringing through the
poignant lines :
"Into the woods my Master went,
Clean forespent, forespent,
Into the woods my Master came,
Forespent with love and shame.
But the olives they were not blind to Him,
The little grey leaves were kind to Him;
The thorn-tree had a mind to Him
When into the woods He came.
Out of the woods my Master went,
And He was well content.
Out of the woods my Master came,
Content with death and shame.
When death and shame would woo Him last,
From under the trees they drew Him last;
'Twas on a tree they slew Him last —
When out of the woods He came."
From Shanghai to Hankow
With the Passionist Missionaries
ON awakening on the morning
of January 10th, we learnt that
the uncertain outlines in the
distance, which we were approaching
was the great sea-port of Shanghai,
China. We gave utterance to our
heartfelt gratitude to God, and beg-
ged His Blessings on our work in
this land which was to be for us,
HOME.
As the boat lazily drifted to dock,
there was the same swarm of beg-
gars rowing towards the boat, crying
lustily for alms. Those on board
threw fruits and sweetmeats, in fact
anything at hand, and everything
was eagerly caught in the nets which
were stretched towards us by the
hundreds. One wag threwr a box
of soap powder from the boat. The
lucky finder, held it up, examined
it carefully, shook it, smelt it, and
finally tucked it away carefully
among the other treasures he had
garnered.
Arriving we had the usual experi-
ence with the customs officers,
questioning, and examination of lug-
gage. As soon however, as he saw
the sacred vessels used for the
celebration of Holy Mass, he asked
if we were missionaries, and when
we satisfied him, we were he
smilingly allowed us to go without
further examination.
It is a strange feeling that came
over us as we stepped from the boat,
utter strangers and unknown. This
feeling however was shortlived for
after a very few moments we were
accosted by Mr. J. E. Doyle of
Danvers, Mass., who is familiarly
known in Shanghai as "Dinny." He
bade us welcome and escorted us to
the rooms of St. Joseph's Catholic
Association, where another welcome
was extended to us by those present.
This Association is a welfare and
social centre for the English speak-
ing Catholics of the city, and is the
means of directing the energies of
the laymen to co-operate with the
work of the clergy on behalf of the
poor benighted pagans. One can-
not but feel that back in America
there arc so many excellent Catholic
men and women who do not realize
the possibilities for good they are
missing, by holding aloof from any
kind of activity on behalf of the
Church. These men and women
under the administration of Mr.
Harold Norman and his gifted wife,
give generously both of time and
money, and the work they have
accomplished to win the admiration
of the natives, and many converts,
as a result, might well be envied by
the Catholics of the good old
United States. Mr. Norman is him-
self a convert to the Church.
R
m
ji
«
Efe
£
£
m
£C
We were escorted now to St.
Joseph's Convent, Sisters of The
Holy Souls. The Mother Superior
is a native of Baltimore, Md., and
it is impossible to describe her joy
at meeting us, just come from
America. We were shown the noble
and self sacrificing work in which
these heroic souls are engaged, and
we realized here as in the other
places we had visited, our Lord's
words: — "The harvest is ripe but
the laborers are few."
W
^HILE passing along the streets
of Shanghai, we could not
restrain our admiration for
the cheerful spirit of the Chinese.
The rickshaw men as they draw
36
their carriages or rickshaws, the
coolies as they carry heavy burdens
on their backs, or pull heavily
loaded wagons by means of ropes
thrown over their shoulders, the
children in schools, all without
exception are continuously singing,
a plaintive and monotonous dirge
or song. A smiling or laughing coun-
tenance is seen at all times, even
when poverty and dire want, are
evidenced by the scanty clothing or
emaciated body.
Our next visit was to the General
Hospital, under the direction of the
Franciscan Missionary Sisters of
Mary, a community well known in
the United States, for the unselfish
charity of its work for the poor of
Christ. Here too, where the dread
small-pox is raging, is to be seen,
the charity of Jesus Christ, that
knows no fear of personal safety,
but only a zeal to open the doors
of God's Kingdom to these poor
pagans. Baptisms and conversions
to the Faith are most numerous.
Shanghai, impresses one as a city,
comparing favorably with our
American cities, and signs of pros-
perity and business inititive are not
wanting. The Hongkong-Shanghai
Banking Company, are at present
erecting a building that is to cover
an entire city block, and our
chaperon told us, would cost no less
than five million American dollars.
The shops are not unlike those in
our own cities. Automobiles, of
American and British make, are not
so many as in America, yet they
are not new or strange. There are
about four thousand in Shanghai we
were told. Motor trucks are also to
be seen, though most of the heavy
hauling is done on low wagons, with
wooden wheels, and are drawn by
shaggy haired, fierce looking men.
The street cars are quite different
from what we had ever seen before.
They are joined in pairs, much like
a trailer to the power car. But here
it marks the different quality of the
riders. The front car carries first
and second class passengers, and the
trailer or rear car, the passengers
THE 1* SIGN
WITH THE AUGUS
of the third class. Usually the rear
car resembles the American cars at
rush hours, packed to suffocation.
At the stops along the way, pas-
sengers are scarcely allowed time to
alight, and not un frequently they
fall to the street : but the cheerful
smiling countenance is never want-
ing, even when by effort they
manage to keep their feet.
ONh" of the most interesting
visits we made was to the
Catholic Mission of Kiang-
Nan, under the direction of the
Fathers of the Society of Jesus.
Of this mission Siccawei is perhaps
the most flourishing among all tin-
missions of China. Ample buildings
are occupied as college, schools, and
dormitories. The girls-section is
under the care and direction of the
Sisters of the Holy Souls, and the
Boys under the care of the Fathers
of the Society. The boys are in-
structed not only in the ordinary
branches of primary and secondary
schools, but manual training and the
higher branches of science are im-
parted by men celebrated through-
out the Orient.
The departments under the care
of the good sisters were not less in-
teresting; besides the instruction
imparted in the schools, the girls
are taught lace making, embroidery,
and the making of vestments for the
missions. There are also special
classes for ladies preparing to be-
come catechists ; they are called
Presentandines. We could not but
admire all we saw, and thanked God
fervently for the zeal which had
prompted such enterprise to win
souls to God and for heaven.
We found it difficult to tear our-
selves away from the orphan asylum,
where are housed, hundreds of
abandoned little ones. They all
knelt for the blessing of the priests,
and as we left each room, there was
a hearty goodbye, in the sweet
voiced za ! za ! But our very souls
were touched with pity as we
entered what the good sister called
the "Vestibule of Heaven." Here
were long rows of small beds each
holding a frail emaciated little body.
On the coverlet was a small card
giving the baptismal name of the
occupant. Abandoned by heartless
parents, they were rescued by the
sisters, baptized, and hourly were
winning their flight to heaven, and
we hope interceeding for mercy and
grace for their poor benighted
countrymen. As in the early days
of the Church it was said, "the blood
of martyrs is the seed of Christians,"
so nov may we fondly hope the
prayers of these innocents incessant-
ly rising before God's throne will in
time win for China as a race the
gra< e i A the Faith. It maj no1 be
without interest to our readers t"
know it is for smh lofty purposes,
that the contributions given to the
Holy Childhood Association, and
other Foreign Mission Societies are
used. 1 1 you could sec as v, c have
seen, the wan and pinched features
of these dying infants, outcasts from
their parents, the sacrifices made for
the work of the foreign missions
would be far greater. This sight
has been an inspiration to us, and
if we needed further motive to urge
us on, surely the human soul, in
need of the salvation wrought by
our Saviour by the shedding of His
precious Blood, and His Death on
the Cross, would be most powerful
to make us willing to endure any
hardships in this grand work to
which we have been called.
QT last it was possible for us
to obtain shipping to bring
us another lap of our journey
nearer to the seat of our future
activities. On Friday January 15th.
we set out on an English boat, call-
ed "Tuckwo," the same boat that
carried the Fathers of the Maynooth
THE + SIGN
Irish Mission to their destination.
Our objective was Hunan, and the
journey while quite long, lasting till
the following Tuesday, was not with-
out profit, as we were accompanied
by Fathers Castrillo and Pastor,
both Spanish Augustinians. They
have been laboring in this district
for some years and their experience
will be most helpful to us in our
future labors. The trip up the
Yangtze-Kiang river was most
delightful. The passengers aboard
were not many, a former sea captain,
and the little daughter of the captain
of our craft, were the only
foreigners, besides the Fathers that
made up our party.
The scenery along the river was
most beautiful. The old sea captain
declared it the most scenic route in
the world, and proudly insisted that
he knew. The water was quite low,
and the soil is most rich. Immedi-
ately on the recession of the water,
there appears on the terraced
slopes or banks, a rich green
verdure, that reaches to the water's
edge. We were told that a mere
scratching of the surface of the
soil along the river banks is suffici-
ent for tillage, and the same soil
yields four or five crops yearly.
\%'HE steamer stopped only at
€ J treaty ports. If passengers
^^^ wished to get aboard at
stations, a method of procedure quite
uncommon was followed. Our first
sight of such a station afforded much
amusement. At Nantingchow a
barge or flat boat was seen putting
out from the landing towards the
steamer, and every one aboard the
float seemed to be yelling as lustily
as possible. This became louder and
louder as they approached, (nothing
seems to be accomplished here with-
out shouting and yelling). The
engines on the steamer stopped, the
boat floated along slowly. Hooks
were thrown up from the barge and
it was made fast to the steamer, and
then, the fun began. It was the fall
of Jerusalem on a small scale. Bags,
boxes, bales, and even Chinese men
and women, were tumbled from the
steamer in riotous profusion. Then
those who sought entrance to the
Tuckwo, clammered, stumbled fell
or were pushed up the ladder. One
would think, looking at this excite-
ment, that there would not be an-
other boat leaving for Hankow for
ten years, and that it was the first
boat that they had ever seen.
Each port of the Yangtze is but
a repitition of the former one. Long
lines of coolies unloading the cargo,
venders of sweetmeats, and more
solid foods, selling these to the
Chinese passengers, a fight now and
then, which was generally settled
by one of the deck hands throwing
a pail of cold water on the com-
batants.
ON Tuesday we arrived at Han-
kow, and were met at the
steamer by Rev. Fr. Pons,
Procurator of the Augustinians, Rev.
Fr. McPolin, of the Maynooth Irish
Mission. Later we met Rev. Fr.
Galvin the superior, and had we
been members of his mission band
could not have been shown greater
kindness, which indeed is true of all
the Fathers we have been privileged
to meet in the Far East. While
visiting both the Augustinians, and
the Irish Mission Fathers, they were
most gracious, explaining to us the
conditions that confront us, the best
method of procedure, for winning
the good will of the natives, and
have made us feel, that we are come
among brothers who will ever be
willing to lend any aid in their power
to help us in the great work we are
come to do. The Fathers of the
Irish Mission, have accomplished
much, in the short time they have
been in the field. They have been
instrumental in bringing a com-
munity of Irish Christian Brothers
to China, a pioneer band of Irish
Sisters are expected shortly, and
they have projected the erection of
a hospital for the care of the native
sick. Too much cannot be said in
praise of their zeal for God and for
the conversion of the souls of these
poor benighted pagans.
The following day we visited in
turn the Orphanage, School, and
Hospital in charge of the Cannosian
Sisters. The work they are accom-
plishing is simply marvelous. We
could not but feel at every turn if
the people of America could only
realize the amount of good that is
being done for God in these far off
38
regions, sufferings relieved, care
extended to the homeless, the blind,
sick, and what results from all this
concern and care for the natives,
that they embrace the faith of Christ
and become devoted Christians,
there would be no lack of funds to
carry on the work of God among
those in the darkness of error and
ignorance. If those among us, would
retrench from pleasures, and super-
fluities, chapels and mission stations
could be established, and fitted up;
but alas everywhere the work is
limited by the means. The priests,
brothers and sisters are content with
bare neccessities, so that they may
reach out for a few more souls.
What the children of America might
do by their too easily squandered
pennies, is beyond me to describe;
but I feel sure if they could be made
to realize this by those who know,
every class room in the Catholic
schools of the United States, would
develop into a mission circle, and the
little ones would gladly bring their
mites to help the grand work to save
souls.
^tt^E also visited the College of
r I 1 the Franciscan Fathers across
v*>^ the river, and while there met
Fr. Sylvester from Cincinnati, Fr.
Lawrence from Paterson, and Bro.
Benedict from Dayton. There was
a grand old patriarch present, Fr.
Leri, a Franciscan who has been
here on the missions for fifty five
years. When he first came the dis-
trict was closed to the foreigners
under pain of death. He went about
disguised as a beggar, and saw many
of his companions cut down in the
midst of their labors by hardships
and not unfrequently by the hands
of assassins. Thank God this condi-
tion is no longer general.
Here in Hankow we also had the
privilege of assisting at services in
Church while the native Catholics
were present. They were having
Stations of the Cross and Benedic-
tion of the Blessed Sacrament. This
service is quite general we are told,
the year round among the Catholic
Chinese. The prayers for the dif-
ferent stations were recited by
the people in a loud tone, that
resembled singing rather than pray-
ing, while the priest moved from
THE + SIGN
station to station. The people gave
the impression of being very earnest
and very devout, and all were eager
to be up close to the altar. At
Benediction of the Blessed Sacra-
ment, celebrant, censer bearer, and
altar boys entered the sanctuary
wearing the ecclesiastical hat called
chi-chin. It is about nine inches
high, square in shape, richly embroi-
dered, with two embroidered rib-
bons hanging down the back. The
singing of the service was creditably
rendered, and one could not but be
impressed by the devout attitude of
the worshippers.
We were anxious to get away from
Hankow and on to our own portion
of the Lord's vineyard, but Father
Pons who has been here since 1880
persuaded us to remain longer, as the
Chinese are celebrating one of the
New Year's Festivals. They cele-
brate three New Year festivals, on
the first, fifth and eighth months.
This one is by far the greatest,
lasting in the cities three or four
days, but in the interior for as long
as ten or twelve days. During this
time they will do no work, either
on land or on the water craft, hence
had we been on our way it is more
than likely we should have been
marooned on the small boat.
Profiting by the prolonged stay
we visited another hospital in charge
of the Franciscan Missionary Sisters,
already mentioned in this letter.
This hospital is called the Inter-
national. Their missions in China
are many. Five sisters arrived to-
day, destined for a mission in remote
Sechewan. The Mother Superior
is off making the visitation of the
various missions in charge of the
Sisters under her jurisdiction. It
will take her two years to accom-
plish this task. She will be obliged
to travel on foot, on horse back,
by chair, and by Chinese boats.
They entertain no fear for her
safety, for the pagans have the
highest respect for these noble
women. They are the guardian
angels of the Chinese missions, and
without them it is dificult to see
how the work could progress as it
does. Hardly ever does it happen
that a soul wings its flight hence,
till these sisters have persuaded
them to receive the sacraments.
Even the Protestant ministers when
ill, prefer to come to the Sisters'
hospital rather than go to the public,
or even their own sectarian ones.
Vw-^IIILE we visited one of the
ill orphanages in Hankow, we
^*^ wire quite surprised to see a
medium sized statue of our little
St. Gabriel, and we saw the bright
faces of the little ones light up with
joy, when they saw the resemblance
between the habit on the statue
and the ones we wore. This devo-
Grateful acknowledgement
is hereby made for the f
ollow-
ing donations received f
or the
Passionist Missions in China:
Federation, G. A.
West Hoboken, N. J..
$25.00
Mission Society, Parkers-
burg, W. Va
126.00
S. F. Cincinnati, O
10.00
D. S. L. Newton, Mass.
5.00
H. R. Randolph, Mass.
15.00
J. A. Port of Spain,
Trindad
7.40
R. B. Mt. Vernon, N. Y
3.25
Anon. Belleville, N. J...
2.00
K. R. S., New York City
1.00
Mr. S. Dunkirk, N. Y.
.50.00
S. S. Cambridge, Mass..
10.00
Anon., Newark, N. J.. . .
6.00
Students' Crusade,
Cincinnati, O
25.00
F. C. Dunkirk, N. Y...
10.00
Mr. C. Brooklyn, N. Y.
115.00
Anon., West Hoboken,
N. J
50.00
Mite Box, West Hoboken,
N. J
2.60
Mite Box, Jersey City,
N. J
2.14
tion owes its beginning to Mr. E.
Cozzi who had a sister among the
Passionist Nuns in Spain. He fre-
quently visited Hankow, and always
called on the Canossian Sisters. The
sisters have read the life of the saint
to the children, and plied us with
many questions concerning him.
One of the miracles recorded in the
Italian life of St. Gabriel was
wrought on behalf of his sister,
Sister Gabriclla. She was a pupil
at the Benedictine Convent of
Teramo, Italy. Stricken with
some peculiar malady she became
39
speechless. One of the nuns en-
couraged her to recommend herself
to the young Passionist Saint. Slit-
did so, and while on a pilgrin
his tomb at [sola, felt a drowsiness
come over her, which caused her to
fall into a deep sleep. On awakening
favored with a \ ision of the
Saint She prayed fervently, and as
a reward of her faith, received her
speech; in gratitude for the
favor received sought to spread
devotion to him. She sent medals,
pictures, and finally the statue that
we saw. The day the statue arrived
was a gala day at the orphanage.
There was a procession throughout
the town, and every one took part
and since then St. Gabriel has been
regarded as patron and special pro-
tector. We gave the children little
pictures, and they were overjoyed to
receive them, and held on to them as
veritable treasures.
Before closing it will be of in-
terest to know that we met an old
Chinese Priest at the Cathedral of
Hankow, who kindly consented to
decorate us with our Chinese names.
We set the names down in order: —
Father Celestine is Renn-Tin-
Ngnan
Father Agatho is Pu-Er-Till
Father Flavian is Yang-Mong-Lin
Father Raphael is Fei-Wen Tche
Father Timothy is Ye-Mon-Ti
Brother Lambert is Lung-Tse--
Min
\^JHE priests all have the name
£ ) of Renn-San-Fu, in common,
^^ which means Spiritual Father.
We are sending you Fr. Celestine's
name in Chinese characters or signs,
as a sample, showing how it will
appear to the natives.
We are busy gathering our pots
and pans, and rations preparatory
to setting out for Changteh. which
we hope to describe in our next
letter for the readers of THE SIGN.
Good-bye for a while, and be not
unmindful of us and our needs while
kneeling before the tabernacle.
Thank God, thus far, all are well
and in good spirits, and impatient to
reach our destination, and begin
active work for the conversion and
salvation of these poor souls.
The Fathers,
per Fr. Celestine, C. P.
Index to Worthwhile Reading
Maria Chapdelaine. .By Louis
Heman. New York : Macmillan Co.
$2.00.
This book has been crowned by
the French Academy, and the sale
has passed the quarter-of-a-million
mark. The reception the translation
has been accorded is enthusiastic
indeed, being reprinted for the
seventh time.
The success of the book is merited.
For once, popular acclaim signified
by bein;j the "best seller" proves
itself to be just and enlightened.
When one remembers the class of
work that makes up the list of "best
sellers" one is surprised that this
simple tale would receive such a
welcome both from the critics and
the reading public. The book por-
trays French Canadian life as it is
lived out in the remotest boundaries
of Quebec. The father of the
family yielded to a strange penchant
of pressing on beyond the small
hamlets as though the voices of the
wild were ever beckoning him far-
ther into the sombre forest of the
Northland. Indeed it is the very
absence of anything like incident
that calls forth the simple heroism
that Maria Chapdelaine exhibits
day after day in that lonely world.
The setting is a land where life is
so hard, yet where the clear pure
elemental forces of nature find
crystal souls through which they
may shine. The conclusion solves
so simple a mystery as this : whether
Maria will yield to the temptation
to pass out of the desolate life of
the country of Lake St. John, and
in exchange take up the exciting life
described to her by a returning
suitor from the States. A world
tired of artifice and insincerity may
well find refreshment in gazing on
this picture of simple lives whose
motto was "semper fidelis." "We
bore over seas our prayers and our
songs : they are ever the same. We
carried in our bosoms the hearts of
the men of our fatherland, brave
and merry, easily moved to pity as
to laughter, of all human hearts the
most human ; nor have they changed
... in the land of Quebec nothing
has changed. Nor shall anything
change, for we are the pledge of it :
we are a testimony." Maria Chap-
delaine has the supreme simplicity
of a master-piece.
God or Gorilla. By Alfred W.
McCann. New York : Devon-Adair
Co. $3.00.
At this particular time the public,
such is its temper of mind, may be
induced to give ear to this angry
expose of Darwinian evolution.
For one cause or another, the con-
fidence of unrestrained credulity
which the "educated" placed in Dar-
winian philosophy has been rudely
shaken. Lately the daily papers
have been informing the public as
to what took place on different
occasions when the world's eminent
scientists were gathered to exchange
views. Such an authority as Bateson
gave utterance to such words as
these : " 'The survival of the fittest'
was a plausible account of evolution
in broad outline but failed in appli-
cation to specific difference. The
claims of 'natural selection' as the
chief factor in the determination of
species have consequently been dis-
credited. We have gone on talking
about evolution (how true), today
A'e feel silence to be the safer course."
Again at the Eugenic Congress
recently held in New York, Dr.
Cuenot, a foremost French biologist
told the members, among whom was
Charles Darwin's son, that the
theory could not stand. "Something
is missing in the explanation of
evolution — we miss the effective
cause. Whether you are a biologist
of the Spiritualist School or erf the
Materialist, or the Agnostic; it
it makes no difference. A directing
factor, inside or outside the organ-
ism, able to lead to mutations must
he admitted.'' Whereupon, Henry
Fairfield Osborn said that the
French biologists were tending in-
dependently in the same direction
as some of our leading biologists in
America. This and more to the
same effect have been finding its
way to the attention of the "educat-
ed." When openmiudedness will
succeed to the public mind after the
shock it lias received, then it will
be prepared to acquiesce in the
judgment passed by Mr. McCann,
40
namely, that in the name of Science
a huge fraud has been daringly
perpetrated upon the credence of the
public. Mr. McCann uses facts but
each fact is a mortifying vengeful
blow shattering the solemn certitudes
and stripping the ostentatious dis-
play of scholarship to the bone.
A hoax is to be dealt with in only
one way. Mr. McCann having
demonstrated that hoax properly
describes the evolutionary theory
identified with the name of Darwin
and proceeds to administer the casti-
gation it deserves.
The History and Nature of Inter-
national Relations. . Edited by Ed-
mund A. Walsh, S. J., Ph. D. Mac-
millan Company, New York. $2.25.
The volume herewith presented to
the reader, offers in condensed form,
the subject matter of a series of
lectures delivered in the Auditorium
of the Smithsonian Institution,
Washington, D. C, during the winter
and spring of 1920-1921. The lect-
ures were given primarily for the
benefit of the students of the School
of Foreign Service of Georgetown
University, though the general public
was invited, and in large numbers
attended. It was this general in-
terest in the subjects under dis-
cussion, that suggested to those who
were responsible for the Lectures,
to edit and present to the reading
public in permanent form, such of
the lectures as would supply a brief,
though complete, outline of the
diplomatic relations that have
existed between sovereign states,
and from this history to show forth
the principles that have obtained.
Not unfrequently these principles
have been based on expediency
rather than on truth and justice.
Apart from the intrinsic value of
the arguments, the contributors are
men whose position has enabled
them to have access to sources of
information, that gives the weight
of authority to their utterances.
The work is professedly a scientific
manual, though the Editor has
happily presented the matter in
such language that the lay reader
may hope to read with profit.
imjjwjmjmm m.mmmjmmmx
a^wMiwi'MaM
A N ATIO N A L <J> CAT tfo LI C
/MONTHLY MACAZINrX
VOL. I.
JUNE, 1922
No. I I I
A Mystery Chapel In Rome
Rev. Gabriel Demey, C. P.
PART
^^^^0 all the succeeding popes this wonderful
m C\ chapel became very dear. It was quite an
^^^V exclusive little favorite; its altar, like that
in St. Peter's and St. John Lateran's, is
exclusively papal. No one has the privilege of
celebrating mass thereon but the Holy Father him-
self. The last of the popes who celebrated Mass
there was the
saintly Pius IX.
In 1853 he pre-
sented to the
chapel a pallium,
made of gold and
lamb's wool, as
a mark of predi-
lection, and in
connection with
the ceremony of
presentation, cele-
brated Mass
there and wore
the decoration for
the first time. And so it has been to all the popes —
very dear. It is little but it is much loved, and so
it was highly favored not only in the ways men-
tioned, but exquisite art touched it at every point,
and the best of the best and the richest of the
rich was gathered within its sacred walls.
In the realm of Catholic art, there are two
pictures, one of our Blessed Lord and the other
of our Blessed Lady, which stand out as valued
acheropita-not made by human hands
beyond value and formerly both of these adorned
the favorite chapel. The one is the well known
painting of the Blessed Virgin which is attributed
to St. Luke.' During a violent plague in 1227 this
venerated picture was carried in devout procession
through the city of Rome and the Holy Father, then
Pope Gregory IX. wished to make some more than
usual sacrifice to
win the great
mercy of God
upon the afflicted
city, and therefore
he ordered that
the great treasure
be never returned
to him but be
given to the
church of Santa
Maria del Popolo,
where it remains
the object of great-
est veneration.
The other is the most celebrated picture of
Christ in all the world, the incomparable Acheropita.
This picture is regarded as an object of the greatest
veneration, yes, but it is admired and esteemed
for a refinement of art that is admittedly preter-
natural in the richness of coloring, and in the
majesty and perfection of its expression. This
picture won eulogies from scholars and critics —
veritable panegyrics which are startling in their
THE + SIGN
lavishness of praise. One of the calmest of modern
writers, a man who weighs well the meaning of
every word he uses, after a thorough study of the
Sancta Sanctorum and all its great treasures — and
that sanctuary is the richest treasure house in all
Christendom — says "the principal one of its posses-
sions is the Acheropita of Christ. So they who
understand extol this picture now; all the ages have
praised this treasure. Its name, which is of Greek
origin, would indicate how it was regarded in the
days gone by. The
meaning of that unusual
word Acheropita is "not
made by human hands."
The artistic excellence of
the work is beyond art in
its richness, perfection
and divine splendors. It
is therefore considered
preternatural and so it
is very frankly called
"Imago Acheropita," — a
picture of (the Lord
Jesus) not done by hu-
man hands.
VOLUMES learned
and critical have
been written about
this picture with the
strange name. The de-
tailed story of its origin
and history was officially
written down by one of
the canons of the Basilica
of St. John Lateran and
is preserved in the ar-
chives of that library. It tells us that when, after
the Ascension of Our Lord into heaven, our Blessed
Lady and the apostles had returned from the great
vision of Mount Olivet, they were filled with vivid
and rapturous memories of the sight and they and
the rest of the orphaned disciples wished still to
behold the splendor of the human features of Jesus,
illumined as they were by divine radiance as He
rose up higher and higher and finally faded from
their astonished sight. So that the beauties might
never fade from their minds they besought St. Luke
to paint truly that brilliant vision — that human
countenance divine. But the saint who knew that
the glories of it were all beyond the powers of his
BRONZE PORTAL OF THE SANCTA SANCTORUM
art, was extremely embarrassed and begged to be
excused. But the pleadings still continued and as
they grew more and more earnest the holy painter
besought the assistance of our dear Lady and the
holy apostles asking to be relieved from attempting
this impossible thing; but the urgings became even
stronger and so by long fasts and fervent prayers
he turned his pleadings to our Blessed Lord and
finally set himself to work. He set up a walnut board
which he had carefully prepared and began his work.
He traced the first lines
of his sketch, turned his
attention momentarily to
his colors nearby and, lo!
turning back his eyes he
saw the picture finished
to the last detail, finished
by divine agency. The
holy man was overcome
at the sight of this mira-
culous piece of art and
fell prostrate before it —
the first to do homage
to the heavenly wonder,
the Acheropita, not done
by human hands. From
that time on the miracul-
ous picture has been the
object of the greatest
devotion. It was care-
fully treasured by the
apostles and after they
scattered over the world
it remained in Jerusalem
in the possession of our
dear Lady herself and
there it was a comfort
and a magnet of love. It has been such ever since.
It was carefully guarded and was very early brought
to Rome and placed in the hands of the successors
of St. Peter as the richest of all the legacies that
have been bequeathed to the church from apostolic
times.
Pope Innocent III. covered it with plates of silver,
studded with jewels, leaving only the sacred face
exposed. Thus we can readily understand why that
painting has ever attracted the study and attention
of artists and scholars, and won from the faithful
of all times and places, such profound devotion as
becomes the miraculous and the supernatural. All
the succeeding popes have exercised in its behalf
THE + SIGN
the greatest jealousy and solicitude. To describe
the sentiments of the clergy and people of Rome,
the great demonstrations of fervor for this loved
of all loved pictures would not be possible.
Among the greatest public demonstrations that
took place in the Eternal City was the annual pro-
cession in honor of the Acheropita, the picture of
Christ not made by human hands. This was called
"the glory of Rome" and on the Feast of the
Assumption each year it was carried in procession
and the cardinals,
bishops, priests and peo-
ple by the thousands as
well as all the civil au-
thorities participated, but
(and it is a singular
case) the inestimable
privilege of carrying that
heaven-made face of
Christ was reserved to
the Holy Father and to
him alone.
^f^OME'S veneration
I^T for the wonder
picture has not
ceased with time. During
the troubled years of the
world war the holy trea-
sure was not displayed.
The latest public mani-
festation offered to it
was during the Constan-
tine Jubilee in 1913. By
order of Pius X. the
holy picture was carried
from the Sancta Sanctor-
um and solemnly enthroned on the Altar of the Con-
fession in St. Peter's and there it remained constantly
exposed in glory to the veneration of the faithful
by day and night throughout an entire month, from
the 5th of April to the same day in May, and, aj
is the custom with us during the solemn exposition
of the Blessed Sacrament, a guard of honor knelt
in devout exercises before it, but in this case the
guard was made up alternately of the clergy and the
laity of Rome. During that month thousands of
pilgrims from all parts of the world visited the
holy picture and sermons by the greatest preachers
of the country were delivered in its honor, the morn-
ing orators were chosen only from the heirarchy
cardinals, patriarchs, archbishops and bishops, and
the afternoon sermons were delivered by famous
members of the religious orders.
The Acheropita, however, is but one sample of
the riches of the mystery chapel and of the interest
which is twined about that little spot. It is the
spirit of holy reverence; it is fascinating; it is every-
where; it descended upon us in the beginning and
steadily sank as one wonder more wonderful than
any that had gone before was unfolded by that
Passionist priest. He was
the embodiment of that
sweet and holy spirit;
filled with it. Yes, but he
was its master. Undoubt-
edly he was our master
too and we were not s'ow
to feel it. The exquisite
charm which was play-
ing conjointly from that
man's personality and
nis subject made tutelage
a stimulant to which we
happily surrendered.
n
iRILLED OPENINGS (
TA SANCTORUM
[E was mildly proud
and happy in his
' narrative because
he had the treasures and
all the incidental evi-
dences to show as he
went along bringing up
newer and better things
from the treasure in this
marvellous little oratory,
the Sancta Sanctorum.
The priceless treas-
ures of the mystery chapel, are the holy relics of
Christ, of our Lady, of the saints and martyrs of
holy church. These relics are incased in receptacles
of massive gold, highly adorned and ornamented
with precious gems and jewels. Both relics and
reliquaries, have been extrolled in many learned
works.
To appreciate better all this it is well to remem-
ber that this ancient chapel has been the storehouse
where for hundreds of years the Roman Pontiffs have
assembled them and from which tiny particles were
carefully, even jealously permitted to go forth to
different parts of the world, so that while you and
I of the distant faithful may see or possibly be
THE I4 SIGN
fortunate enough to possess one such sacred relic
they are in the Sancta Sanctorum by thousands and
as we are filled with gratitude and devotion if we
possess just a strand of the raiment which belonged
to a saint or a grain of the dust from his grave, in
the Sancta Sanctorum are such relics as the entire
head of St. Agnes and of St. Praxides, the heads
of the apostles SS. Peter and Paul, one of the san-
dals worn by our Blessed Lord, the table of the
Last Supper, one of the thorns from the cruel crown,
instruments of the Passion and traces of the Precious
Blood of Jesus.
Relics of this class — every one of them, of
course — simply mean the incomparable, yet here
they are in abundance and variety which to us is
stupifying. Besides these there are in that chapel
a multitude of other sacred relics any one of which
would make the church which might be fortunate
enough to possess it famous and envied all over
these United States.
And now, after that interesting scholar had
proceeded on with this outspread of treasure on
treasure and the glow of his own happiness had
reached the point of evident satisfaction we began
to understand the reason for that spirit of majesty
which fills this little temple of God as an atmosphere
and is inhaled with every breath drawn within those
hallowed walls. It is that stupendous collection of
sanctified things belonging to the great saints and
the martyrs of the church, the holy apostles, our
Blessed Mother and the Lord Jesus Himself. All
those envied trophies of the faith are tested and
tabulated and authenticated and stand as genuine
after the keen scrutiny of the Holy Catholic Church.
The age-old holiness of all this ever radiating rich-
ness permeats the atmosphere of that chapel. It is
the aroma of sanctity perceptible to the sensitive
instinct of the faith! The place is holy; it is laden
with holiness; it is, indeed, the Holy of Holies well
named and that is the exact meaning of the Sancta
Sanctorum."
To be Continued
The Eucharistic Congress
DESCRIPTIONS by special correspondents and to make Catholics everywhere more appreciative of
press cable of the Eucharistic Congress in this reality and more grateful for the blessings
the Eternal City indicate that it was an event attendant upon it.
of unparalleled splendor and impressiveness. That
it should be so is quite credible when we contem-
plate the circumstances — the Holy Father sur-
rounded by thousands of the faithful in the ample
precincts of the world's most magnificent temple
with attendant rich and harmonious detail of rite
.and liturgy. Those who were privileged to behold
it all must have felt that they could not come nearer
-to Heaven itself without having a direct vision of
that blessed abode.
The Eucharistic Congress opened immediately
rafter the delegates of the nations had departed from
a neighboring city where their efforts toward the
-rehabilitation of a prostrate world had again proved
futile. Were not many serious minds affected by
the coincidence and forced to note the contrast of
plane and motive, and were they not convinced that
only He Whom we honor and adore in the Eucharist
has the healing of the nations in His hands?
As for ourselves, we need not envy those whose
happy lot it was to participate in that splendid
scene. In the humblest chapel in Christendom
dwells the same God-Man and all the solemn
splendor of that assemblage was mainly designed
Co'nsider this passage in Through Timbuctu and
the Great Sahara by A. H. W. Haywood: "As
the sun was seting in a flood of red and gold behind
the hills, those who were devout worshippers of
the Prophet sank to their knees and could be heard
uttering in low, musical tones the cry: 'Allahu
Akbar!' To my mind it is an impressive sight to
watch the pious Mahomedan, at this hour, forsake
the occupation on which he is engaged, prostrating
himself, with his face turned eastward toward the
holy city of Mecca, forgetful for the time of all
worldly matters, but devoting his thoughts to God."
What would not be the devotion, the gratitude of a
Mahomedan were the object of his faith changed
from a God who he fancied showing favor to him
through a distant holy shrine to a God dwelling in
his very midst and ever ready and eager to be the
very food of his soul!
The Eucharistic Congress is a memory, but the
patient Lover of our souls remains, alert to our
prayers for our own needs and those of an afflicted
world, and fulfilling His pledge, the pledge of His
Real Presence and the purpose of it: "Unless you
eat My Flesh and drink My Blood you shall not
have life in you."
Trie Betrayer
Frank Charleson
QIGHT, deep, still night; and a sky thick-
studded with stars. A figure — a man —
creeps out from the shadow of the queer
old oaks, so bent and twisted, that print
crazy outlines on the grass — steals fearfully to the
edge of the moonlight streaming through the rifted
veil of cloud, — tip-toes timidly through the gateless
opening, then into the roadway, slowly. He looks
cityward. Yes, there they are the red torches and
gleaming lanterns of the crowd — a thousand yards
away. The friend he loves best is marching there
among his captors, head hanging on breast, hands
bound fast behind him. The low hum of voices
sweeps down to the listener. Will he follow? Will
he share the bitter chalice as he promised?
Cautiously, very cautiously, he is moving for-
ward. He slinks as well within the shadows as he
can; he fingers his sword-belt at every rustling of
a cedar bough; but he holds his way. Soon comes
a stir in the far-off crowd, and shouts are heard.
Lanterns cross and recross and wave excitedly.
Torches dance up and down and a few come back
towards him. Suddenly, a naked figure flashes into
sight running at full speed. What can it mean?
As the timid one draws his sword and nervously
clutches his curly beard, the runner, seeing him,
utters a faint cry and, with a bound over the low
wall, disappears into the darkness.
The lights, in order again, move steadily towards
the city, and, wondering, the lone follower goes on.
He seems an unwilling pursuer, for now and then,
when long-armed bushes offer to snatch at his gar-
ments, he trends a little from the beaten track at the
cost of a second or two, — as the lazy rolling brook
alongside the footpath waits to splash or ripple at
every stone and root. But loiter as he will, over
in the western sky, beyond the valley and the
shadow and the hill, huge towers and walls begin
to outline clearer and clearer against the stars. Alas!
The feasting and revelry of the city are not for him.
The lamps and fires that light up the streets this
gala night seem like funeral pyres.
n
E nears a crossroad now, and halts as three
persons turn into his path. The youth who
leads, a bright-eyed, soft-cheeked boy, lifts
an arm, points towards the moving lights, and then
looks inquiringly to the two women beside him. His
gesture asked them would they follow, and one of
them, a mere girl, a dark-haired girl with smooth
oval face that needed little moonlight to show its
beauty, answered his query in her own way — she
turned towards the older woman with a sob and,
clasping arms around her, wept dismally upon her
shoulder. And the latter stroked the girl's hair
with strong comforting touch. What a sweet, firm
mouth this elder had. A painter might have found
in her his model for a mourning peri — there were
strands of silver hair braided in the brown, and in
her eyes unshed tears. She was comforting the
weak one just then, though it may be her own heart
that instant felt sharper grief than any other ever
has felt since the world began. Woman's way, to
be sure! — is she ever too unhappy to comfort the
broken-hearted ?
As the dark-bearded stranger drew near they
hailed his approach. Surely, he had good tidings?
No! he shook his head in sorrow. The older woman
questioned him, not with the curtness of excitement,
as the boy beside her had begun to do, but quietly, —
as a Sister of Charity who soothes the mad. Her
tones were low and sad, with never a ring of hope,
nor yet any tinge of bitterness in them. It seemed
as if she knew her lot was sorrow, and was bending in
resignation. There must have been a hidden spring
of strength within her heart, some unseen flood of
light across her way: for you would have said no
mortal spirit ever could bear such hopeless grief
as her voice betokened. The others saw wisdom
in her words, and, her counsel given, she and the
other woman went back, while the men followed
their captive friend, now out of sight and hearing.
^^^HE two men walked very rapidly, but they
^ J soon began to realize that the brief stop had
permitted the crowd to outdistance them. So
the younger broke into a run and disappeared,
leaving his comrade to follow as best he might.
Down toward the south, then along in a line with the
walls, up a steep ascent, and finally in through the
southern gate and across town to the opposite
quarter, the second man hurried. He had a glimpse
THE 1* SIGN
or two of his speeding companion at first, then, as
the way grew plainer, and he felt certain of his
destination, he plodded on with his eyes never
lifted from the ground.
Many a group, seated around blazing fires or
standing before family thresholds, called upon him
to stop and join in their meal. A short shake of the
head was his answer sometimes, sometimes he
wholly ignored the
friendly invitation and
hastened along with
downcast head, deaf
to the laughter that
greeted some wag who
was mocking the crazy
stranger. He knew his
way well, — and at last
he stopped before a
great court where the
excited jostling of the
crowd outside, and the
confused echo of voices
from within, assured
him his journey was
ended. Just then
his young companion
appeared in the gate-
way and beckoned. A
word of explanation to
the porter, and the
stranger entered the
gate, while a sudden
murmur went up from
the crowd surging
against the iron pickets.
It melts away, lit-
tle by little, this crowd.
Then, at a shout from a
boy in a tree above,
that tells them the
prisoner is being taken across to another court,
those who remain rush pell-mell up the street madly
shouldering one another, the heavy ones tumbling
their lighter fellows into the dust. They are just
like any city crowd you ever saw — although dressed
a little differently.
B DOZEN noisy chanticleers were loudly chal-
lenging the light when the two men came
forth again. Something strange must have
happened in the meantime, for the younger turned
Saint Gabriel Possenti
Fra. Cornelius, O. F. M.
Hero of God w'hose span was brief,
Thou little Saint of our ov?n days,
I think of thee with glad relief
Instruct me in thy happy" ways.
Laved at my Father's natal fount,
WKo would not hope thy- saintship, too?
Assisi claims thee, tho the Mount
Of Mary's Dolors birthed thee new.
Our youtk has seen thy meteor-trail
But stand aghast; — the price is high.
And starred in worldly aims, the veil
Of Heaven falls; — they dare not try.
Gabriel, chosen guide of ^outh
To dolored Mary join in prayer.
Implore Dispensers of the Truth,
For truth lies prostrate everywhere.
Teeming the fields, the harvests great;
Of earnest workers there is need
To check the World's much threatened fate
By" apostolic word and deed.
away from his companion with a gesture of contempt
and walked off alone. They were comrades no
longer. A moment ago the cheek had blanched
under that curly black beard and the man's lips had
disowned the dear one whom men were torturing
inside the court. No wonder the boy turned in
anger from the coward. And he ? He went wander-
ing down the street, heartsick, blinded with tears,
careless whither his
feet carried him. A
swaggering official pas-
sed and cursed this in-
solent creature who
never even raised an
eye. Through the city
gate he went, back out
into the dusty road,
and there fell under a
tree, his forehead upon
the ground, weeping
tears of anguish. He
had thought to aid his
loved one, and he had
cut him to the soul!
The patient face,
full of a night's long
pain, with its sad glance
of unlooked-for tender-
ness still stabbed him.
Coward and traitor as
the weeper was, he re-
gretted not so much that
his own life was ruined,
— that he was to be a
scorn and a hissing to
all his race, foes and
old friends alike — that
his high place of trust
and honor was now but
the memory of a silly
dream. He thought of all these things; but they
were trifles. Oh! to take back the words that had
bruised the friendless one.
What was huddled against the wall there ? Was
it a human being crouching near him? Yes, surely.
He knew well that sharp nose, the stubborn beard
and those pale watery eyes. The rest of the face
evaded recognition ; it was like a madman's features
when some horrible vision is haunting his memory,
and paralysing his power of thought. Bent shoulders
indicated the momentary expectation of some crush-
THE + SIGN
ing blow. The thick red hair was matted above
his ears, and the perspiration oozing from his fore-
head told of a fever-stricken soul. Hollow eyes,
glaring from under tangled, bushy brows, bore a
look of utter despair; and the other man, forgetting
his own grief for an instant, stretched out an in-
stinctive, human, helping hand to raise the poor
wretch thus sunk helplessly at his feet.
XLL did it behoove him, criminal as he was,
to spurn the vilest of God's creatures, and,
as the crouching fellow drew back amazed,
a friendly arm stole round his neck, and one who
had so lately felt sin's sting and the agony of
remorse, gently spoke of God and mercy and repent-
ance. He went on and the wild look faded from the
drawn face — there was hope even for him, then.
The hard features relaxed into a pitiful, beseeching
glance that attested a readiness to tread earth's
length and breadth to win relief of woe.
So absorbed the two were that neither saw a third
approach. She seemed equally unaware of them.
A cloth was wound about her head and hung back
trailing over the shoulders. Long abundant hair of
shining black was straggling carelessly about, and
stains of dust were on tresses and on forehead. She
sang to herself in plaintive fashion, a queer quaint
song, a lament full of strange intervals in a wailing
minor key. Involuntarily the two men turned and
listened:
"Through the long night of pain she weeps,
Down her cheek rolls the anguished tear.
There is not one to comfort her
Among all who had been most dear."
Not a child in all the countryside but had the
song by heart — not a single soul perhaps in the great
city yonder, but had sounded new depths of sadness
every time its melody drifted above the bowed necks
of the worshiping congregation. As the notes rose
and died, the startled look came back into the eyes
of the red-bearded man, and when the woman's sad
face turned towards him, he leaped to his feet, cry-
ing out in terror :
"Oh! may his house be desolate
And may his days be few.
May he on earth all suffering know
And Hell his pains renew."
HE finished, and he who had been preaching
repentance seemed to draw slowly away from
the sinner. The latter knelt on the ground, his
face livid and again distorted with fright, his
eyes dilated and starting from his head, for it
seemed to him as if, but a few yards distant on the
road, a great cross rose, bearing the Crucified. Big
drops of blood from the nail-pierced feet ran trick-
ling down the wooden post, or fell with a sudden
beat from the thorn-crowned head. The wasted
body was cut and bruised and quivering in every
part. The face! There was on that face a look
such as never was and never can be elsewhere.
Great dark clots of blood tangled the golden beard,
long lines of crimson sweat crossed the wrinkled
forehead and creased the cheek. The eyes turned
upward with a look of hopeless agony, the lips half
parted as in a cry for death, a convulsive shudder
ran over the mangled form. The vision was gone.
The two others went together towards the city,
leaving him where he lay — poor, lifeless one. His
hands were clasping his head as though to clamp
the brain. Then he rose, and ran, tearing at the
loose garment that choked his fevered throat.
Whither away? Anywhere. To the uttermost
parts of the sea, to hell itself — anywhere away from
that awful vision that burns like a living coal within
the mind and chills the heart's blood like a lump
of ice. Where away? Down the road, out of sight
of roof and hedge and of every living thing. On
beyond the meeting waters, where brooks join in a
double stream to seek the sea. On past forests and
groves of olive trees, and roadside fountain, out of
hearing of the great stir of life awaking over there
in the homes of men. Further still? Yes, up to the
sepulcher's whitened gate and past its inviting door-
way— only a corpse can rest in that. On and on
and on, in the dim light of the gray dawn. God!
drive away that hell-sent vision! Rivers of fire and
caverns of hell! welcome! Ye hills! fall upon
and smother your willing victim! Lions and tigers,
writhing serpents, demons! crush that hideous
memory in the clasp of death!
Earth has no mercy. Then rain down, ye clouds!
and sweep the last shivering wretch of human kind
into the dark abyss before the crime is consum-
mated! Flash forth lightnings and consume yon
town as of old the two cities were consumed! Oh,
see! rush in upon it; swallow it up; entomb it in
your depths! Anything! Anything! Anything!
Adonai! blot out time ere the murder be accom-
plished!
(Continued on Page 9)
The Labor Problem
Rev. R. A. McGowan
IV. — Socialism
'OCIALISM would be a failure because
common ownership does not provide suf-
ficient incentives to men for them to work
well. If it succeeded from the economic
standpoint, it would be tyrannous because the men in
charge of the Government would have all the powers
of the Government and all the powers of the sole
employer. It probably would'nt work at all and
if it did the common man would have little chance
of controlling his own life, protecting his own rights,
and developing his own nature. The men in control
of the Government and the means of work might be
so wise that what they ordered would be for the
welfare of all. But to be that wise they would have
to be angels.
The dangers in an attempt at Socialism come,
first, from the desolation and physical misery into
which it would hurl us, and second from the tyranny
of those in control of the Government and the in-
dustries. It would not last, but there would come
upon us a period of great suffering and wrong.
Could the Socialists be trusted to administer
industry efficiently? They are agitators, and keen,
but not thorough, analysts of what is wrong with
industrial society. Brains of a kind they have in
abundance. But could they be trusted to run even
political Government successfully? Are there
technicians enough among them and executives
enough to furnish the directing and managerial
brains to conduct industry? Could they get enough
technical and executive experts, who are not Social-
ists, to work with them? Would the rank and file
join in any such grandiose effort? As we know the
Socialists and human nature, Socialism would fail,
just as it failed in Russia.
OR could we trust our lives and our fortunes to
the Socialists and the technical and executive
experts whose efforts they could call on?
These Socialists and scientists and executives are
human beings. They are subject to the errors and
faults of human beings. Give them control of the
police, the jails, the courts, the army and the firing
squad, give them control of the means of work of
all the people, the power of directing so and so to
do this work, of allowing this man to work and
refusing to let that man work, and the result would
be tyranny. Such combined power is too great to be
entrusted to any man or group of men.
Socialists have strange and horrible ideas about
the family and religion. Some Socialists reject these
ideas, but a great many still hold them. They hold
that the family is a product of private property and
will disappear when private ownership of the means
of work disappears. They hold that religion is an
opiate administered to deaden the minds and wills
of the poor to the sufferings they undergo, and that
under common ownership it will disappear.
Give these men political power and the control
over jobs and human livelihood and they will pro-
bably try to hasten what they would call the process
of dissolution of the family and religion under
common ownership. They would not hold family
ties or religion sacred. The laws and practices they
would ordain would oppose family and religion.
Catholics would be at bay, and there would be little
protection for us.
XT is, of course, true that the elected officials
would be chosen by the vote and that the
appointed officials could be reached indirectly.
But are the changing fortunes of political election
a firm support for human rights and a shield against
wrongs ? When the agents of the Government hold
only political power, it is unsatisfactory enough.
Give the agents of the Government the control of
the means of work of everyone, and the matter
reaches dangerous proportions.
But there is little danger of an attempt at com-
plete Socialism in the United States. The farmers
will hardly come to the conclusion that they would
be better off not to own their farms. This much
of Socialism would necessarily be discarded and has
indeed been already discarded by the Socialist Party.
What does seem probable is that large numbers
of the workers will ask for, work for, and vote for
government ownership of a few industries. Govern-
ment ownership of a few industries, however, is
not Socialism. The railroad men and the miners
have each a program of government ownership.
Neither group nor the two together are Socialists,
THE + SIGN
nor are they asking for Socialism. They merely
want government ownership of the two industries.
j^HE difference between government ownership
%/v of a few industries and common ownership
of all industries is the difference between a
shower and a cloud-burst. If in addition the control
of the few industries placed under government
ownership is a divided control and a large part of
the control is placed in the hands of those who work
in these industries, then the tyranny of the bureau-
crats will be modified and the abilities of the men
who know how to do the work will have a real
chance for outlet. If there is also some form of
profit sharing practiced in the few government
owned industries, those working in the industries
will be more encouraged to work well. Such a
system of control and division of returns under
government ownership gives to those working in the
industries two elements of personal ownership:
sharing in the control and sharing in the returns.
Instead of common ownership or a very great
amount of government ownership what is needed
is that most of those working in industry should
own, in part at least, the things with which they
are working to make a livelihood for themselves
and their families. Not common ownership but
sound, healthy, private ownership! The reason why
common ownership is making converts is because
now private ownership is diseased. It is held by
too small a number of persons in city industry. It
is used to the harm and wrong of others who own
property and the great masses who own no property
in the means of work. Because of this, many think
that the only way to cure the evil effects of a
distorted and diseased system of private ownership
is to abolish private ownership in the means of
work.
This is the chief reason why Socialism under
its various forms is making so many gains abroad
and here. The best argument against Socialism
is the cure of private ownership.
THE BETRAYER— Continued from Page
XN vain. The trumpet call is sounding from the
dark tower of the north. The tramp of
legionaries and the clash of arms sound
through thy streets, O my city. The Just One is
being driven to his doom.
With a shiver the madman, as he runs, turns
into a narrow gorge, where rough beetling crags on
either side, and dashing water, and scattered clumps
of olive trees, mingle confusedly in his tortured sight.
Up and up, and over the frowning hill, while breath
is coming short and quick, and feet are staggering,
and eyes are going blind. Up, and out on a narrow
plain that looks down over the city!
Slow wreaths of smoke mount solemnly in the
morning air. Bright roofs and lofty towers, green,
gardens and whitewashed walls, shape themselves
out of the lifting vapor. Far away on the right, a
dusty valley-road shows where the traitor had
walked last night with his crowd of brutal mercen-
aries. The dim eyes of the haggard-visaged wretch
now see nothing of it all. One only picture brands
itself in through half closed eyelids — the vision of
the Crucified.
Over yonder the blessed mount, the beloved of
kings and prophets, veers its stone-crowned head
heavenward. Here at his feet is the valley once
filled with the blood of innocents and fiery holocausts
and strange sacrifices — a place accursed of God.
Fitting spot for him! It is almost a cry of relief
that comes from his parched lips as he sees the
leather halter on the clay in the wagon track. A
solitary tree stretches inviting arms to him. He
hurries towards it and clambers up the trunk. A
knot around his throat, a turn over a branch, and
he swings heavily from the tree. Crash! Will Hell
not hold him?
He goes painfully up again, a look of final
despair blotting all other expression from his face.
Another knot, this time around a stouter bough, and
he throws himself down, half hopelessly. His body
catches on a broken, sharp-pointed branch, opens
with a ghastly wound, and then hangs dangling from
the tree, the trembling knees beating against each
other. The sun rises higher and higher. The gay
beams that dance through the mists of morning play
over the twitching limbs of the corpse.
"The Son of man indeed goeth ; but woe to that
man by whom the Son of man is betrayed."
A Saint in the Alcove
Helen Moriarty
"M^^HERE was no doubt of it, Mrs. Brehmer
M 6j was surprised when on the second anni-
^^^^ versary of their marriage her husband
presented her with an eighteen-inch, white
marble statue of St. Joseph.
"It's beautiful, Joe," she told him sincerely,
trying to infuse some warmth into her tone. Was
this all he was going to give her?
"Yes, isn't it?" he glowed. "Of course, it
should have been your own patron saint, but they
don't have St. Agathas, and besides I thought you'd
like St. Joseph — everybody does."
Agatha forced a smile. "Oh, yes, I do. And
this is really a work of art."
"If you knew what it cost you'd think so,"
grinned her husband. "But we've hardly anything
religious in the house, have we, dear? You see I
grew up with statues and what Mother called 'holy
pictures' and I kind of miss them. Not those ghastly
colored ones," as his wife gave him rather an odd
look. "We're going to acquire something worth
while from time to time."
"Every anniversary," thought Agatha bitterly,
"and maybe birthdays and Christmas as well.
Heavens !"
Joe went on blithely, "I thought I'd fix a bracket
for a corner of the alcove in our room, and with a
couple of plants on the little table beneath, it will
look quite like an oratory, won't it?" He turned
an eager look on his wife, wondering vaguely if there
was something just the least bit unresponsive in her
attitude. But her answer was ready and positive
enough.
"It certainly will. That statue — " and she
smiled cryptically — "would make even a coal cellar
look like an oratory."
Joe beamed his delight. "I knew you'd like it,
Agatha. Let's take him up right away and see how
he looks in that corner," picking up the statue care-
fully. It was plain that he was quite enamored of
his purchase and his plan.
"You do it," his wife suggested. "I must get
the dishes washed before some one comes. I'll
come up soon as I finish," she promised, in order
to hurry him. She wanted to get that statue out
of sight before any of her friends came in anyhow.
She'd sink with mortification to have them find out
what her husband gave her for an anniversary gift.
A statue . . of St. Joseph! Well of all things!
She could just hear them, and see their amused
glances. And she wanted to get out of Joe's sight
before her disappointment became manifest. She
felt she could not hold in much longer ....
> T FEW tears of rage and disappointment rolled
J I down her cheeks into the dishwater, but
Agatha wiped them away resolutely. She
didn't want him to find her crying, and then there
was all day tomorrow. She could cry all she wanted
to. Viciously she splashed the dishwater, rinsed
the dishes with a furious flourish of the teakettle,
and started to wipe them, ignoring the patent dryer
which had been installed by Joe as a clever part of
her kitchen menage. She was in no hurry. The
longer it took her the more time she would have
to compose her features. Bleakly she sighed as
she hung up the broiler. How long she had been
looking forward to this anniversary, pleasantly
anticipative of what Joe was going to give her. She
had taken care to hint gently about a number of
things she would like to have.
She had preferences, of course, but any of them
would be welcome. Tea napkins, salad forks,
sherbet glasses, silk stockings, a rug for the hall,
new purse — she needed them all; and as Joe never
stopped with one present she had somehow settled
on the three she was to receive. A couple of pair
of silk stockings from Miss Phalen's — she always
told him to go there — the rug, and the tea napkins.
If she had mentioned the tea napkins once she had
mentioned them a thousand times, she reflected in
great soreness of heart, and to think that she might
as well have been talking about red Indians for all
the impression it made on him! Joe was dense,
that's all there was about it, and so silly about
religion !
Now it has doubtless been gathered by this
time that Agatha was not in any sense silly about
religion. Far from it. She belonged to that large
and comfortable class which makes Mass on Sundays
and Holy Days and Communion once a month or so
the goal of its highest spiritual ambition. Not for
THE 1* SIGN
them attendance at Vespers or the Holy Hour or
at an occasional weekday Mass. They smiled cheer-
fully over the people who did such things, wondered
how on earth they found the time, agreeing amicably
that they were not a bit better than any one else
for all their piety.
(0 thought Agatha Hinton too until she had
met Joe Brehmer, whose ardent devotion to
his religion was a revelation to her in many
ways. She loved him for it, as well as for his
manliness and the sturdy integrity of a forthright
nature, but so far she had not been led to emulate
his piety, about which she had often allowed her-
self to tease him just a little. A very little though;
for she soon perceived that in some vague way it
hurt or displeased him, and not for worlds would
she hurt her dear old Joe.
"Agatha!" Joe called down the back stairs.
"Aren't you through yet?"
"In a minute!" She ran her hands over her
stiff features, trying to smooth away the tell-tale
signs of disappointment and peevishness, and
managed to exclaim quite naturally over Joe's
arrangement of the statue. He had brought up the
two old brass candlesticks from the hall table —
they were her dearest possession — and the cyclamen
she had bought to decorate the table for the anni-
versary dinner. Table decorations meant nothing
to Joe! Well, it would be a long time before she'd
buy flowers again!
"Now," triumphantly, "doesn't it look oratory —
kal? If you know what I mean," laughing jocosely.
It looked beautiful and Agatha told him so.
"But if your going to keep those candlesticks up
here," she could not help adding, "you'll have to
find me another pair for the hall table."
"I will," casually. "Where did you get those?"
"Those? Don't you remember? But of course
you wouldn't," dryly. "They belonged to my great
grandmother. She brought them with her from
Ireland. I was quite delighted when Mother gave
them to me — "
"By jinks, I had forgotten," Joe broke in, staring
at the candlesticks as though he had never seen
them before. "Wouldn't great grandmother be
pleased, though, if she could see where they landed,
right in front of a statue of St. Joseph? You know,
the Irish have a great devotion to St. Joseph — "
Agatha thought she'd scream if he kept it up.
She interrupted him rather rudely. "So you see
it wouldn't be easy to find another pair like those,"
with a superior smile. "And I simply love them
on my hall table. Don't you think glass ones would
look better here?"
>p=^ER husband's face fell. In an instant the
IP antiquity of the brass candle-sticks and their
origin, never before given a thought, had
struck on his ardent Catholic imagination as being
peculiarly fitted for their present place, linking (he
was pleased to think) the rock-ribbed faith of old
Ireland to the same impregnable faith in this new
land. How many murmured prayers they had
heard, how many orisons had gone up before them,
how many broken plaints, how many heart-sick,
weary sighs, how many, many earnest petitions
from lips that were long since dust! They were
holy things (so he thought reverently), well suited
to stand in shining dignity before this chaste and
beautiful statue of the good St. Joseph.
But, of course, if Agatha wanted them down-
stairs . . He had in two years of happy married
life acquired a wholesome respect for what his wife
wanted. But if he told her what he was thinking . .
He glanced at her doubtfully. Agatha wasn't what
you might call devout. Well . . not at all, with a
painful twinge. Of course you had to make this
allowance — she had never had any religious train-
ing and her home environment had not been con-
ducive to the proper knowledge of her faith. She
was the dearest girl in the world, and some day,
(soon, he hoped,) she would come to know and
appreciate the supernal joy to be found in a closer
union with and knowledge of Our Lord in the Holy
Eucharist. That was one reason he had bought the
statue, to lead her by degrees into a love for the
old devotions of the Church. . . .
"Just as you say, of course," he stammered at
last. "Wouldn't you — but of course you wouldn't —
rather have glass candle-sticks down stairs?"
Agatha frowned. "In the hall, Joe? Absurd!
Anyhow, I don't want to hide my candle-sticks away
up stairs when everybody's so wild about antiques."
Toward the end her tone waxed decidedly fretful
. . offended . .
Joe yielded up his dream. "All right, dear,"
he said, amiably. "We'll get glass candle sticks
for St. Joseph. Do you know," he added shyly,
slipping an arm around his wife, "I think the dear
old saint is going to bless our home and bring us
every happiness."
THE + SIGN
QRIVATELY Agatha thought that the dear old
saint had not made a very good beginning,
but the hardness around her heart melted a
little at her husband's tenderness, and she smiled
back at him with a queer twinge of remorse. Dear
old Joe! How good he was! And how little he
dreamed of how bitterly he had disappointed her!
Perhaps she was mean and small, but she couldn't
help it. You'd have to be an angel out of heaven
to rejoice over a statue of St. Joseph, and a marble
one that had cost a mint of money at that — when
you needed just loads of things for the house to
say nothing at all of yourself.
But by an effort very much to her credit Agatha
conquered her feeling of grievance and the anni-
versary ended happily enough. In time St. Joseph
acquired a white enameled, three cornered bracket
from which he looked benignantly down, seemingly
perfectly satisfied with the glass candle-sticks and
the growing flowers on his little stand. Agatha
brought her bird upstairs too and it amused her to
see how he cocked a knowing eye at the statue and
trilled out his wonderful song as though he were
trying to tell St. Joseph all about the joy of life.
"That's his Credo," declared Joe when she told
him. "Listen!" holding up his finger, "this is the
Our Father, isn't it Dicky? Now for the Hail Mary
— what did I tell you?" to the final burst of melody,
"They're all different."
Agatha laughed outright. "Joe, you're too
funny!" she exclaimed.
"I don't see anything funny about that. What
do you mean?"
"Oh," Agatha shrugged, impatient of the expla-
nation, "the way you drag religion into everything."
"Well," Joe made answer gravely and very
gently, "religion ought to be a vital part of our life.
Don't you think so, dear?"
Agatha made a very disconcerting reply.
"Religion doesn't mean as much to me as it does to
you, Joe."
"Hah!" Joe cried quickly, veering away from
a possible shoal — he knew better than to allow
invidious comparisons — "Hah, who takes care of
the shrine and keeps fresh flowers there and chases
every bit of dust away from St. Joseph? Tell me
that!"
Agatha looked embarrassed. "But I don't think
I do it from any religious feeling," she said honestly.
"I'm fond of the shrine, though, and I do love the
statue. Who could help it? It's such an exquisite
thing," and her eyes softened as she looked up at
the rugged, perfectly chiseled features.
Joe felt vaguely disquieted but he answered
lightly, "Of course you love him. And he'll reward
your care of him some day too — mark my words!"
You have to give her time, he meditated rather sadly,
scoring himself that he had not proved a better
teacher. "But jinks," he muttered in all humility,
"I couldn't preach to a girl like Agatha. She's as
good as gold. All she needs . . . ." He sighed
for lack of words.
gLL she needed was to wake up and that she
did one memorable afternoon. She had been
down town to buy the sherbet glasses — every-
thing comes to him who waits — and let herself in
happily, humming as she ran lightly upstairs. "I
must treat St. Joseph," she said to herself with a
merry grimace. "I'll light his candles right away,
and — " She stopped short.. A burly ruffian was
in the alcove with the statue in his arms. He
glared at her and she thought she was going to
faint.
"Caught me, didn't you?" he snarled. "You
get out o' my way and I won't hurt yeh, but you try
to holler and I'll brain you with this!" menacing
her with the statue.
Agatha found her voice. " Don't!" she gasped.
"Don't take the statue! You don't want that, do
you? . . Please, don't take my St. Joseph," the
tears running down her cheeks. She clung to the
bed and watched him in growing horror as he
approached the door. "Don't take it!" she begged
sobbingly. "Take anything else . . there's silver
downstairs . . You can have anything in the house,
but leave me my St. Joseph — "
"Yah, you an' your St. Joseph!" scoffed the
burglar as he sprang through the door. "Don't you
make a move or it won't be good for yeh!" She
heard him fling himself down the stairs, heard a
door close. Was he gone? She could not be sure
and for a long time she crouched by the bed,
literally paralyzed with fear. At last she stole
trembling to the extension phone in the hall and
called Joe. She listened again — the silence was
profound. He must be gone. . Yes, he must be. . .
©ACK in the room she turned to the bereft
alcove with streaming eyes. "If I had only
gotten to light his candles for the last time,"
she sobbed inconsequently; and quite suddenly it
THE + SIGN
came over Agatha Brehmer that it was not the work
of art, the exquisite marble statue she was missing,
it was the dear, benignant, kind face of St. Joseph.
For, all unconsciously these many weeks while she
had been caring for the little shrine he had been
drawing her gently but surely toward a clearer
knowledge and understanding of those simple de-
votions of the Church, which are to religion what
the many-colored bulbs are to a Christmas tree,
not only decorative but also an element of light and
beauty. She sank on her knees by the bed and sent
up such a flaming petition as put to shame even the
ardent faith of her husband. .
Joe's arrival found her calm and collected.
Their small store of silver was gone, even the prized
candle-sticks, and the house was all topsy-turvy,
but they were cheerful about it, though Agatha did
weep again at sight of the bereft shrine. She told
Joe forlornly, "The room will never seem the same —
unless we get it back — "
"Dont count on that, dear. But I'll get you
another one," Joe added, thinking rather ruefully
that with all these losses it would be some time
before he could afford another marble statue.
Agatha gave him a strange look. Didn't he
know that no other statue could ever take the place
of this one, which had seemed to become in a
special manner her own dear St. Joseph?
Joe was shuddering over his wife's escape.
Curious the fellow hadn't tried to hold her up for
money or jewelry. He couldn't have been a regular
burglar or he never would have overlooked that.
w
HETHER the man was a regular burglar or
not the Brehmers were never destined to
learn, but Agatha declared that he was not;
or that if he was St. Joseph had stricken him with
remorse of conscience; for at ten o'clock when Joe
went down to fix the furnace for the night he
stumbled over a queer bundel and, switching on
the light in the coal cellar saw the statue of St.
Joseph standing serenely on top of the fuel. Not
until he had opened the bundle and beheld all
their stolen possessions, and had stared for a full
minute at the image of his patron saint, did he
venture to call Agatha.
"Look!" he cried excitedly as she came running
down the steps, "here's everything — your candle-
sticks— the silver — "
But Agatha had glimpsed the statue. "Oh
Joe, and my dear St. Joseph! I knew I'd get him
back! Joe," she went on solemnly, as one lifted up
the beloved statue reverently, "somehow I felc that
my prayer would be answered — not that I deserved
it — " She raised lovely, shining, tear-wot eyes to
her husband. "You see, I've been learning things,"
humbly. "I have, really — and I understand now —
I'm trying . . to be more like you "
Joe gave an incoherent exclamation as he
gathered wife and statue close in his arms. "Why,
honey," he protested, "you're worth two of me!"
"It was St. Joseph," whispered Agatha, un-
heeding. "It was St. Joseph!"
And — would any cold materialist believe it? —
they walked upstairs leaving the silver and heir-
looms scattered about the cellar floor. Oh yes, they
retrieved them in the morning. For by that time
St. Joseph was returned to his bracket, his candles
were lighted and twinkling up at Dicky bird, and
Agatha was affirming over and over that she was
the happiest girl in the world. Joe, it may be
stated, was perfectly happy too.
Holland, once ranked as a stronghald of Pro-
testantism, is now nearly two-fifths Catholic. That
country since the seventeenth century has harbored
a group of Jansenistic schismatics. Inasmuch as
they carried over an episcopate their orders are
valid. Many scandals arose with the Archbishops
of Utrecht at various times accommodating the
German "Old Catholics," English High Church
clergymen and Oriental adventures with episcopal
consecration. However this schism also has lost
ground, its membership now being about ten
thousand.
The Knights of Columbus have their emulators
in the British Isles in the Knights of St. Columba
and the Knights of St. Columbanus. The Knights
of St. Columba were organized in Glasgow about
two years ago and have grown rapidly throughout
Great Britain and will soon have branches on the
Continent. The CATHOLIC TIMES of London
urges: "What is to prevent a "linking-up" between
the K. O. S. C. and the Knights of St. Andrew, and
then, finally, union with the great American
Order?"
The Lawmen's Week-end Retreat League of Philadelphia
John J. Sullivan
7 HE men's lay-retreat movement goes steadily forward. The East now has specially adapted
houses for men's retreats at New York (Manresa), Boston (Brighton), Pittsburgh, and Phila-
delphia (Malvern) ; besides accommodations for Summer in colleges at Beatty, Pa., Dunkirk,
N. Y., and elsewhere. The motive, purpose, feasibility and enthusiasm engendered are again set
forth in this story of the Philadelphia foundation. — Editors.
H
OR a number of years two retreats for
laymen have been conducted annually at
the well
known
Seminary of St.
Charles Borromeo
which is situated
in Overbrook, on
the outskirts of
P h i 1 a d e 1 p hia.
Each year some
hundreds of men
have spent a few
days at the Sem-
inary where the
retreats were
given by Rever-
end T. J. Shealy,
S. J.
As the Semi-
nary buildings are
available for re-
treats during only
a portion of the
summer vacation,
and as the retreats
for the numerous
diocesan clergy
take up most of
this time, the lay-
men have been
planning for years
to acquire a house
of their own.
Many who wanted
to make retreats
at the Overbrook
Seminary found themselves unable to attend during
the brief period when the Seminary authorities
HIS EMINENCE CARDINAL DOU
RETREAT
were able to extend their gracious hospitality to the
laymen.
The ambition
of the late John
J. Ferreck, who
founded the work
in Philadelphia,
was to establish
a permanent home
for retreatants in
the beautiful su-
burbs of that city.
He died before
realizing this am-
bition but the
ever -growing
number of the
retreatants
forced upon them
the necessity of
carrying out the
work projected by
Mr. Ferreck.
Accordingly,
a handsome estate
has been bought
recently in the
wooded hills of
Malvern, about
fifteen miles to
the. west of Phila-
delphia. Although
this property is
quite near the
P enn s y 1 vania
Railroad Station
at Malvern and is
within easy ac-
cess of the shops of that borough, it is screened
from adjoining properties by a thick belt of fine
GHERTY PROTECTOR OF LAYMEN'S
LEAGUE
THE +SIGN
built about twenty-five years ago. The
ceilings are high and all the other
proportions of the house are ample.
On the ground floor, two large drawing
rooms have been thrown together in
order to provide space for a chapel.
On top of the house is an observation
platform that commands a view of
the surrounding country for many
miles.
Not far from the main building
is a commodious structure where the
kitchen and the dining room are
located, as well as quarters for those
who will provide meals for the
retreatants and keep the building clean.
PLANS FOR THE COMING YEAR
GATE AND KEEPER'S LODGE
trees. These trees also serve to protect it from
the northern winds. To the south the beholder
overlooks a beautiful sloping country dotted here
and there with farmhouses and bounded along the
distant horizon by green woods.
Thus, in their property of fifty-five acres, the
retreatants can enjoy the benefits of complete seclu-
sion from the outside world amid surroundings of
natural beauty. A week-end spent in this beautiful
place, breathing the bracing air of the Chester
County hills, must renew the body, just as the
spiritual exercises renew the soul.
THE BUILDINGS
^^^HE property is approached along Warren
V_J Avenue which leads directly from the rail-
road station. At the main entrance is a
handsome lodge capable of accommodating care-
takers, and of providing also for a few retreatants
in case of an overflow from the main building.
From this lodge one follows a winding lane lined
with beautiful rhododendrons, which runs for a
quarter of a mile through the private grounds of the
Retreat House grounds. At the end of this lane
one suddenly comes into view of the main building
and also of the fertile countryside which stretches
for miles to the south.
The main building consists of a large mansion
©
HE purposes of the Laymen's
Week-End Retreat League of
Philadelphia are well indicated
by the name of this corporation. All its members
are laymen. Of course, it was chartered and acquired
its property only after receiving the full approval
cf Cardinal Dougherty. His Eminence has shown
deep interest in the League's work, dedicated the
Retreat House on Sunday, May 21, 1922. He has
appointed Reverend Joseph M. Corrigan, D. D., at
present a professor at the Overbrook Seminary,
to be the Retreat Master.
EFFECTS OF RETREATS
^^^HE evils of the present time are due in no
%/J small measure to the hurry and bustle of our
daily life. We are living at a faster pace
than our fathers and our grandfathers would have
thought possible. We must attend to more matters
in the course of the twenty-four hours than the
ordinary business man of a generation ago could
attend to in a week. The result is that the limita-
tions upon our time and energy forbid us to consider
the things of the soul, unless we deliberately set
apart a definite time for this purpose and withdraw
from our customary environment.
Thus, a retreat house is the special antidote for
the chief ills of the present day. It enables men to
find and to face themselves. Many of those who
make a retreat for the first time appear never to
have contemplated seriously what they are, why
THE + SIGN
they are here in this world, and how they must act
in order to live up to the purpose of their creation.
While they are regulated in their intercourse with
their fellow beings by certain arbitrary legal or
social rules of conduct, they have no conception of
the fundamentals upon which human society rests
and by which his relation to every other man must be
3'udged.
To most persons who have never made a retreat
the sudden realization of their having lost a just
sense of proportion comes as a revelation. They
begin to see things in proper perspective, and those
who return year after year find the week-end retreat
a time to take a spiritual inventory, to balance their
accounts, and to see how far they have advanced or
fallen back during the previous year.
It has been the experience of priests observing
the laymen who have attended the retreats at the
Overbrook Seminary that these laymen become
filled with a desire to do something for the Church.
They go back to their respective parishes determined
to take a more active interest in parochial works
and in the advancement of the faith generally. Of
course, this is only natural, for the essential lesson
of the retreat is the importance of things eternal
when weighed in the balance with the things of this
world.
As an appropriate illustration of the above
might be given the conviction that came to a phy-
sician after his first retreat. When he
4vas invited to make a retreat, he
pleaded as excuse for not going that
he was a very busy man, and the
demands made upon his time were
such, that it was not possible to spare
the time required. That he was a very
busy man, with his hospital and office
work, no one could or would deny.
But his friend urged "that is the very
reason why I invited you to come."
After considerable time spent in pre-
senting the matter from many angles
he finally yielded and made the retreat.
From that moment he was an apostle
of laymens retreats. At his first visit
to the hospital for professional duties,
he said to one of the nuns, "why have
priests and sisters kept this good thing
to themselves for so long. The few
days that I spent in retreat were
among the happiest days of my life.
The memory of those few days, all too short,
will be most powerful in helping me till the time
for next years retreat comes round."
The more a man is occupied, and the weightier
are the responsibilities that rest on his shoulders,
the more advantage is to be expected from such a
man making a retreat. In the ages of Faith, em-
ployers gave the time and defrayed the expenses for
their employees to make a retreat; in some instances
they erected the retreat houses. Even in our own
days, when the retreat house was building in the
City of Pittsburgh, one of the largest Steel Com-
panies of that city, gave the munificent sum of
$1,000, which was one thousand dollars worth of
conviction, that retreats are well worth while, that
they establish in a man solid convictions that are
helpful, both for time and for eternity.
It is hoped that everything will be ready for
starting the retreats early in June, 1922. The
present accommodations will enable fifty retreatants
to be housed and supplied with meals over each
week-end. In case of there being more than fifty,
a few additional men could be provided for, but
the aim is to avoid over-crowding which interferes
with the privacy and the detachment so helpful in
the making of a retreat.
In 1922, probably the week-end retreats will
be continued until some time in November. It is
hoped that they will be resumed early in April, 1923.
[OUSE AT MALVERN
THE 1* SIGN
THE STATIONS
OF THE CROSS
J^HE estate
^SJ c o n t a ins
nearly
thirty acres of
woodland. Paths
have been cut
through the
woods. Little
clearings have
been made at
regular intervals
where the Stations
of the Cross will
be set up, so that
in clear weather
this devotion may
be practiced out-
doors instead of
FIRST GLIMPSE
in the chapel.
Large tablets depicting in relief the scenes of
the Fourteen Stations of the Cross will be attached
to trees. Ultimately, it is expected that more solid
and permanent Stations of the Cross will be set
up on mounds at various points along the woodland
paths.
OPEN TO ALL
While doubtless the Malvern Retreat House will
be occupied mainly by men from the diocese of
Philadelphia, all others are welcome. The customary
offering of those who spend a week-end at Malvern
will be $10. This
will cover sleep-
ing accommoda-
tions' for three
nights, as well as
eight meals be-
ginning with sup-
per on Friday
evening and end-
ing with breakfast
on the following
Monday morning.
Applications
for reservations
should be sent to
Reverend Joseph
M. Corrigan, D.D.
St. Joseph's - in -
the-Hills, Mal-
vern, Pa.
ON ENTERING The entrance
to the retreat
house is on Warren Avenue, only a short distance
from the famous Lincoln Highway, so that those
coming by automobile will find it easy to reach
the place. Most of the retreatants will come by
the Pennsylvania Railroad and alight at Malvern
Station. This station is on the main line running
from Philadelphia to Pittsburgh. There are many
local trains to and from Philadelphia. Moreover,
passengers on most through trains which do not
stop at Malvern may get off at Paoli, which is
only one mile from Malvern, and secure automobile
transportation from the Paoli Station to the retreat
house.
Impress upon the young that God Himself has
not the power to make base and sinful souls happy;
that favors bestowed upon them would be like gifts
to the dead.
Bp. Spalding.
* * * *
An extensive agenda, dealing with the revival
of the Irish language, arts and crafts, and the
economic reconstruction in Ireland is being discussed.
Mrs. Marie Fusz died recently in St. Louis.
According to her authenticated birth certificate she
was born in Kattstatt, Alsace, on Christmas Day,
1815. She had never missed attending 5:30 o'clock
Mass daily in nearly 100 years.
There is a very prosperous active order of
Passionist Sisters with their Mother House at
Bolton, England. On the Feast of the Epiphany
eleven Sisters received the habit and six were
professed.
:iw * * *
Carlisle, England, placed under State super-
vision after being chosen for an experiment in so-
called temperance methods, has the distinction of
being the one city in the realm showing an increase
in drunkenness.
If This Were Fiction
Friar Lawrence
EIC^ON spins strange tales. Aided by
its ally, the imagination, it evolves a plot
and weaves a story, captivating and thrill-
ing. It creates situations and portrays hap-
penings which are truly marvellous. In its line it
has but one rival, truth. Real life far surpasses in
oddity the imaginary world of fiction. If the few
incidents which I am going to relate, appeared in
story form, the reader, no doubt, would deem them
"the imaginings of a pious soul." Yet they are
facts, narrated to me by one of New York's promi-
nent business men. His name is familiar to the
buying public for we find his goods advertised in
nearly every city of the Union. This gentleman is
and has always been a non-catholic. A short time
ago I had occasion to transact some business with
him, and when I was about to leave he asked me if
I could spare a few minutes for a chat. It was one
of those excessively warm days in mid-summer
and I was only too willing to lengthen my stay and
enjoy the artificial breezes of the electric fans.
He was in a meditative mood and our talk drifted
into the history of his business. After a short time
he said to me :
"Father, I would like to tell you some of the
strange things that have happened to me during
my long business life. They seem strange to me
now as I look back but at the time they appeared
otherwise, in fact I did not even think of them at
all."
I shall endeavor to tell these occurances to you
as they were told to me. We might label them,
"If this were fiction."
XN the early days of my business, my re-
sources were very slim. I occupied a small
building, using the first floor as a show room
and the second as my living quarters. I had as an
assistant, a Catholic young man who interested me
very much. He had those attractive qualities which
go to make a universal favorite. Our work brought
us together a great deal. In the course of a year we
had become fast friends. One afternoon I unfolded
to him my ambition of building up my business
until it should become a factor in the commercial
world. After saving a little more money, I would
enlarge my store and continue to do so until my
dream should be realized. 'And I,' he said to me,
'have also an ambition. You want to rule in the
commercial world, but I am looking higher, for I
have set my heart on ruling in the spiritual world.
From the time that I can remember, I have always
wanted to be a priest. I have studied at school, I
have studied at night, I have worked for you, I
have saved my earnings, all to this one end, that
some day I should be a priest.' I looked at him in
surprise and for a moment I could not speak. That
this young man, talented and efficient, had but one
desire and that to forsake the prospects that the '
future held out to him in order to consecrate his life
to God, was something new in my experience. I was
astounded. True, I had read of such men, but this
was the first time I had ever met one. To me this
man was deserving of help and I told him so. I
determined to be his friend not only in word but in
deed.
Today, 'my boy,' for such I always call him,
is a good priest and it is one of the joys of my life
to know that I helped to put him where he is. My
life's ambition of becoming an influential business
man has been fulfilled and so has his. I am a power
in the commercial world but his power is far greater
than mine, for it reaches even to the throne of God.''
6IGHTEEN years ago, a man walked into my
establishment and asked me for a position.
His face and appearance bore all the marks
of an habitual drunkard. I questioned him and
found out that he was homeless and had been drink-
ing but wanted to reform. I next learned that he
was a Catholic. I told him that if he would go to
the priest, take the pledge, and bring me back the
card, I would employ him. He did so and I installed
him as janitor. For one month he gave entire satis-
faction, then disappeared. At the end of a week
he returned. I don't know why I did it but I gave
him another chance but on one condition only, that
this time he would go to confession and then take
the pledge over again. He did as I told him.
Today, Father, if you go into my shipping depart-
THE + SIGN
ment, you will find him superintendent, my most
reliable employee and an excellent Catholic."
* * * *
"^^HANKSGIVING-DAY, quite a few years
V/y ago, was exceptionally cold and raw. On
arriving home, I found everything nice and
cozy and the savory odors from the kitchen told me
that a feast was in preparation. The thought of the
need and hunger of the many poor about us, came
to me; I could not help but contrast my present
abundance with their dismal want. I told my wife
that we must share our dinner with some poor
unfortunate. So out I went again and after some
time I came upon just the one I wanted. I said to
him: 'You look hungry.' 'I sure am,' he replied.
I brought him home with me. A bath and some
clean clothes worked wonders. We sat down to-
gether and enjoyed a great big turkey and all that
goes along with it. Our guest stayed with us over
night and we had a long talk, in the course of which
he told me that he had been in business in Boston
and had failed. He had come to New York and
meeting with no success tried to forget the past in
dissipation. The following day I shared some of my
clothes with him; I could not give him an overcoat
for I had only one. Those were the days when even
my pennies had to be counted. That evening I took
him to the Fall River Boat, bought him his ticket
and gave him a dollar for I could not spare more.
I thought I had seen the last of him, and he quite
passed out of mind.
A year later, just as we were sitting down to
dinner, the door bell rang. A gentleman wished
to see me for a moment. I went into the parlor
and found a well dressed and to all appearances a
successful business man. 'Do you not know me?'
he asked, 'why, I took dinner with you last Thanks-
giving Day.' It was the man I had found in the
by-ways; our honored guest of the year before."
* * * *
fOMETIMES my wife and I go to St. John's
to attend Mass. Don't be astonished,
Father. I go because I always feel at
peace in your church during Mass. One Sunday,
we met a friend of ours, a Catholic, who like us
was on his way to church. He was surprised to
learn where we were going and bluntly asked me
why I went to a Catholic Church. I answered him in
the words of Scripture : 'When thou art in the holy
place my shadow is upon thee.' A few days later,
I met him and he told me that he had got up that
morning at five o'clock and had walked two miles
to Mass for the words I had quoted to him kept
ringing in his ears and made him appreciate the
value of the Mass. 'When thou art in the holy
place my shadow is upon thee.'
* * * *
BT this point I interrupted him and told him
that I was convinced that he ought to be a
Catholic and that I thought the greatest gift
that God could give him was the gift of the Catholic
faith.
"Perhaps, I am more of a Catholic, Father,
than you think. If I had my street coat on, I would
show you something, a pair of beads and a crucifix.
I will tell you how I came to get them.
Some years ago a little nun used to come here.
She came almost every week for six months or more.
I made it a point to attend to her myself and I saw
to it that she was given the best service. She was
very grateful for my kindness but I could see that
she feared the day when our account would be
closed. As you know, Father, my prices are rather
high. The last day she came, she timidly asked
me for the bill. I looked at her and I felt that she
was thinking of her little orphans, of what they
should eat and wherewith they should be clothed.
I knew that every dollar I charged her would be so
much less for them. I said to her: 'Dear Sister,
you owe me nothing, it has been a pleasure to serve
you.' Her innocent eyes mirrored her grateful
heart for she could not speak. She reached for her
little black bag and took out a rosary and a crucifix
and gave them to me. Father, since I have been
in business, I have received thousands of dollars
in payment for my services, but I value that rosary
and that crucifix far more than all the rest. No
amount of money could buy them from me.
It is now over fourteen years since she gave
them to me. All these years they have been my
constant companions. And, Father, every morning
before I begin business, I take those beads and that
crucifix in my hand, and I ask the good God to
keep me and all those who serve me, pleasing in
His sight during the day."
It is hard to realize that the foregoing are real
occurences in the life of a prominent New York
business man, yet such they are. We might take
them and weave a long story about them — "If this
were fiction."
Current Fact and Comment
WHAT YOUR
QMONG the radio broadcasting stations we
notice a Bible Institute, a Presbyterian church
and the Y. M. C. A. These institutions have
been prompt to utilize the most marvellous instru-
ment hitherto devised by physical science for the
general entertainment of the public. In its uncanny
simplicity, availability and in the intimacy which
it provides, the radio becomes a means of propo-
RADIO BRINGS
ganda perhaps more effective than the press. The
same "liberty" may be claimed by the employers
of both. It is too early to judge whether the same
recklessness that characterizes the opponents of
faith and of the social order in their use of the press
will appear in their use of the radio. In any case
the evil should be forestalled.
INTO THE BYWAYS
^^^HE autovan of the Boston lay apostolate is
LJ in the field for its fifth season. This specially
designed travelling rostrum has admirably
realized its purpose described by Cardinal O'Connell
when he blessed it in 1917 : This auto-car will bring
glory to God and truth to men. We gladly bless this
holy project initiated by devout Catholics for the
purpose of making the truth and the Church known
wherever the car may go." In the meantime it has
made a transcontinental tour in charge of those
fervent expounders of Catholic truth, Mrs. Margaret
Moore Avery and David Goldstein. Thousands of
copies of Catholic books and pamphlets have been
distributed. In view of the comment that the
methods of the Apostles and other zealous mission-
aries in carrying the truth into the highways and
byways had gone into desuetude, the Boston auto-
van has demonstrated the feasibility and efficacy of
such procedure. It has pointed the way : let us have
a fleet of them.
MOTHER GOVERNMENT
^^HE New York legislature has passed its own
LJ maternity measure. Thus a few more un-
employed are added to the state pay-roll.
While it may be preferable to have this new bureau
under state rather than federal control, and although
the need of it may not have been designedly
exaggerated, one must feel concern regarding the
sense of responsibility, the theories and capability
of the prospective agents. We have this widely
quoted item from a western country paper: "A
special car of the State Health Board, in charge of
CLEMENCEAU'S POINT OF VIEW
a richly gowned and bejeweled young woman, came
to town not long ago, and mothers were commanded
to hurry to the depot and take instructions as to
how to raise their babies. Then came a Govern-
ment nurse, another unmarried woman, weighing
the babies and instructing the mothers as to the
sort of infants they must give birth to hereafter,
etc., etc. . . Men, women and children are restrained,
assessed, directed, prohibited, admonished, examined
and constantly reminded what a rare privilege it
is to be a citizen of this free country."
GOLONEL Repington in his diary records a
meeting with Clemenceau and incidentally
finding him in the best of company, a spiritual
daughter of St. Vincent. Shortly before he had been
shot and the conversation turned upon that. "His
wound? It did not trouble him at all. The bullet
was still there, and he pointed to the spot a little
to the right of his breastbone, below the throat,
where it lay transversely. It was quite happy there,
and had found a resting-place. His Sister of Charity
had described it as a miracle of Heaven that this
was so. Clemenceau had replied that if Heaven
had intended to perform a miracle it would have
been better to have prevented his aggressor from
shooting him at all."
Probably the old Frenchman meant this only
for a bit of cynical humor. He knew better —
knew that the purpose of a miracle is to arouse
attention, wonder, gratitude. As to mere prevention,
the diverting of harm from us, Providence must
needs be busy in our favor hourly. Not being con-
scious of the benign process, we grow heedless of
the source of our security. It is when Providence
suspends its ordinary protective laws, allows evil to
encompass us and still not harm us that we have
the purpose of a miracle realized. Lazarus had to
die before the Divine power could be made manifest
in raising him up. Christ had to suffer "these
things" preparatory to the triumphant testimony of
his resurrection.
20
THE 1* SIGN
GETTING IT TO
^i^^HERE is an old story of a man who put a
y_ J dollar and a penny in the envelope which he
dropped into the missionary collection-plate.
He explained that the cent was for the heathen and
the dollar to get it to them. The point in the story
scarcely applies to the functioning of Catholic
charities. An analysis of the various diocesan
THE HEATHEN
charity reports reveals gratifying economy in apply-
ing very generous contributions to the relief of the
distressed and unfortunate. Regarding your con-
tributions to the foreign missions, so directly do
they reach their object and so carefully are they
administered by self-sacrificing missionaries that
the point in the story might fairly be reversed.
ONE BORN EVERT MINUTE
^^ECENTLY on complaint of hundreds of de-
l3£ luded investors the directors of a "mining
company" were jailed in the metropolis. It
was estimated that through the primitive scheme of
"salting" a few acres of land they secured close to
a million dollars in exchange for beautifully en-
graved stock certificates. One marvels that so
crude a scheme portraying rich, parallel veins of
silver, gold and platinum lying at the city's border
should find so many easy victims. The promotors
opportunely reckoned that a sufficient number of the
unwary were on hand — having been accumulated
according to the familiar ratio of one a minute. It
is this more or less extravagant axiom that lends
encouragement to the wilful calumniators of the
Church and of Catholic organizations. Bigotry
"though crushed to earth will rise again." We grow
weary of rebuttal. Scarcely have we clearly con-
vinced our fellow-citizens that Catholics have no
WHAT WILL
^^^HE movement to interest parents in college
^ J training for our youth is very commendable.
If the college is the gateway to both affluence
and influence we should not be at ease knowing
that our youth were peculiarly indifferent to the fact.
Upon the Catholic college particularly do we base
our hopes that the interests of religion and of the
Cathoiic family will be in efficient hands in the
coming generation.
But, in any case, parents should beware of
letting their children start wrong as wage-earners.
In this matter justice demands that parents un-
selfishly direct and advise. There are too many
jobs with a fair wage but requiring only a certain
automatic service which boys and girls are often
too eager to take in exchange for the grind of their
school days. Thus is ambition often quenched and
many a career shunted into a dull rut.
Large contractors will inform you that there
is no prospect of building costs coming down so
malignant designs upon the public schools or the
constitution, that Rome has laid no far-reaching
plans to control the government at Washington,
than these and equally silly charges are reiterated,
clothed with new alarms and portents. Let the
census show a notable increase in the Catholic
populations, let a Catholic run for public office, let
the Knights of Columbus undertake any large, dis-
interested project, and forthwith the bigots go off
with a hiss. Gall spurts from them at a touch.
And, withal, the peculiarity of their charges is their
utter lack of novelty. Very reasonably do they
expect results from the persistent circulation of
refuted calumnies on the simple ground that the
supply of the unwary is perennial. On the same
ground must the Catholic press ceaselessly cope
with error and keep at its task of refutation and
enlightenment.
JOHNNY BE?
far as wages are concerned. This because of the
ever growing scarcity of skilled labor. Even in
this period of unemployment some builders find it
necessary to offer premiums on the present high
wage. Expressing his concern for the future in the
structural crafts, one well-known builder lamented
the days when the boys in our families, with no
thought of white-collar jobs, were proud to be
apprenticed to carpenters, bricklayers and the like.
It is remarkable that the tendency to take up these
occupations has decreased in proportion to their
becoming notably more lucrative and less irksome.
As the choice of occupation must be made at
a comparatively early age, parents should advise
and direct, weighing sharply the chances for success
either in the more influential professions for which
a college preparation is required or in those very
lucrative occupations attainable through apprentice-
ship or a course of manual training.
THE + SIGN
SOME READING TO AVOID
[PEAKING of the wisdom of holy Mother
Church, there can be little doubt that Ruskin
approved the formal restraints she placed
upon promiscuous reading since he thus treats the
most popular group of French writers : "I believe
it (The Hunchback of Notre Dame) to be the most
disgusting book ever written by man, and on the
whole to have caused more brutality and evil than
LATIN TO
DIVERSITY of language is a serious incon-
venience in international trade. Little pro-
gress has been made with two artificial
languages devised to overcome the obstacle. A
really more practical proposition is that recently
urged: the general study and use of Latin.
The wisdom of the Church is again manifest
in her having retained this venerable tongue for
both official and liturgical purposes. It may be
interesting to repeat here succinctly the reasons why
the Church uses Latin.
1. A mark of the true Church is her univers-
ality. A universal community requires a universal
language.
any other French writing with which I am acquaint-
ed. Balzac is sensusal, but he is an artist of the
highest touch and a philosopher even in his sensu-
ality. Eugene Sue paints virtue as well as vice.
Dumas is absurd and useless, but interesting;
Beranger blasphemous, but witty; George Sand
immoral, but elegant. But for pure, dull, virtueless,
stupid, deadly poison read Victor Hugo.
THE RESCUE
2. Being a "dead" language, Latin is change-
less. Living languages undergo notable changes.
As an example, if the Church had used French in
the formula of baptism, this would have had to be
changed more than sixty times.
3. No language excells the Latin in dignity,
beauty or clearness.
4. From the standpoint of the people it fosters
a universal brotherhood making a Catholic feel at
home in a Roman Catholic church anywhere through-
out the world. The meaning of the Latin is quite
clearly conveyed through the ceremonies or the
translation in the prayerbook..
ARTHUR CONAN DOYLE'S SPIRITUALITY
^^HE term by which one critic described the
V^ J figure of Conan Doyle lecturing on spiritism
was "Pathetic". Few there were inclined to
judge him insincere, yet few also who could com-
prehend how the master analyst of human motives
could entertain his notions of the other world.
Christians in his audience had to be conciliated.
Hence a certain reverence for Christ was proclaimed
and the purpose of the lecturer emphasised as an
effort to raise society from gross materialism to a
spiritual plane. Conan Doyle's conception of the
spiritual order is as incongruous as that of the
lowliest deluded medium. Undaunted by the as-
surance of the Savior that "it hath not entered into
the heart of man to conceive what God hath pre-
pared for those who love Him," the lecturer describes
the after life in minute detail. Most men would
prefer the joys and conflicts of this tough old world
to his weird heaven. Admittedly most of his in-
formation is gathered from the common spooky
source of the seance. At these assemblages the
text of St. Matthew is seriously invoked: "Where
two or three are gathered in My Name, there am I
in the midst of them." Thereupon the lights are
extinguished, the sitters form a circle of a precise
diameter, they experiment with relative positions,
are directed to keep both feet on the floor and not
to bend over, to help their mood by singing either
sacred or secular songs and are assured that with
these and various other puerile formalities the all
holy God co-operates. And upon the purported
revelations thus received they would build up a code
of morality to cure the world 'of materialism!
There is hope for Sir Arthur, pretended Christian
and lover of his fellows, did he only give proper
direction to his craving for the supernatural, and
presuming that his marvellous reason has not be-
come as "sweet bells jingled, out of tune and harsh."
What a wholesome alterative for such a mind as
his in the noble and splendid visions of the
Apocalypse ! And what joyous astonishment would
seize upon him were he to arise from the dark,
grovelling plane of spiritism to an appreciation of
the mysteries of the Incarnation and Redemption
and were he seriously to inquire whether it was for
a testimony of the trivial and grewsome revelations
of mediums that the Son of God hung in woeful
anguish and gave His life upon the Cross.
The Catholic Grandson of Renan
Ronald Betson
Redacted from translation of a sketch in V Ami du Clerge appearing in
American Church Monthly.
aS Italy had her Giosue Borsi, so France had
her Ernest Psichari, convert, soldier and
ardent lover of Christ. He was born at
Paris, September 27, 1883. His father
had him baptized in his own, the Greek Orthodox
Church. His mother was Noemi Renan, daughter
of the author of the blasphemous "Life of Jesus."
She was bitterly hostile to Christianity. Psichari
was brought up without religion. He finished his
studies at the Sorbonne, taking the licentiate in
philosophy in 1903. At that time he was summoned
to his term of military service and at the expiration
of this he startled his friends by re-enlisting.
Enamored of the open air and wide horizons he
entered the colonial artillery under the assurance
that thus he would be withdrawn from the narrow-
ness and futilities of modern life. In the Congo in
1908 he wrote "Terres de Soleil et de Sommeil," in
praise of primitive desert life. In its liquid and
harmonious prose and in its theme the superficial
reviewers pretended to hear nothing more than an
echo of his famous grand-sire. Made sub-lieuten-
ant he served from 1909 to 1912 in Mauretania. His
"L'Appel des Armes" (1912) describes rather the
lure of the desert, for it was there the grace of God
awaited him. He loved the desert not only for the
range it offered to the eager gallop of the cavalier,
but also as the Thebaid where the solitary achieves
high contemplation. He had not relapsed into a
languid mysticism — the negation of intellectual
activity. An intellectual by education he protested
that he. would ever rank intelligence above all else.
In his case there are the familiar progress and
conflict of the soul before submission but set down
with a new and absorbing interest. His masters had
failed to provide either hope or grounds for action:
he will find them only in the Church. Only in the
Church is humanity made and remade, only in the
Church have truth and purity a chance to be other
than mere words. In order that some day he may
merit membership, he accepts, he offers all his
hardships.
He writes: "Undoubtedly, I said to myself,
there are great souls among those who do not be-
lieve. But they are rare. One finds unselfishness,
courage and kindness among those who dwell
farthest from the Church — no one can deny it.
But from the way of purgation through which the
Savior was now leading me, how common, how rude,
on analysis, these virtues appeared! .... But, so
it seemed to me, all these rank small in the eyes
of Him Who has imposed on those souls who are
truly chosen such demands as the scales of human
morality cannot measure."
nE is struck by the gospel texts of renunciation :
If any man come to Me and hate not his
father .... Whosoever shall give his life
shall lose it ... . Blessed are you when men hate
you. "These terrible precepts rose up in memory,
and I said to myself that it is Jesus, and He alone,
who has given commandments like these: Die to
yourselves, be meek, lose yourself in My love ....
In the face of this spiritual abundance, this sovereign
power, this plenitude which breathes from the
smallest words of Jesus, what are the poor com-
mandments which man makes ? And then I thought
on those who have faithfully executed these orders;
I turned my thoughts towards the saints and the
blessed, and it was impossible for me to deny that
they are the loftiest examples of virtue which the
world has seen. Then, after this gaze of love
toward heaven, I could not bring myself to believe
that the longing for those most fragrant virtues
was to be forever denied me. Is the religion false
which proclaims a code like this?" No, it could
not be false.
And on June 15, 1912, he wrote to Jacques
Maritain, himself a convert from Protestantism, con-
fidant of many souls, now professor of scholastic
philosophy at the Catholic Institute of Paris, grand-
son of Jules Favre: "Every attempt to escape Catho-
licism is an absurdity and a sin of ingratitude, for
there is nothing great, nothing beautiful in our hearts
which does not come from Catholicism And
just as science was founded by believers, so also all
that is noble and sublime in our morality comes from
that same grand and unique source of Christianity,
from whose abandonment flow false morality and
false science." But immediately he adds: "Despite
THE *t SIGN
all that I have not the faith. I am, if I dare say so
absurd a thing, a Catholic without the faith. ... I
wonder how harshly you will hold me to account.
It seems to me that I detest just those whom you
detest, and love those whom you love ; that I scarcely
differ from you except in that grace has not touched
me. Grace! there is the mystery of mysteries. . . .
Beyond the farthest glow of the horizon I can feel
the presence of all the souls of the apostles, the
virgins and the martyrs, with the unnumbered army
of witnesses and confessors. They take me by
storm; by main force they carry me away toward
high heaven, and with my whole heart I long for
their purity, their humility, I long for the chastity
which girds them and the humility that crowns
them, I long for their grace and strength. I cannot
hold back. Oh my God, deign to look upon this
misery and this trust. Have pity on one who has
been sick for thirty years."
^^^HIS was written early in August, 1912. About
^ J two months later a great illumination came
to him. "When I was quitting the encamp-
ment of Agotin, I experienced great anguish of heart.
An entire period of my life fell away abruptly into
the past. Behind me a great and gloomy crevasse
opened. A dull twilight settled down upon my years
of misery."
"But at the same time the light of dawn was
breaking, a dawn of youth and of purity — and in
front of me a celestial radiance overspread the
horizon. This time I knew whither I went. I was
going toward Holy Church, catholic, apostolic and
Roman, I was going towards the abode of peace and
of blessing, toward joy, health; I was going, alas!
toward my healing. And then, thinking of that true
Mother who for years had awaited me, there, across
two continents, and who from afar stretched forth
her arms which pardon all. I wept from very joy,
from love and gratitude. . . . Before me there arose
an immense and majestic temple, founded upon
solid rock, a temple of reason and of divine wisdom ;
and all the lines of this temple were so straight,
so pure and unified, that, before it, one could have
no other wish than to dwell forever within its
shadow, far away from the illusions and shadows of
the world ..."
At the end of 1912 he is in Paris and writes to
Maritain: "I know now that nothing is so good as
prayer, for invariably I begin it with distaste and
yet I never fail to conclude it with joy and peace of
heart. What can be the far-reaching power which
these words have, thus to work upon a heart so
inaccessible and hard?"
We come to February 3, 1913 in the diary of
Mme. Maritain, herself a convert from Judaism.
"Jacques arrived with Ernest about eleven. Pere
Clerissac toward noon. We saw that they took
to each other and are congenial. Ernest is so direct
and frank with the Father. Luncheon full of
emotion. After luncheon the Father led Ernest off
to the park. They were gone for two hours during
which time we did not cease from prayer. Every-
thing was about to be decided. At last they returned
and the Father put before us the program arranged
and which filled us with joy: Tomorrow confession,
then confirmation at the first moment possible, and
on Sunday first Communion; then, in thanksgiving, a
pilgrimage to Chartres. Ernest has understood the
Father completely and the latter could find no
resistance in him, 'a straightforward soul and en-
tirely filled with faith.' "
"Tuesday, February 4th. Toward four o'clock
the Father and Ernest arrive. Our little chapel is
all decked; the candles are lighted, two fine new
candles, blessed on Sunday."
"Kneeling before the statue of our Lady of
Salette, with a voice strong and yet greatly moved,
Ernest Psichari read the profession of faith of Pius
IV and that of Pius X. The Father stands erect,
like a witness before God. Jacques and I listen on
our knees, trembling with emotion. When this
reading is over we leave and the confession begins.
While it lasts we pray without ceasing. At last,
we are called, and we find Ernest transformed,
radiant with happiness. It is an hour of beatitude
for all. 'You behold! the Father tells us, 'a man
who belongs entirely to God' .... 'Ah, yes! I am
happy,' Ernest cries, and it is not hard to believe. . ."
ON the following day he received his first
Communion at the chapel of the Sisters of the
Holy Infancy; then the pilgrimage to Notre
Dame de Chartres. On his return he confides to
Pere Clerrisac : "I feel that I can give to God all that
He may demand."
At his confirmation he took the name Paul in
reparation for Renan's attacks on St. Paul. He
belonged to God entirely. He received Communion
every morning and daily recited the office of the
Blessed Virgin. His whole life was a continuous
prayer, for him prayer was "the normal attitude of
THE + SIGN
the creature who desires to maintain his post
beneath his Creator." To retain his post, to be in
his place, is the great care of this Christian soldier.
For his friends it was a marvel to see him thus
enter into the Christian life without apprenticeship,
without transition, as though he had been a Catholic
always. Said Massis : "He knows all without having
been taught, his prayers turn out to be the same
which the Church has poured forth throughout the
ages." He cries out in the intoxication of his dis-
coveries : "My Savior, is it then so simple to love
Thee!" On a sudden one saw him in that gaiety of
heart which salvation brings, something luminous
in his eyes, something of confidence and tenderness,
which bespoke the childlike innocence of his soul.
nE addresses Pere Clerissac : "You have taught
me, my dearly beloved Father, that there is
but one book to read — the Cross. May I
achieve the writing of that book within me, that I
may make amends for so many years of ignorance."
"What ought I to do," he writes February 8,
1914, "and what, precisely, is it that God wishes of
me ?" A first step was his reception into the Third
Order of St. Dominic in the previous September.
With the secular priesthood in view, he rejoiced
fancying himself a rural cure in some Breton rectory
taking the place which his grandfather should- have
occupied. To make expiation for him! He has
been told that at the very moment of judgment the
soul of Renan may have been relieved of its guilt
through the prayer of some Carmelite. But it was
the religious life that drew him and the following
summer he fixed his choice upon the Dominican
Order. God prepared another immolation for him.
The war broke out. He left on the second day of
the mobilization declaring to his director at Cher-
bourg: "I go to this war as to a crusade, for I
feel that the two great causes to which I have
dedicated my life are at stake."
Near six o'clock on the evening of August
22nd. near Neufchateau in Belgium, after having
stood for twelve hours under a terrific fire, he was
killed by a bullet in the temple. All were in wonder
at the calmness which fixed itself upon his face.
He had been able to seize his rosary and it was
wound about his hands. As his friend, Jacques
Maritain, bears witness, "at the age of thirty, having
accomplished all, God called him into life and into
glory, in a holocaust freely consented to and con-
summated in union with the Sacrifice of the Altar."
La^-Retreats in the Middle West
gMOST healthful sign of the times, as gleaned
from Catholic periodicals, is the growing
frequency and popularity of retreats for the
laity. These retreats are conducted in the buildings
of colleges and academies', and extend usually over
the week end. Of necessity they are limited to the
summer months when the students are gone to their
homes. Societies and leagues have been formed to
educate the Catholic public and encourage men and
women to make an annual retreat. These retreats
and retreat leagues are widespread in the East, and
now comes the summer programme of The Mission-
ary Association of Catholic Women, with central
offices in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, exhibiting a true
missionary spirit, as the animating principal of the
Association. Besides a Missionary Convention in
Sioux City, Iowa, announcement is made of no less
than thirteen retreats already arranged, with others
under way, covering the four States of Indiana,
Iowa, Nebraska, and Wisconsin; and extending from
June 3d. to August 27th.
Statistics of the number of lay retreatants are
not available, for the United States, but if the figures
given for Holland for 1921 be correct, it is not
likely that for several years to come will retreatants
from our eighteen million Catholics pass the 250,000
mark, given for that small Non-Catholic country of
Europe.
Saints and Si
inners
Luis Coloma, S. J.
Copyrighted 1922, by The Sign
SYNOPSIS OF PREVIOUS INSTALLMENTS:
Curra, Countess of Albornoz, wife of the Marquis of Villamelon, is an intriguing woman of society in
Madrid. She attempts secretly to secure a remunerative position as chief-lady-in-waiting at the Spanish court,
to ally herself with King Amadeo, the Italian "usurper" of the Spanish throne and brother of King Victor
Emmanuel of Savoy. Her friends, the Duchess of Bara and others, supporters of the ex-Queen Isabel and her
son Alfonso, who have taken refuge in Paris, suspect her intrigue. Curra denies her part in the transaction
and steals an incriminating letter written to the Amadist gavernment by her husband requesting the position at
King Amadeo's court, from one of the King's ministers, Don Martin. Then by a forged letter she forces the
Amadist police to raid her house for incriminating documents. The result of this antagonistic raid by the
Amadist police is to restore complete confidence in her loyalty to the party of the ex-Queen. She habitually
neglects her son Luis and daughter Lili, as well as her husband, and involved herself in intrigues with various
men, particularly one John Velarde, who is forced by Curra to fight an unnecessary duel to defend her "honor"
and who is killed in so doing.
The scene then shifts to Paris, where Spanish refugees are gathering after the Revolution in Spain which
has overthown Amadeo and established a temporary Republic. Jacob Tellez, a cousin of Curra, and husband
of Elvira, Marchioness of Sabadell, whom he has basely deserted, himself a libertine and politician of the worst
type, ex-Ambassador to Constantinople, from which city he has been forced to flee after a vulgar intrigue with
the Cadi's wife, arrives there. Having stopped in Italy on his way to Paris, Victor Emmanuel has given him
important Masonic documents to carry to King Amadeo. In desperate want of money, his political future
jeopardized by the Revolution in Spain, Jacob opens and steals the sealed letters. These documents place in
his hands formidable weapons with which to attract certain influential Spanish politicians. By chance "Uncle"
Frasquito, a delapidated Spanish grandee, finds the Masonic seals attached to the documents in Jacob's room.
Jacob rashly presents Frasquito with the incriminating seals for his collection of diplomatic seals. Jacob then
decides that his best plan to secure ready money is to become reconciled to his wife, a good and devout woman,
who has recently won a lawsuit and considerable wealth. He plans to do this through the agency of two of
his wife's friends, Father Cifuentes and the Marchioness of Villasis. Jacob has in the meantime attracted the
favorable attention of Curra, who wishes him to take the place of her dead confidant, John Velarde.
CHAPTER XVI.
aNCLE Frasquito's legs had begun to give
way under him. He returned to the hotel
about four o'clock, tired and discouraged
because he had been unable to spread
the tale of Jacob's intrigue through more than two-
thirds of the Spanish colony in Paris.
On his return he found that the tragic tale
had a sequel ; for Jacob came to him again to request
further assistance. Jacob explained that the night
previous he had tossed from one side of his bed
to the other, watching the pleasures of thirty-three
years, the adventures and sins thereof, trail past
him, and that he had finally been overcome with
repugnance for them all.
Uncle Frasquito listened with gaping mouth.
Then Jacob suddenly abandoning the sentimental
tone of his peroration, asked him in plain prose
where his wife Elvira was at this time. Uncle
Frasquito's countenance showed disgust. "Elvira?"
h« answered. "I'm sure I don't know. I think at
Biarritz. Lopez Moreno's wife said yesterday that
she had seen her there."
Jacob was silent and distracted for a moment,
and Uncle Frasquito hastened to add, bursting as
he was with curiosity: "If you would like exact
information, I know someone who can help you."
"Who?"
"Father Cifuentes."
"What! Do you know Father Cifuentes?"
"Surely! He is my nephew. He is the son of
Tonito Cifuentes — "
"Is he also at Biarritz?"
"No, he is in Paris — Rue de Sevres." And
then with an air of slight suspicion, Uncle Frasquito
added: "Do you wish me to see him?"
"No: I wish to see him myself."
Uncle Frasquito gave a violent start: was this
wolf turning over-night into a lamb? Or was the
wolf merely posing in lamb's clothing? "I'll take
you to see him whenever you want."
"To-morrow?"
"Certainly!"
Uncle Frasquito, always cautious, and wishing
to show Jacob the deficiencies of Father Cifuentes'
THE 1* SIGN
character, explained at length that the priest was a
poor unfortunate, without a vestige of 'good form',
who spoke of hell at the most inopportune moments,
drawing pictures of urgly and hideous little devils,
who didn't resemble in the slightest the perfumed
and exquisite little devils, whom Uncle Frasquito
pictured in evening dress, with gardenias in their
button-holes, monocles in their eyes, and red ribbons
on the tips of their tails!
"I must tell you," he continued confidentially,
"that I am very much of a Catholic, a firm believer;
only I think that there is much to be desired as far
as the clergy are concerned. Father Cifuentes, at
the funeral of General Tercena the other day, said
'good morning' to me, and actually tried to tell me
that I would myself die some day or other, and
that I must prepare myself and meditate upon
eternity. Such a fellow! Quite upsetting, and even
rude! I want to tell you this, because if you are
planning to consult him about anything, or going to
confession to him, you had — "
"Confess?" cried Jacob indignantly. "What
makes you think that?"
"But you said you wanted to talk to him."
"Well, isn't this Father Cifuentes the director
and confessor of my wife?"
"Yes, he is."
'Well, what I want him to do, is to force Elvira
to accede to my wishes."
"But what are your wishes, Jacob?" asked
Uncle Frasquito, much upset.
"My wishes are very simple ones and quite
Christian — to be reunited to my wife, and to forget
the past."
"Aaahhh!" murmured Uncle Frasquito. "But
have you thought this matter over carefully?"
"Why; do you think their fulfillment impossi-
ble?"
"No. But do you know anything about the
life which Elvira now leads?"
"I was going to ask you that."
aNCLE Frasquito made a wry face, and an-
swered hesitatingly: "I'll tell you about it,
Jacob., It's a public affair after all. But I
really don't know whether I should tell you:"
"Why shouldn't you, Uncle Frasquito?" de-
manded Jacob angrily.
"I have a right to know, and if you are really
a friend, you must tell me."
"I'm your friend, Jacob. You don't doubt me?
But there are some things — "
"What things? Speak up, man, speak up!"
"Well, Jacob, you see your wife has caused a
considerable amount of gossip everywhere."
"Is that so!"
"Yes, I don't like to tell you; but it's true. She
is completely declassee. She has been practically
ostracized by all Madrid, and practically her only
friend is Maria Villasis, a woman of the same type.
But at least the latter spends a bit of money."
"But what is all this? What actually does
Elvira do?'
"Frightful, Jacob, frightful! From the moment
she separated from you, she has disappeared com-
pletely; she hasn't been at a dance, at the opera;
or anywhere. Carmen Tagle had a maid who had
once lived with her, and the tales she told! She is
always running after the servants, because to-day is
a day of abstinence, to-morrow a day of obligation.
She seems to be impossible! They say that she
sleeps on a wooden bench, eats nothing but bread
and water, uses instruments of penance." Uncle
Frasquito stopped, gasping for breath.
V
ACOB listened to this tale tranquilly: "Bah!
If that's all, I can soon restore her to her
senses."
Then he added: "How does she live? Does
she spend much?"
"She might as well be the widow of a poor
government official! She's emaciated, she who
was once so lovely and graceful. I saw her once at
Maria Villasis' place, and she looked positively
slovenly. I have never seen her at home. I called
three times out of curiosity, but she wouldn't see
me. She lives in a small apartment in an undesir-
able neighborhood."
"She must be rather poor."
"On the contrary, she is wealthy. Haven't
you heard about it? She won her lawsuit with the
Monterrubios, and must have twenty thousand
dollars income a year."
"I am sorry to hear that," said Jacob regret-
fully.
"Sorry! Really?"
"Yes, really sorry. For since she will be
wealthier than I, there will be plenty of people who
will say I went back to her for financial reasons."
"Oh, no, no, Jacob! Nobody would even think
such a thing of you!"
THE + SIGN
"We'll see. But the important thing is, that
I have some kind of understanding with Father
Cifuentes."
"If you want, we'll go to see him to-morrow."
"Without fail!"
Uncle Frasquito, resigned to the sudden change
in his friend, arranged the hour when they would
visit the priest, as the repentant husband was
anxious to start for Biarritz at the earliest
possible moment. The two finally parted, Uncle
Frasquito running off to dress for the evening, to
be prepared for that nocturnal round of visits which
he would have to
make in order to
spread the latest
surprising news a-
mong his friends
Curra had spent
the afternoon in com-
plete silence, con-
trolling the anger
which burned within
her. Jacob had fin-
a 1 1 y refused to
breakfast with her,
on some frivilous
pretext, after accept-
ing her invitation,
and she had dis-
charged her anger
against the unfort-
unate Villamelon. A .
number of ladies
and gentlemen were gathered together in the draw-
ing-room of the hotel, in which Leopoldina Pastor's
voice reverberated harshly. Uncle Frasquito ap-
peared on the scene, bubbling over with the latest
news, and when he declared that the hero of the
most recent scandal intended to start for Biarritz
the following day, if possible, neither Curra nor
Diogenes could control their anger further. Diog-
enes rose from his seat and walked over to Uncle
Frasquito, as though he were about to hit him,
while Curra, whose anger could not be noticed save
for a slight vibration in her timid voice, began to
heap scornful remarks upon the head of the Marquis
of Sabadell, to the intense astonishment of her
husband, who still clung to the memory of the
little homily on family love to which he had listened
that morning.
c?
Peace
Sister Mary Benvenuta, 0. P.
A single cKord from some great harmony,
The v'oice of bird's tkat wake to love in Spring,
Or some old, simple song tkat children sing,
Comes fraugkt witk stillness, seeming verily"
A skining featker fallen from ker wing.
Tke stars in far, untroubled spaces glow,
Like countless candles ligkted at ker skrine,
To tired, mortal eyes ker gracious sign
Tkat men w'ko nave not found ker >>et may" know
Peace dwells eternal, infinite, divine,
HE ladies echoed Curra's scorn, agreeing that
the Marchioness of Sabadell was a hypocrite,
a bad wife, who spent the last ten years in
the company of only priests and acolytes, and who
now wished to darken the life of the unfortunate
Jacob by putting him under the tutelage of Father
Cifuentes. It was really a question of conscience
with all present to tear the mask off the hypocrite,
and to warn the unthinking husband of the plot
that was being carried out against him.
Diogenes, half way to Uncle Frasquito, decided
not to strike him, but turned on the ladies instead,
and attacked that
feminine host, say-
ing that whoever
said 'woman' said
'devil', for the fe-
male race was of
such an evil breed
that every insect,
even the chinces
Polaina! — were fe-
male.
Everybody
laughed at Diogenes'
fury, and he, to an-
noy them further,
insisted that God
nad not made Mother
Eve out of Adams'
rib, but out of the
tail of a monkey;
for according to the
Andalusian story, although He intended to do the
former, and had the rib in His hand ready for use,
a monkey, who had been watching him carefully,
suddenly grabbed the rib and ran away to hide it
in his den. The Lord pursued him, and caught
him by the tail, but the monkey tugged so hard
that he left his tail in the Lord's hands, Who
shrugged his shoulders, and said: "One thing is
just as good as another for what I intend to do."
And from this appendage was created the mother
of the race.
The ladies protested violently against Diogenes'
fable. While their protests were being made, Curra
leaned over to her husband and whispered: "Listen,
Ferdinand. I think that you had better see Jacob
and invite him to dinner. Tell him that I must see
him without fail, as I have something of interest
to him to tell him."
THE 1* SIGN
BT that moment the arrival of the mail was
announced, and Diogenes took advantage of
the confusion that ensued to seize Uncle
Frasquito firmly by the arm and drag him apart
from the others. Uncle Frasquito was terrified at
finding himself in Diogenes' clutches, and sought
to propitiate him by offering him a cigar and calling
him affectionate names. But Diogenes fixed him
with his red eyes as a snake does an unwary bird,
and imperiously demanded to know whether he was
working in league with Jacob.
He in league with Jacob! Of course not!
Jacob had asked him for a card of introduction to
Father Cifuntes, and he had given him that to get
rid of him and his annoying advances. But did
Diogenes think that he was leaguing himself with
the fellow, and mixing himself up in his sordid
intrigues ?
Diogenes suddenly released his hold, and asked:
"When does Jacob start for Biarritz?"
"To-morrow night." And added ingratiatingly:
"Of course, Jacob is attracted by the Monterrubios
millions which Elvira is now enjoying. What will
she do ? I can't imagine that saintly woman starting
life again with that Pontius Pilate!"
Diogenes turned his back on him, and Uncle
Frasquito, delighted at finding himself free, at the
trifling sacrifice of betraying his friend, rushed off
to tell Curra that Diogenes was taking the Marchion-
ess of Sabadell's part, and to deplore the fact that
the police did not see their way to preventing that
terrible old man's attacks on him.
Diogenes left the company, and entering an
adjoining writing-room, seized pen and paper and
began the following letter :
"My dear Maria:"
Here he stopped, and after scratching his
nose thoughtfully, continued:
"To-morrow that Cain of a Jacob Tellez, is
starting for Biarritz and intends to try to be recon-
ciled to his unfortunate wife, Elvira. He has
escaped from Constantinople, where he has com-
mitted I know not what crimes, and has apparently
found out that Elvira has some money, and now
wants to save her the trouble of spending it. He
will have an interview with Father Cifuentes be-
fore leaving. I am writing you this news so that
you can do something for that poor woman, who is
quite capable of handing herself over to the mercies
of her husband, if there is no one to advise her.
If I can help in any way, even to breaking Jacob's
neck, let me know and I will come. I am still
journeying with my sixty-two years on my back
to the hospital bed which you have always
prophecied for me. I wonder if I shall arrive there
before I am sixty-three?
Diogenes.
P. S. A kiss for Monica.
Here he stopped again, shaking his head slowly,
while his face assumed an expression of tenderness
and sorrow.
Little Monica, a lovely little girl of four years
and the darling of his heart, used to pull his whiskers
and make him walk on his hands and knees, pulling
him by an ear But one day she had refused to
kiss his alcoholic lips, saying with infantile repug-
nance: "No: you smell bad."
And the cynical Diogenes, who sneered at the
virtues of the virtuous and boasted of his gaities
in the most indecent places, had felt ashamed be-
fore the little girl's repugnance. His face had grown
red and his eyes suffused with tears. For three
days he had not touched a drop of liquor; but on
the fourth he had again surrendered, though he had
never atempted to kiss the child since. And even
now, at a great distance from the little girl, he felt
guilty at writing the word "kiss" in the postscript,
and blotted it out, writing instead; "Tell Monica
that I will bring her a doll which says 'papa' and
'mamma'."
Then he addressed the envelope to: —
Mme. la Marquise de Villasis,
Villa Maria,
Biarritz
CHAPTER XVII.
M^^^HE whim of a Queen created in a short
M ^\ time, out of a tiny forgotten village one
^^^^ of the best known centers of fashion. The
Empress Eugenie built in Biarritz the
Villa Eugenie, and Biarritz rose to the rank r.f
Trouville, Dieppe and Etretat. The Spaniards live
there in summer, the Russians in the autumn, and
the English in the winter, as though they wished
in turn to enjoy its charms and beauties. Villas
and palaces arose, and speculative hotels and
casinos. Piety alone remained with folded hands.
Churches were at a discount in Biarritz.
On the road to Biarritz nestles a lovely villa
THE f SIGN
in a small park, on the large iron gates of which is
inscribed "Villa Maria." Within the villa, in a small
room, two ladies sat by the fireplace and talked,
as the clock struck the hour of eleven. One was
crying silently, and the other was trying to console
her. The latter was around forty years of age, her
abundant white hair bound with a simple shell-
comb ; her embroidered gown with its rich trimmings
did not lend charm to her person, but seemed on the
contrary to receive from the noble figure of the
lady its severe elegance and graceful lines. She
was dark of complexion, her features far from
perfect, her beauty rather moral than physical.
The other lady was younger, but manifestly in poor
health and depressed. Her face was pale and oval,
and her eyes and mouth expressed a mingled
sweetness and sadness. The former were large and
blue, filled with a vague exaltation, as is that of
grief sustained by hope; the latter was pale and
drawn at the corners, indicating habitual suffering,
which is the primary sign in those who are hopeless
invalids and doomed to death. She wore a dark
hat without a veil, a cloak of fur, and a small muff
of otter skin, in which she hid her gloved hands.
This was the Marchioness of Sabadell, and
the other was her friend Maria Villasis, in whose
house she was sitting. That morning the mail had
brought important news, for the Marchioness of
Villasis had received a letter from Diogenes and
another long letter from Father Cifuentes. The
Marchioness of Sabadell had also received a letter
on her return from Mass, a letter which had shaken
whatever sensitiveness still lurked in her heart; for
the moment the unhappy lady had thought that
she was going to faint.
It had been ten years since she had last seen
Jacob's writing. Glancing at the envelope, a
mysterious intuition had given her a certainty of
the authorship of the letter. She had entered her
bedroom, her brain reeling, had drunk a glass of
water, and fallen into an armchair, staring at the
letter in her hand, hardly daring to open it.
^^^HE past swept through her mind. Her few
^ J days of happiness passed before her, those
days when she thought herself perfectly
happy in her mad love for her husband. She had
forgotten God in her happiness; and this had been
her one fault, the fault of an ungrateful child.
She realized that perfectly now, and how dearly
was she expiating it!
Small infidelities and disenchantments had first
occurred, which, however, had not succeeded in
overthrowing the idol in her heart, and which she
had easily pardoned. Then had come worse in-
fidelities, and at last the discovery of horrible
vices. Her idol became a monster, a corrupt mass
of evil inclinations, of vile habits, of indomitable
passions. She had tried to tear his very image
from her hear.t, but her soul still held to him, cling-
ing to the idol which always lived within her, even
amid shame and sorrow.
And then, after all these years, this letter
aroused all those memories of crushing sorrows,
incredible offences, and black sins. The unfortunate
woman feared for herself, as she felt the love for
her husband rising once more in her heart, still
alive and vital, living without hope, yet as immortal
as the very soul itself. She wept bitterly. Thoughts
of her son came to her, whom she had defended for
so long against his own father; and she was afraid
that this weakness of hers would force her to com-
promise with the temptation which engulfed her.
At the end of the room hung a beautiful
picture of the Holy Family, over a small prie-dieu,
and on this the Marchioness sank, to read her
letter at the Virgin's feet. Jacob brusquely informed
his wife that he was on his way to visit her to
talk over some important business matters ; his visit
had met with the approval of Father Cifuentes, an
excellent priest whom he had met in Paris. The
Marchioness thought that she had not correctly under-
stood this last statement, and read it over and over
again. She had never observed the vice of hypo-
crisy in Jacob; yet this letter was either redolent
with it, or else God had worked in him one of His
miracles. Was it possible that that heart, frozen
in its cold egotism, had been thawed by the in-
fluence of Father Cifuentes? It seemed absurd,
yet it was possible; she had prayed for this every
day of her life for twelve years; and God was so
good, so kind, so fatherly!
The Marchioness smothered the voice in her
soul which cried out that this was but some villain-
ous farce, in order to admit a ray of hope into her
heart, which would dissipate the shadows of her
sorrow. Without thought of breakfast, Elvira
hurried to her friend's house, deluding herself with
the idea of seeking counsel from the clear under-
standing of the Marchioness of Villasis; yet really
seeking but a confirmation of her own hopes.
30
THE f SIGN
^^^HE Marchioness of Villasis knew what to do,
V_J for Father Cifuentes had written a full ac-
count of his meeting with Jacob. The latter
had come to see him, hiding as best he could his
suspicions. But on seeing the insignificant little
man, plain and even careless of speech, with his
hands ever hidden in his sleeves, his fear and
suspiciousness had turned to contempt, and with that
disdain with which the proud address the humble,
he had informed him of his desire to be reunited
to his wife, and to forget the past, expressing the
wish that the priest himself would urge his wife
to accede to his request.
The Jesuit's hands receded further into his
sleeves, and he expressed the opinion that nothing
was more in accordance with Christian principles
than family peace and forgiveness of injuries. But
as for advising her Ladyship the Marchioness to
accede to the request of his Lordship the Marquis,
his Lordship must bear in mind that her Ladyship
had not consulted him about the matter, and it was
necessary that he be asked for advice before he
gave it.
Jacob was about to reply, when Father Cifuentes
added that he understood that the Marchioness
of Sabadell was about to leave Biarritz, and that in
case he did not find her there, it might be prudent
of his Lordship to see the Marchioness of Villasis,
a great friend of his, intelligent and virtuous, to
whom he would give him a letter of introduction,
requesting her to interest herself in the matter.
Uncle Frasquito, who, out of curiosity, had
made himself a witness of this interview, entered
the conversation to say that this was a splendid
idea, and that the best thing Jacob could do, would
be to interview the Marchioness of Villasis as soon
as possible; for what she could not get out of his
wife no one else in the world could.
Jacob pondered the idea, and at last decided
to write direct to his wife, in order to postpone
her departure by news of his arrival, accepted the
letter of introduction to the Marchioness of Villasis,
and took leave of Father Cifuentes. During the
conversation he had with great pains refused to call
him Father, addressing him as Senor Cifuentes.
Senor Cifuentes accompanied the pair to the
door, his hands still in his sleeves, and upon seeing
them depart in a carriage murmured: "What an
exact allegory of the world ! Folly in league with
vice!"
HATHER Cifuentes immediately wrote a letter
to the Marchioness of Villasis, explaining
Jacob's plans, and requesting her to prevent
Jacob meeting Elvira at all costs, so that he might
not deceive her again, and also advising her to
get rid of, and forever, by some feminine ingenuity,
this worthless husband, who now wished to despoil
his unfortunate wife, and also injure his innocent
son. The Marchioness of Villasis was careful not
to tell Elvira all this, but little by little began to
undeceive the unfortunate woman. She read the
letter which Elvira handed her without a word, and
returned it to her. The latter questioned her tear-
fully, and the Marchioness of Villasis then replied,
shaking her head sadly:' "I wouldn't believe him
under oath!"
Elvira lowered her head, crushed by words
which destroyed that castle of hope which she
had built in the depths of her heart: "I have prayed
so hard! I have wept so much!"
"That is true. But he has lied again and again,
and has gone too far!"
"God can perform a miracle."
"And man can make it useless."
"I hope not."
"I am afraid that it is so."
"How do you know?"
"But what reasons have you to think as you
do, Elvira?"
Elvira wept bitterly without answering. The
Marchioness of Villasis caught her to her breast,
and kissed her forehead, whispering softly to her
as one does to an unhappy child. She, still weeping,
moaned: "But what shall I do? What shall I do?"
"Leave Biarritz."
"Where shall I go?"
"To Lourdes, to stay with Our Lady until the
storm is over."
"But he will come after me!"
"He will not; I shall stop him."
"But if it should prove true, Maria?" Elvira
cried, still holding fast to her hope. "What if
his repentence is sincere, and the unfortunate man
finds the door closed on him?"
"I shall find that out, and will myself bring him
to Lourdes. All three of us will follow you, your
husband, your son, and myself."
"Ah! Little Alfonso ! Child of my heart! What
shall I do with him? Shall I take him with me?"
"No! Let him stay at the College."
"No! No! I cannot do that, "cried Elvira.
THE 1* SIGN
"What if his father should find there, and take him
away with him? It would kill me! It would kill
me!"
Terrified by the thought, the poor lady nearly
fainted again. The Marchioness forced her to drink
a cup of bouillon and gradually succeeded in quiet-
ing her. They then arranged their plans. Elvira
was to leave that very evening for Lourdes, taking
Mile. Carmagnac, a most worthy woman and
governess of little Monica, with her. The
Marchioness of Villasis then dictated a letter for
Elvira, which would be given to Jacob when he
arrived, and in which Elvira said that urgent business
prevented her waiting for him in Biarritz, but that
the Marchioness of Villasis had full powers to come
to any business arrangements that were necessary
with him, Elvira agreeing in advance to whatever
decisions they arrived at.
^^^HE two ladies breakfasted together, Elvira
^/^ leaving with her friend such papers as the
Marchioness of Villasis needed for the inter-
view with Jacob. They then left for Guichon, a
small town near Biarritz, where the Jesuits, after
their expulsion from Spain by the Revolution, had
opened the College which the little Alfonso Tellez
was attending.
Elvira bade farewell to her son, without telling
him where she was going, and the rector of the
college, who was acquainted with the lady's affairs,
was told to allow no one to see the boy during his
mother's absence, with the exception of the
Marchioness of Villasis. The latter took leave ot
Elvira at the station, and returned to the Villa
Maria, sad and thoughtful. She shut herself in
her room, and passed the greater part of the night
glancing through Elvira's papers. The next morn-
ing she went to the chapel of St. Eugene, where she
heard two Masses and received Holy Communion.
The day was beautiful, and suggested the
coming ot spring. At three that afternoon the
Marchioness ordered all the windows opened, that
the sun and air might pour into the house. In the
garden, little Monica's cries, while skipping rope,
merged with the breaking of the sea against the
coast. The Marchioness leaned out of the window
and watched the child at play. This little girl was
her grandchild, the only daughter of her own child,
who had died five years before, and whose father's
death had left her doubly an orphan.
The Marchioness suddenly closed the window
and seated herself at a small desk nearby. A
carriage could be heard in the distance, and a few
minutes afterwards a servant entered to announce
the Marquis of Sabadell. The servant had no sooner
left the room than the Marchioness crossed herself,
glanced for a brief moment at the picture of the
Virgin, and then turned toward the door, smiling
and as serene as when she received her friends at
her house in Madrid.
(To be continued)
Catkolic Schools and Colleges for Catholics
DO subject of greater importance or of more
lasting consequences can occupy the minds
of Catholic Parents and guardians at this
time, than the selection of the proper School or
College for those entrusted to their care. For
Catholics there is one prime requisite to be looked
for in the selection of a school. The fostering of
the religious nature of the young. Where a Catholic
School or Academy or College is possible, no other
can be equally good. For many Professional men
and women, attendance at a non-sectarian institu-
tion has been their spiritual undoing. They had
faith they had religion when they began their studies,
but the flippant remarks about religion blasted and
blighted in them the rare and fair flower of religion.
It is rash to presume on the strength of faith in your
son or your daughter, and no advantage can com-
pensate them or justify you, if it be lost, for the
Good Master says : — "What will it profit you if you
gain the whole world, but suffer the loss of your
own soul."
32
What Do You Know About:
Vocations?
XN the April number of THE SIGN the
subject of vocations was treated at some
length, and emphasis was laid on the seri-
ous nature of the subject, and one of the
very common errors pointed out, regarding the
vocation to the state of marriage. In this install-
ment it is hoped to state clearly, the other error
that is quite common, and not less productive of
lasting evils.
Practically speaking, we may say there are
four states in life. The unmarried state, the married
state, the religious state, and the state of holy
orders, or of the priesthood.
The single or unmarried state is that in which
a man or woman chooses to remain for one or several
of a variety of reasons. Some have no inclination
or a positive repugnance for any other state. Others
on account of health or other physical cause are
unable to fulfill the obligations of any other state.
And a very large number have sacrificed all hope
of entering any other state to give care and comfort
to aged parents, or a sheltering home to orphaned
brothers and sisters.
The married state is that in which a man and
woman enter by means of the sacrament of Matri-
mony. They solemnly engage before God's altar
to live together in love and harmony, and to bring
forth and rear the children whom God will entrust
to them, and thus fulfill God's command, "increase
and multiply and fill the earth." It is their sublime
privilege not only to people the earth, to raise up
children for the Church, God's Kingdom on earth,
but to lead forth from Christian homes, recruits for
the Priesthood and for the religious life both in
monastery and convent.
By the religious life is understood that state in
which a man or a woman binds himself or herself
to God by the vows of religion to strive after intimate
love and friendship for God. This is the essential
purpose of the religious state. There are accidental
differences, peculiar to each order, such as the strict
enclosure in cloistered orders, and the various chari-
ties that engage others, preaching, teaching, caring
for the aged, sick, wayward and orphans in homes
or institutions.
Lastly there is the state of holy orders or that
of the holy priesthood, in which a man is associated
with Jesus Christ the Supreme High Priest and
shares in His priesthood for God's Glory and the
salvation of human souls. He accomplishes the
sublime purposes of his holy calling by his power
over the real body of Christ, in celebrating Holy
Mass.; over the mystical body of Christ, the faith-
ful of Holy Church, by the ministry of the word,
and by administering the sacraments.
Having premised this short account of the
various states in life, we may now procede to state,
what is the second error concerning vocation. And
this error consists in not knowing what is, in the
judgement of the Church, a vocation. Many who
desire to enter the priesthood or the religious life,
are at a loss to know whether they have a call from
God to this state in life. They have read somewhere
or heard it said, that no one should aspire to the
higher life, without a special vocation. God must
call them to it. This call, it is quite generally be-
lieved, is nothing else than the subjective feeling
that God wants them to be a priest , or a religious,
or at least a certain attraction for the priesthood or
the religious state. This subjective feeling or at-
traction is regarded as the work of the Holy Ghost.
In consequence of this belief it follows that no one
dare enter the seminary or monastery or convent,
unless or until they realize this interior disposition
above referred to, and on the other hand it is wrong
and hazardous to resist such an attraction or feeling,
because it is resisting the voice and working of the
Holy Ghost in the soul.
There is many a young man and many a young
woman, who has been harassed by a thousand doubts
because they are anxious to know what is their
vocation in life? Some esteemed and dear friend
has gone to the seminary or to the convent, or the
confessor has asked them what their intentions are
concerning the future, and remembering this false
notion about vocation, they are at a loss for an
answer.
There exists no uncertainty in the answer to
the question: "What is a Vocation? The Church
has explicity answered the question concerning the
call to the priesthood, and by implication supplies
the answer concerning the call to the monastery or
convent. That the above notion is not the correct
answer to the question is beyond all question. It is
utterly false and ruinous, as we shall show in the
next issue of THE SIGN.
33
Archconfraternit?? of
The Heart of
OEVOUT Catholics throughout the world
consecrate the month of June to the honor
of the Sacred Heart of Jesus. They strive
to give more than usual attention to piety
and good works, which may in some measure express
their appreciation of Our Divine Lord's love for
men. They know also that several Popes have
granted rich and numerous blessings to all who thus
give the month to Christ.
The members of the Archcon-
fraternity of the Passion should
regard the month of June as a
golden opportunity to understand
more of Our Lord's sufferings, and
likewise to inflame their zeal to
promote this devotion in the hearts
of others. To behold the Heart
of Jesus is to see the signs of His
Passion; to be truly devoted to the
Sacred Heart means a knowledge
of His Sorrows and Sufferings.
From Our Lord's own words and
actions while on earth, as well as
from the teaching of His disciples
and the saints, it will be seen the
Sacred Passion and the Sacred
Heart are so intimately united that
devotion to one means at the same
time devotion to the other.
The Apostles accompanied the Divine Master
from place to place. They heard His preaching to
the people. They witnessed His gentleness and
kindness to the poor and afflicted. They marvelled
at the many ways He sought out and converted
sinners. Still it might be said they knew little of
His Sacred Heart. For they understood at that
time nothing of His Passion and Death.
Our Divine Savior revealed His Sacred Heart
to men as often as He foretold to them His Sacred
iassion. The Redemption of mankind was the one
mystery Jesus most desired to accomplish. His
sufferings and His death were to be the fullest
revelation of His Infinite Love for men. Therefore
He yearned for "the hour," when He would "lay
down His life for His friends."
trie Sacred P
assion
Jesus Crucified
J^OWARDS the end of His life, Jesus publicly
V/J declared it was the Passion which filled His
Heart. St. Luke records His words in the
twelfth chapter of the Gospel. He was speaking
to the people of the judgments of God. He warned
the Apostles that even they would have to render
an account of their stewardship. He threatened the
Scribes and Pharisees, because of their hypocrisy
and oppression of the poor. In the midst of His
sermon, He clearly made known
His love for men and His desire
to be loved by them. He said
at the same time His whole Heart
was throbbing with the desire to
suffer and shed His Blood for love
of mankind.
"I am come to cast fire on the
earth," said Jesus, "and what will
I, but that it be kindled. And I
have a baptism wherewith I am
to be baptized; and how am I
straightened until it be accom-
plished." Explaining these words
of the Divine Master, the eminent
preacher, Bossuet, tells us the fire,
which Christ desired to light up in
every heart, was His own love.
Then he continues : "Oh, my
Savior, this Baptism wherewith
Thou didst long to be baptized was the baptism of
Thy Blood, wherein Thou wast to be plunged for
our transgressions by Thy most grievous Passion."
It was at the Last Supper, the night before
His Passion and Death, that Jesus most clearly
manifested His Heart to men. Pleading then with
the Apostles to love Him, Jesus exclaimned: "He
that loveth Me, shall be loved of My Father; and
I will love him, and will manifest Myself to him.
If anyone love Me, he will keep My word; and My
Father will love him, and we will come to him and
will make our abode with him." Such was the
promise of the Sacred Heart at the Last Supper.
He continued : "As the Father hath loved Me.,
so also I have loved you. Abide in My love. If
you keep My commandments, you shall abide in
34
THE + SIGN
My love. This is My commandment, that you love
one another as I have loved you. Greater love than
this no man hath, that a man lay down his life for
his friends. You are My friends, if you do the
things that I command you." Thus the Sacred
Heart would have them understand that His Passion
would be the proof of His love for them.
EINALLY, Jesus prayed for them. "Just
Father, the world hath not known Thee. But
I have known Thee, and these have known
that Thou hast sent Me. And I have made known
Thy Name to them, and will make it known, that
the love wherewith Thou hast loved Me may be in
them and I in them." Could the Divine Heart of
Christ have made itself known more clearly!
Jesus was betrayed that same night into the
power of His enemies. He was scourged, crowned
with thorns, and crucified. The awful scenes fol-
lowed each other quickly, and finally ended with
His death on the Cross. Then "one of the soldiers
opened His Side with a spear, and immediately
there came out blood and water." In this way
Jesus finished the work He came on earth to do.
He loved mankind so much, as to give the very last
drops of blood in His Sacred Heart for their happi-
ness and eternal salvation.
The Savior of men pointed to this Wound in
His Sacred Heart when the Apostles hesitated to
believe in His Resurrection from the dead. He
made the doubting Thomas place his hand in that
same Wound, not only that he might be convinced
of the truth but also that men would understand it
was for love of them He suffered and died and
rose again.
Frequently in the writings of the Apostles, the
Passion of Our Lord is mentioned with the infinite
love of the Sacred Heart. Thus St. Peter says:
"Christ suffered for us, leaving you an example that
3'ou should follow in His footsteps. For you were
as sheep going astray, but now you are converted
to the shepherd and bishop of your souls." More
familiar is the saying of St. Paul : "Christ loved
me, and delivered Himself up for me."
The Apostle St. John seemed to surpass all the
others in His devotion to the Divine Master. Ex-
horting the first Christians, he says: "Let us there-
fore love God, because God hath first loved us. In
this we have known the charity of God, because
He hath laid down His life for us." Again, he
writes: "God hath first loved us and sent His Son
to be a propitiation for our sins." In writing the
history of the Passion, He begins with the words:
"Having loved His own, who were in the world, He
loved them unto the end." Then he relates the
incidents of Our Lord's sufferings and death to show
how He loved mankind unto the end.
^^^HROUGH the ages, many saints studied the
I J love of the Divine Heart of Christ through
His Cross and Passion. It was this twofold
devotion that gave so much courage and strength
and peace to the apostles, martyrs, and missionaries
in every nation.
St. Paul of the Cross indeed gave his life to
preaching the Cross and Passion of Our Lord. It
is noteworthy that he was directed by Our Lord
and by the Mother of Sorrows to wear a badge
that resembled the Sacred Heart seen by St.
Margaret Mary — the heart surmounted by the small
cross and within the signs of the Passion. That
St. Paul of the Cross was truly devoted to the
Sacred Heart may be judged from the incident
recorded in his life, that on one occasion when
he was before a large Crucifix, he was lifted up to
Our Lord's Side, and the arm of the Crucified
unloosened from the nails and surrounded the
Saint pressing him closely to the Divine Heart of
Jesus.
Friday, the one day every week, dedicated to
the memory of the Passion, was chosen by Our
Savior Himself as the day to remember and to
honor His Sacred Heart. In the devotions of the
Holy Hour, the Sacred Heart and the Sacred
Passion are brought together in adoration, and
thanksgiving.
But it is the spirit of reparation which makes
the devotion to the Passion and to the Divine Heart
of Our Savior alike. Jesus offered Himself in
His passion and Death in reparation for the sins of
mankind. Likewise the essential feature of all
devotions to His Sacred Heart, the prayers and
Holy Communions and acts of consecration and
novenas and days of retreat are multiplied to atone
for the insults and outrages, the indifference and
contempt, the ingratitude and sinfulness of mankind.
From the Cross as well as from the Tabernacle goes
forth those sad words of the Master: "Behold the
Heart, which has loved mankind so much!" In-
finitely great are the blessings and gifts He bestows
on those who remember Him and love Him and
keep His words.
With tke Passionists in Ckina
Hankow to Ckangtek
XN the last letter sent to THE
SIGN I spoke about the
delay in Hankow unavoidable
because of the celebration of the
New Year's Festival by the Chinese.
We were impatient to be on our way,
so on Wednesday, February first,
we were enabled to get passage on
one of the boats of the Sun Ying
Lung Coal and Coke Company. Our
staterooms were about the size of a
good sized packing case, and the
only furnishings supplied to pas-
sengers was a smoky oil lamp. We
were obliged to provide our own
beds and rations. To reach our
quarters it was necessary to go down
a ladder through a small opening
barely large enough to admit of
passage.
The boat was scheduled to start
at four o'clock and we hurried on
board, but it was seven before the
boat was under way. The Reverend
Father Maurice and Mr. Sullivan
and Dr. Francis were there to wish
us God speed on our journey. We
were accompanied by Fr. Gregory
as far as Changteh. Supper and
indeed all meals on the journey were
taken under difficulties, and through-
out the trip we had to depend en-
tirely on canned goods without even
the luxury of having them warmed
before eating.
At nine o'clock the boat stopped,
and the captain said it was im-
possible to find the channel in the
dark ; in reality it was that the
captain and crew might spend the
night at the favorite pastime of
gambling. The room chosen for the
purpose was next to ours and all
night long the shouting and singing
ivould have gone on, but wearied
beyond endurance Father Gregory
went to the room and in unmistaka-
ble language told the party that if
the singing and yelling did not stop
at once he would throw them
bodily into the river. They fear the
foreigners, and from then on we had
comparative quiet, though we could
hear the rattle of the dominoes and
the click of copper coins. This was
the order of exercises each night,
and the captain was never at a lor.s
to offer a new excuse. We pro-
tested vigorously against the delay,
and Father Gregory threatened to
denounce them to the authorities,
but all in vain.
ON Friday towards noon, the
day consecrated to the sacred
memory of Our Lord's Pas-
sion, we entered the promised land —
Hunan. The sun smiled a. Dleasant
welcome to the first band of Passion-
ists to enter this province — and bv
the way — the last province of China
to admit the foreigner within its
borders. With one accord we offered
heartfelt thanks to God for the pro-
tection vouchsafed us thus far, and
we begged St. Paul and St. Gabriel
to beseech the God of Light to
render fruitful our labors in this
land of spiritual darkness.
36
After a short while we entered
Tung-Ting Lake. This lake at high
water measures sixty by seventy-
five miles, though when we came to
it, it was only a crisscross of chan-
nels, and so shallow that only boats
of small draft could make the
passage. Little by little the stream
we were following had become
narrower and shallower, until at six
o'clock the following evening we
came to a small village where we
were obliged to change to sampans.
We divided the baggage and pas-
sengers, and we named the three
sampans we occupied the Santa
Maria, the Pinta and the Nina.
There being no wind, poles were
used to push the craft, and the
speed was not very great. The
boatmen said they feared to con-
tinue during the night on account
of robbers farther upstream. So we
followed the conduct of the others
that made up the fleet and tied uo
for the night.
We went to sleep as best we could
to the music of the tom-tom and
cymbals furnished by those who
believe that music has charms all its
own to fill one with the spirit of a
Chinese New Year's Festival. It was
our first night spent in a Chinese
sampan, but we slept soundly, al-
though obliged to crouch in curious
fashion.
VERY early in the morning we
were again on the way, and
Father Agatho had somehow
contrived to attach the Stars and
Stripes to a pole, and the sight was
a cause of wonder to all beholders.
Our progress was annoyingly slow,
but there was no way to better con-
ditions; the men rowed when the
depth of the water permitted, at
other times used the poles and
pushed. Now and then the boats
were stuck in the mud, but the boat-
men promptly plunged waist deep
into the cold water pulling, pushinpr
and in everywise coaxing the craft
to move forward. About four
o'clock we changed to a rive*"
THE + SIGN
steamer already crowded, but some-
how we managed to get aboard. In
the transfer some of our baggage
was quite soaked with water, other-
wise all was well.
We had several more changes of
this kind from steamers to sampans,
and back again to steamers. A
change had to be made at a small
island as the water was too shallow
to allow the boat to go around it.
Everything on board was thrown
into the mud. Crossing the island,
wading through the deep, slimy,
sticky mud, everyone loaded to
capacity with bags and pans, and
pots and kettles, is pleasant enough
to write about, but made us feel
that in some ways at least we were
pioneers.
At last Changteh is in sight. We
travelled exactly one hundred and
twenty miles in five days !
one could have gone from
New York to San Francisco
in less time. Wearied and
tired we were welcomed by
Father Vincent in charge of
the Mission here, and he was
more than princely in his
hospitality. He sought in
every way to make our visit
pleasant and memorable. The
Christians of the district
were assembled to greet the
Sen-Fus from America; all
piously knelt for the blessing
and were gladdened by the little
pictures and medals we gave them.
This mission at Changteh is most
successful. There are seven hundred
converted Christians and over three
thousands Catechumens under in-
struction. During the night an in-
fant had been left at the Mission,
and Father Vincent baptized it at
once fearing it would not live long.
He named it Paula in honor of our
Holy Founder, St. Paul of the Cross.
Paula had not long to wait for
heaven, for within a few hours her
soul went to God. The Mission has
in its care more than two hundred
of these abandoned babies. The
sjtme day two more little ones were
found, and it was Father Agatho's
privilege to baptize both, calling one
Gabriella after St. Gabriel, and the
other Justina after our Very Rever-
end Father Provincial, to whose zeal
for the salvation of souls, the Pas-
sionist Mission in China largely owes
its inception.
Changteh to Shenchowfu
ONLY one more journey till we
shall be in the land of prom-
ise, that place which for years
was uppermost in our thoughts and
desire. We heard souls cry out
from afar "Come" and in six or
eight days' journey our hopes were
to be realized. With such thoughts
in mind it will not be surprising to
any one to know we were eager to be
off and going; so, down to the
shore we went anxious to obtain
shipping. Happily there was a
large Chinese Junk tied up at the
wharf, and quite unexpectedly we
were able to commandeer it for our
journey. Our departure was made
the occasion of much excitement.
CHINESE JUNK, PASSENGERS AND CREW
Father Vincent had a large banner
painted in Chinese characters, which
announced to the passers-by that
the occupants of the barge were
destined for Shenchowfu to preach
the religion of the Lord of heaven.
This was done as a precaution
against the bandits who infest the
river, but as a rule do not molest
the missionaries. The fact that our
departure was to be on the First
Friday of the month, made us feel
that the Sacred Heart of our Saviour
would bless our journey and our
work.
y^^HE Christians who lived in
f J the vicinity of the church
^- came to bid us farewell.
Then all went to the church where
prayers were said for God's blessing
on the missionaries and their future
work. At a signal from Father
37
Vincent the faithful stopped their
loud prayers, and the priests recited
alternately the "Benedictut." When
we came to the boat we hoisted an
American Flag beneath the Mission
Banner, although the mast was
covered with emblems of pagan
superstition. A few minutes of
final preparation and we were off.
Our party was made up of Father
Leopold, the Pastor of Shenchowfu,
a catechist, three men, and the wife
and child of one of them, and the
six Passionists. The crew of the
Junk consisted of seventeen men ;
as there was neither steam nor
motor power, we had to depend on
the wind, and when it failed, on the
power of the men.
At Houfu a short stop was made
to visit the seminary of the Augus-
tinian Fathers, as well as to see the
church. Father Yictorianus
and Father Francis paid a
short visit to the boat, and
were treated to a cup of tea,
something always on tap in
the Far East.
Progress at night is im-
possible on this river, so we
had to tie up at a small river
port. As usual, when the
boat had been boarded in,
the Fathers recited the
Rosary and night prayers,
while in the next tiny cabin,
the Christians chanted their
Rosary and Litanies in a plaintive
tone. These poor Chinese would
never think of retiring without these
devotions, and we could not help
thinking that there was a time in
our own country when no family
that called itself Catholic would
retire without doing the same. More
than this these same Christians are
not in the least afraid that their
neighbors will hear them at their
prayers, for the occupants of the
other boats wondered at the un-
familiar sounds.
ON Sunday morning we had
Holy Mass. It was indeed a
charming sight, and one that
inspired devotion. The darkened
cabin, lighted only by the candles on
the tiny" altar, the Fathers and
Christians kneeling in silent prayer
THE T SIGN
BEGGING FOR A LITTLE RILE
as Father Leopold recited the beau-
tiful prayers in the liturgy of the
church for the first Sunday in Lent :
"He shall call upon Me, and I shall
hear him. He that dwelleth in the
help of the Most High shall abide
under the protection of the God of
Heaven." And the beseeching words
of the Epistle: "Brethren, we do
exhort you that ye receive not the
grace of God in vain." As if the
Saviour was stretching forth His
arms to the children of darkness,
begging them to receive the message
now being brought to them by the
Sons of the Cross and Passion. Then
the tiny tinkle of the little bell, as
the heads bowed low in reverence,
and the snow-white Host is lifted
heavenwards, the clean oblation of
the true Church of God.
By this time we had come to the
rapids in the river. After Mass was
finished we went outside to feast
our eyes on the glorious sight,
glorious in spite of the dangers that
were possible at any moment.
Notwithstanding the brisk wind
which favored us, progress was im-
possible by sail alone, and the crew
waded to shore and pulled the boat
along. A long stout rope is attached
to the mast, and fastened by many
shorter ones to the sailors on shore.
At times one hundred men are
strung along the shore tugging at
the various boats, and when one
tries to pass another boat, there is
no end to the fun. The yelling and
confusion is frightful.
ON the morning of March sixth,
we entered the district as-
signed to us for our future
labors. A great salute of fire-
crackers took place as we passed
the first village. Was it for us?
Hardly! But we took it as such,
and rejoiced in the fact that even
if we did not have the questionable
protection of the pagan gods, we
had that which is far better, the
protection of the Lord of Heaven.
Later on we passed the first mis-
sion station, Liou Lin Cha. Here
there is a small chapel erected, a
tiny white affair, nestling at the foot
of one of the most beautiful moun-
tains. Two giant dome-shaped
mountains stand guard over the dis-
trict, their sides a barren slate, their
tops crowned with green, and softly
veiled by the fleecy clouds.
Father Leopold is able to visit
these Christians only once or twice
a year, but later on, with God's help,
we hope to have a resident priest
and catechist here, to continue the
work so well begun.
The captain of the steamboat
running between Shanghai and Han-
kow had informed us that our mis-
sion was founded amid the most
beautiful scenery in the world. This
may have been an exaggeration, but
certainly not a great one.
We cannot describe the joy that
filled our souls when rounding a
curve in the stream, Shenchowfu
was seen in the distance. God be
praised for His wonderful protection
vouchsafed us during the last three
months.
The Fathers and Brother, with-
out exception, have been singularly
well, and the inconveniences have
only served to make each one more
willing to suffer, if God so wills it,
for the sake of the work to which
we have been chosen. We are about
to disembark, and as many things,
doubtless, will claim our attention
on arrival, we had better close this
letter now. We hope in our next
letter to THE SIGN to tell about
VICTIMS OF STARVATION FOR MARCH STH
38
THE 1* SIGN
•ur mission, and, as far as possible,
our plans of campaign.
The Fathers
per Father Cclestinc.
fINCE the foregoing was re-
ceived, several smaller letters
have come from the Fathers.
In these they tell us they were
brought face to face with the bor-
rowing spectacle of men and women
dying from starvation, and the land
one of paupers. It will be quite
shocking to our sensibilities to see
the grim reality, as portrayed in the
accompanying illustrations, but when
famine stalks abroad, delicate sensi-
bilities must yield place to human
sympathy. We quote from one of
these letters :
"The accompanying picture tells
its own story. Don't think there is
any exaggeration, for I assure you
there is not. Today I sent what
money I could spare to a priest in
another district where the famine is
also reaping a plentiful harvest of
human beings. I realize it is early
to ask for help, but what can you
do when each day you are greeted
by an army of beggars who ask for
food, and you come face to face
with such scenes as the one here
pictured. I begrudge myself the
food I take, and each day I have
prayed God at Holy Mass to cause
our American people to realize what
hunger means, what starvation
means, what famine means. These
poor people are clothed in rags.
They are ragged and cold, but they
say nothing of all this — only food —
a bowl of rice, something to eat.
Oh, if our American people could
realize what famine meant, especially
they whom God has blessed with
abundance, and super-abundance,
such conditions as exist here, could
not and should not exist. It is a
blot on civilization, and civilization
is doing nothing to alleviate the
human misery that exists here in
abundance. Christian charity alone
can help, and will help, the charity
of Christ that will share its own
morsel with those who have nothing
and are dying of hunger and starva-
tion."
another letter we quote
follows :
am enclosing a picture
which will give you an idea of the
deaths caused by the famine in the
district entrusted to our care. This
is death's toll for March 5th. This
picture was taken in the city of
Donations received to May 10th.
for the Chinese Missions are hereby,
gratefully acknowledged. These
donations shall form the nucleus of
a "Burse" to be named in honor of
the Founder of the Passionist Order,
St. Paul of the Cross.
Mite Box donations and "Mission
Crusades" in Schools, Academies,
Sodalities, Nurses in Hospitals, and
Mission Circles in Parishes, will be
placed to the credit of the "Burse"
in honor of St. Gabriel the Passion-
ist Student Saint, recently canon-
ized.
St. Paul's Burse: —
M. A, Jersey City $20.00
A. W. Whitestone, N. Y 5.00
M. A., Madison, N. J 100.00
St. Michael's, Pittsburgh, Pa. 25.00
M. W. Baltimore, Md 5.00
Mrs. L. J. O., Buechel, Ky... 1.00
M. W. Scranton, Pa 1.00
M. Mc A., Jersey City 5.00
Mrs. M. Newton Falls, Mass.. 5.00
Sister M. B., Brooklyn, N. Y. 5.00
Rev. A, Dunkirk, N. Y 10.00
Anon., West Hoboken 2.00
M. S., Davenport, Iowa 2.00
R. H., Iowa City, Iowa 1.00
K. R. S., New York 1.00
R. \V., St. Louis, Mo 1.00
In memory of E. R 10.00
St. Gabriel's Burse
Mission Crusade, Catonsville,
Md 25.00
Friend 1.00
Mite Box, Mrs. C, Bayonne,. 10.85
Mite Box, M. T. M., Newark. 2.85
Mite Box, D. C, Jersey City. . 3.88
Mite Box, L. & G., Jersey City .60
Mite Box, Anon., West
Hoboken 4.74
Mite Box, Mrs. A. Jersey City 2.07
EROM ;
as foil
"I a
Yuanchow, in the southern part of
our territory.
The Catholic Mission in Yuanchow
was opened last year by Father
Hippolytus, O. S. A., the present
39
pastor. On Christmas Day nineteen
were baptized, and the outlook for
the future is promising. How-
ever, the Protestant minister,
angered at the interest shown in the
Catholic religion, even by many of
his own proselytes, offered them five
dollars (a munificent sum to these
poor people) if they would stay
away from the Catholic chapel.
The attraction at the Catholic chapel
could not have been money, for
the priest is poor, and does not
receive the alms which are constant-
ly being sent to the Protestants.
Yuanchow is a large city, proba-
bly the largest in our district. When
our American Passionists have set-
tled there, we hope to have a flour-
ishing mission.
Conditions in Shenchowfu are bad
also. It does not seem possible that
a human creature could be reduced
to such a pitiable state through lack
of food. To walk through the city
and see the streets with hundreds
of famished creatures, begging for
a bowl of rice, would draw tears
from the eyes of the most hardened.
In the rear of our mission is a
large pagoda where the city doles
out a mere pittance of rice daily to
the destitute. Many poor creatures
die there nightly from hunger and
disease.
Later on, God willing, we hope to
have a place in which to keep some
of the little orphans. The majority
of these die after a few weeks or a
month. Our object is to secure the
grace of Baptism for these little
ones so dear to the Sacred Heart of
Jesus.
Of course this means money, but
we know that our friends in America
will help us. At Lichow, the Bishop's
residence (many miles from here,
and not in our territory) there is a
large orphan asylum. Good Father
Abraham, the priest in charge, has
truly labored as the Father of a
chosen people among these aban-
doned children. Since the work of
the Holy Infancy was started, he
has received and baptized thirteen
thousand babies. Of this great
number, only about five hundred are
now living. He showed me the plain
little wooden caskets, a supply of
which is always kept on hand.''
Index to Worthwhile Reading
A Catechism of Christian Doc-
trine. Rev. Michael J. Duffj ; New
York.
Not the least of the many im-
portant laws promulgated by the
Church during the Pontificate of the
Saintly Pius X. were those relating
to the necessity of teaching the
Catechism of Christian Doctrine.
He did not disdain, although Su-
preme Pontiff, to teach catechism to
the poor of Rome. The knowledge
of the truths of faith, the obliga-
tions of the commandments of God
and of the Church, and the estab-
lished channels of grace to the soul,
supplies to conscience, the standard
of right believing and right doing,
and this knowledge, almost without
exception comes from the catechism
and the instruction based on the
catechism.
The well educated Catholic is in
nearly every instance the good living
Catholic, whilst the Catholics whose
religious instruction has been
neglected, are in the main, the ones
who neglect duty and not unfre-
quently fall away from God and
from all religion. They were baptized,
but never learned the catechism.
The author's apology for publish-
ing a new catechism is stated in his
"Foreword"; that the catechisms in
use are beyond the capacity of the
generality of children of the gram-
mar grades. The language used,
bristles with words that convey no
meaning to the child-mind. Special
care has been bestowed on the
chapters : "The Church," "The
Mass," "The Eucharist," to make
them more suited to the needs of
our times and country.
Indulgences as a Social Factor in
the Middle Ages. Dr. N. Paulus,
Devin-Adair Co., New York. $1.35.
To write the history of indulgences
in the Middle Ages, Dr. Paulus had,
perforce, to portray the beneficent
work in all manner of good causes,
which the people carried on. The
inducement of the peculiar spiritual
reward implied in indulgences, was
used not only for works immediately
connected with Divine Service in
Spiritual Works of Mercy, but also
for such temporal terrene causes,
as bridge building, upkeep of dams,
road repairs, etc. Bridges secured
the safety of the pilgrim — the Mid-
dle Ages is famous for its charity
for the traveller — hence bridge —
building was a work of mercy. "The
Bridge Brothers" had a long catalog
of indulgences to their credit. Any
cause that benefited the society of
town or state was a good work, and
to contribute thereto, was an act
deserving of a spiritual reward — a
powerful incentive to the individual.
Louis IX carried earth to fill an arm
of a canal, that he might draw on
the riches held in The Treasury of
the Church. Colonization was for
the good of society, as well as a
means of bringing the faith to the
natives. So Pope Alexander grants
a plenary indulgence to those who
would settle in America. Indul-
gences were offered to create the
"Montes Pietatis" — credit organi-
zations or banks, which held work-
ing capital to come to the rescue of
the poor. Indulgences, much mis-
understood and much maligned, were
the powerful instigators of all the
social, as well as religious works of
the Middle Ages.— Within the
boards of this small book is com-
pressed a vast amount of interesting
historical information.
Sister Benigna Consolata (Visit-
andine). Georgetown Visitation Con-
vent, Washington, D. C.
"This Life tells us that we have
saints with us always. The Past is
shining with its aureoles, as multidu-
dinous as the stars of heaven. But
the Present, too, is weaving
aureoles." St. Margaret Mary
Alacoque seems born again in her
sister in religion, Benigna Consolata.
Our Lord called her His "Little
Secretary" — "The Apostle of My
Mercy." And the extracts which
this sketch contains leave no doubt
in the mind that the communications
slie transcribed came straight from
the Heart of Christ. The extracts
are sufficient to make us share the
regret of the authors of the little
memoir that they cannot give more
at length these writings marked
with divine delicacy and sweetness.
40
The Conversion of the Pagan
World, translated and adapted. Rev.
Joseph McGlinchey. Boston, Mass.
$1.50 postpaid.
This is a book with a mission.
The call has come to the American
Church to go out to the ends of the
earth to preach the Gospel. Apostles
we all must be according to the
special work which is variously
required of every one of the house-
hold of the Faith. This is the manu-
al in which is set forth what the
work is and what each may do that
the mission confided to us fail not.
Part one treats of the Mission Field;
part two, The Workers; part three,
Christian Co-operation; and part
four, Mission Aid Societies.
No one can read the work without
a conviction that he or she has a
mission — the Pentecostal mission of
carrying the Faith to those who
have not even heard of the glad
tidings of the Redemption of Christ.
This mission is a personal obliga-
ton for every Catholic without
exception and for each implies
personal sacrifice. We cannot all
go into heathen lands. The Mis-
sioner goes as representative of all.
His sacrifice is to leave home and
country and labor unceasingly, amid
privations and with no comforts.
They who stay at home, must co-
operate and support their repre-
sentatives who have gone forth.
Every Catholic is bound to pray for
the foreign missions, and thus
render fruitful the preaching of the
apostles of the Church. They must
do more than that. They must con-
tribute the money needed. This
book tells what is our obligation,
and should make of every reader a
zealous apostle, and should there-
fore be in every Catholic Home,
and on the shelves of every parish
and sodality library. Concerning
this volume Cardinal O'Conneil
writes : . . . "It should be the spiritual
bell of our Mission Seminaries, the
text book for the members of the
Priests' Missionary Union and of the
Catholic Students' Mission Crusade,
the widespread instrument of propa-
ganda of the American Board of
Catholic Missions."
\ v_\
A NATION A L <J> ' CAT M O LI C
/MONTHLY MACAZINLX
VOL. I.
JULY, 1922
Mo. 12
Very Rev. Fr. Fidelis, Passionist
(J«
Kent Stone)
FOREWORD
^-^-^HAT is to follow, on the career of Fr.
W I ^ Fidelis, should at best be classified as
\l/ sketches. Even so, a foreword may be
called for by our readers. '
A great number of readers learned only, through
the press notices published on the occasion of his
death that Fr. Fidelis had been an outstanding and
influential figure of the Church in America. A man
with such a reputation who eluded recognition by the
public eye for so many years becomes to the present
generation 'a man of mystery.'
The truth is he was born to be great. Only at
long intervals in the line of men, do we find one
having such an assemblage of varied and resplend-
ent endowments, as were his. At rare intervals
shall we meet one who at so early an age emerged
at a commanding point of vantage through swiftly
moving imposing experiences; his life was a 'High
Romance' while he was still in his twenties.
Just on this account, will older readers ask
why does the 'chapter end there?' These aquaint-
ences of Fr. Fidelis preserved an admiration too
glowing for time to bedim. Yet when they speak of
his later life there is an audible undertone of lament.
The words of Oliver W. Holmes, echo faithfully
their sentiments relative to his Catholic life. In
answer to a request for reminiscences he writes us
in part, "I am truly sorry that I have no facts to
tell you, but I have given you all I have; vivid
impressions of a star seen at long intervals and
then hidden from my sight."
J^-'HEY remember that Kent Stone in the late
V/ J sixties seemed destined to be the American
counterpart of Newman.
He was recognized as being the most brilliant
light in the Anglican Church at the time he left it.
Bishop Coxe broke forth into a circular letter to the
Powers in the Anglican body on the occasion of
James Kent Stone's accepting the presidency of
Hobart College. "Congratulate us "
This same Bishop Coxe, before another year
had elapsed, came to the President's apartments
to make a last effort to prevent Fr. Fidelis from
going over to Rome. Failing in this, he carried on
like a maniac, literally tearing the hair out of his
head. Kent Stone was only twenty-nine when he
came knocking at the door of the Church for admis-
sion, with "The Invitation Heeded" in his hand;
a book which, as Fr. Havens Richards S.J. says,
has brought as many converts into the Church as
there are words in it. Then, our elders will tell us,
the eclipse came, relieved now and again at long
intervals by a furtive flash. None other could have
accomplished what he chose to leave undone. They
are aware that he labored on under cover in foreign
lands; that he was a 'hunter of souls' well nigh over
the face of the globe; that in his own community,
he was prominent, fulfilling its highest offices — all
this ought not, to have interfered with his higher
and larger national mission.
Will our readers expect these sketches to
bear the character of an 'Apologia, in all that
has to do with the major portion of his life?
THE 1* SIGN
Evidently Fr. Fidelis himself did not think that
there was any necessity of explanation or of defense
of his Catholic days. Whoever knew him will
readily read the impatience in the words in which
he takes into account what others than himself
considered his mission.
"Fifty years have passed since the foregoing
chapters were written. Like a watch in the night
those years have gone; and now, to my surprise, I
find myself growing old. During this long interval
I have always shrunk from anything like controversy.
Not that I would underrate the value of such dis-
cussion, but I had already done my part, I thought,
in that line ; and it was a relief to dismiss such topics
from my mind. My thoughts were engaged other-
where."
"Neither did I pay heed to suggestions that I
should write 'something worth while' about what I
had observed in foreign countries. I did not feel
myself called to pass judgment on the state of
religion in other lands; all my desire was to work
as a simple missionary wherever obedience might
place me."
y^ANY will learn here for the first time that
\| J Fr. Fidelis again took up his pen a short
time before he died. "The Awakening and
What Followed" is divided into two parts. In the
first there is practically a re-issue of "The Invitation
Heeded." "What Followed" sparingly sketches
some of the activities of his Catholic life. Old
acquaintances were puzzled over the appearance
of the book: the ostensible reason given in the
'Prologue' could not be the whole of the truth. The
secret of why he wrote again barely escaped going
to the grave with him. Whatever his reasons, he
evidently did not believe there was any call for an
'Apologia.'
The reader must be content to accept his
avowal : he was not destined for what universal
sentiment seems to have decreed ought to have been
his life-work. What his conception was of his
mission, and how he lived it out, these papers will
endeavor to reveal.
fi
PARENTAGE AND EARLY YEARS
R. FIDELIS contributed, on several occa-
sions only, to the "Class Book" which every
graduating class of Harvard publishes
annually. Each year the members of the
class supply autobiographical notes which are
weaved into a sketch of the individuals. The
Annual serves as a kind of directory, giving in-
formation as to the location, interests and achieve-
ments of the members. The "Class Book" of the
class of 1861 contains a summary of the life of
Fr. Fidelis up to the year 1863 written by himself
from Brookline in the summer of 1863.
"I was born on the 10th of November 1840
in Tremont Place, Boston, Mass. My father was the
Rev. J. S. Stone, D.D., of the Episcopal Church,
at that time, Rector of St. Paul's, Boston. My
mother was a daughter of James Kent for many
years Chancellor of the State of New York and
author of Kent's Commentaries. I was my mother's
first child and naturally was named by her after
my grandfather. Soon after my birth, my parents
removed to the city of Brooklyn, in the State of
New York, and there the first twelve years of my
life were spent. It is doubtful, however, if my
conscious existence as a free agent began till our
return to the old Bay State in 1852. Toward the
close of this year, my father accepted a call to
St. Paul's Church in the Village of Brookline, within
sight of the Boston State House and in this charming
town our family continued to have its home until
my college days were over."
XN so far as ancestry is a title to standing
among us, James Kent Stone, — Kent Stone
he was usually called— began life with unusual
advantages. Kent recalls one of America's most
distinguished citizens whose place, in her Hall of
Fame is secure. Father Fidelis was his favorite
grandchild and was named after him. The Stones
represent one of New England's proudest ancestries.
The scion of the race, John Stone, added lustre to
the family name by a very notable career.
In the "Memories of Chancellor Kent," dedicat-
ed to Mary Kent, the mother of Father Fidelis, the
author after noting the fact that "the traditions,
usages, institutions which had come from England
had been razed to the ground," continues, "To James
Kent came the duty of reconstruction and at this day,
fifty years after his deathj it can only be truly said
that it is due to his life's work more than to that of
any other man that the United States from ocean
to ocean is controlled by the same system of juris-
prudence founded upon those principles of law and
equity which he enunciated. Early in his profes-
sional career he grasped the thought that he was
THE 1* SIGN
free to reconstruct with no one to controvert, and
from the writings of the great sages and civilians
of antiquity he enriched, beautified and enlarged
the commercial laws of his country and dignified
for all time the profession to which he belonged."
"Kent," we read in
The American Bar Associ-
ation Journal, Dec. 1921,
"is invariably spoken of
as the American 'Black-
stone.' This is to give
him an exalted place, for
the position of Blackstone
is unique, and no one but
Kent has ever shared
these honors."
CHANCELLOR Kent
died when Father
Fidelis was in his
eighth year. We have but
little record as to his
recollections of his famous
grandfather. The Chan-
cellor speaks proudly of
his daughter's two boys,
the elder was James Kent
Stone. The Stone family
was living at the time in
Brooklyn, N. Y. In a CHANCEL
letter otherwise interesting as reflecting the great
man's views on religion, there occurs this passing
reference to Father Fidelis and his mother: "My
wife who has lived with me fifty-seven years is in
excellent health and spirits and daily visits her
Brooklyn daughter who has two fine boys."
While Father Fidelis was at Madison, N. J.
during the critical year of 1868-69 whither he had
retired to study and to pray, recollection of his
early days came to his mind: "The country around
is beautiful. I knew something about the region
from the recollections of my childhood. My mother's
parents had a fine old place, not far from here,
where we would always go to spend the summers;
so that my associations with the New Jersey hills
had all the romance of early memory. When I
came to look around for a place in which to take a
little breathing spell and do a little quiet study,
my attention was naturally turned in this direction.
I am glad to find that my boyish impressions were
not exaggerated."
XT is regrettable that we have no anecdotes
of his relations with the Chancellor. Though
he was very young when James Kent died,
we cannot but believe that from the treasures of
his own memory — he was gifted with a marvellous
memory — and from the
recollections of his mother,
he must have retained
clear-cut impressions and
much information about
this truly great and good
man.
In appearance, tem-
perament, and traits,
Father Fidelis evidently
favored the Kent side of
his parentage. We read
in the introduction to the
"Genealogy of the Kents"
edited by L. Vernon
Briggs: "During the dif-
ferent wars it would seem
that every able-bodied
man by the name of Kent
was in service, many as
officers and several as
commanders. The Kents
married young and if they
were left widowers or
widows, usually married
again. All records containing accounts of them,
especially during the Revolution, describe them as
tall, usually six feet or over, of fine physique, rather
tending to dark complexions. Their characteristics
were, I should judge, generosity almost to a fault,
keenness of perception, especially as to character
in others. In disposition they were sympathetic,
high tempered, but of good judgment and strong
believers in justice."
(To be Continued)
Co.
.LOR KENT
Note : — Persons possessing data on the
life and work of Fr. Fidelis, or letters from
him, are requested to communicate with
Very Rev. Fr. Matthias, C.P., c/o THE
SIGN.
Letters will be returned to the owners,
and their ivishes in regard to the use made
of the communications will be respected.
Breaking the Spell
Violet O'Connor
^-— ^HETHER to help herself to Lady Agatha's
j 1 § glass of port wine or not? was the question
V^^ which had been troubling Pamela Duffield
ever since she came to Roselands, a
question which all but resolved itself into a definite
action one chilly July evening when she found her-
self standing alone on the veranda beside the
supper-tray.
On her arrival, about three months before, she
had been asked, as all Dr. Palmer's "paying-guests"
were asked, what she would like to take before
retiring to rest? And bravely, unhesitatingly, she
had replied, "A bowl of bread-and-milk."
"Not bovril or port-wine?"
"No, thank you. Bread-and-milk."
Little did anybody realize the new patient's
courage and consistency! She had been having
bread-and milk for supper every evening for the last
two years, and she was utterly sick of it, sick like-
wise of all the monotonous and unappetising
cookery that went to make up her idea of the simple
life, lentils, baked beans and cold stewed dates.
But above all things Pamela Duffield was loyal to
fixed principles and with her staunchness to a
sense of duty easily outweighed mere physical
distaste.
^\ELIEVING as she did that the world was
v|C>J filled with evils and cruelties, and miseries
and inequalities for which no panacea had
yet been found, and believing that she had at last
discovered the one and only remedy she resolved
to cling to it, no matter what it cost her, until society
was good and beautiful again, and everyone was
well and happy. That was, in fact the reason why
she was here. "Nervous breakdown" was only a
polite way of referring to the matter.
Her easy-going, perfectly normal relations had
been able to agree with her that the present state
of society was unnecessarily complicated, and they
fully appreciated her generous desire to put the
world to rights. They let her talk to them about
Tolstoy and Waldo Trine. They offered no objection
to her admiration for Edward Carpenter and some
of the most long-suffering went so far as to listen
whilst she read extracts from her favourite books,
trying to teach them how to "give out love" and
"to attract success."
^^s^HEY saw she liked this kind of thing and
^/^ that she felt in sympathy with the peculiar
manner in which such subjects were treated
in her special line of literature; although her very
anxiety to share these epoch-making discoveries with
everyone she met, rather seemed to prove that she
had not yet found in them complete satisfaction
and repose.
"Material substances of all kinds," she would
announce, "must only henceforth be regarded as
symbols, symbols of our beautiful thought-world."
And looking at the fire she would exclaim, "Let
us regard this as signifying Summer-time, com-
pressed sunlight. We must be very gentle with the
fire."
ONE day a spark, from a flaming log, fell on
her dress and burned a hole, and she felt
worried and perplexed. The theory was all
right, she still declared, but she began to fear that
she did not quite know how or where to begin,
to put it into practice. Her headaches also troubled
her. "You can cure yourself when you are ill by
believing you are well," she assured her friends,
"I have done it myself when I have feared that I
had caught a cold;" reluctantly admitting, when hard
pressed, that the effort of believing she had not
got a cold when she knew she had, gave her a
headache which was infinitely more painful than
the original malady.
In the old-fashioned conservative neighborhood
where Pamela's family — a sporting, conventional
family — had been well-known and much respected
for several generations, people thought her nice
but eccentric — really very odd indeed! And her
relations being sincerely fond of her put up with
her queer ways for a long time but when it came
to walking down the village street with bare white
feet and streaming golden hair they all felt it
incumbent upon them to remonstrate.
ANDALS and the absence of any hose or
head-gear in the garden could be tolerated
they felt, just tolerated; but for the Squire's
THE 1* SIGN
daughter to go dancing on the bit of green near
the village post-office with bare feet and garlands
of Spring flowers in her hair was impossible, utterly
impossible, unless she called it "Scenes from
Hamlet," and invited all her friends in the county
to take five shilling tickets, and said she did it
for some charity.
Her explanation that she wished only to em-
phasize the joy of life, was deemed extraordinary
and insufficient. A conclave of matter-of-fact,
kind-hearted Aunts quite failed to follow her dis-
course upon "The Cosmic Consciousness which
shall finally illuminate the human darkness, and
turn human vision from distorted shadows to the
contemplation of true objects, enabling the soul to
travel deductively along lines of right relation to
all truth." This, they agreed, was really going too
far.
fHE had never been the same since the arrival
of that telegram announcing the death of a
beloved brother in France. The shock was
too great for her sensitive brain they feared. They
had done everything to comfort her. They had
declared a week later that the telegram was a
mistake, that Charles had been seriously wounded,
but not killed, they assured her that in course of
time he would recover and be sent home. Why did
they try to deceive her? She piteously asked.
Lies were no consolation in a grief like hers.
"We are brought face to face with great catas-
trophes," she would exclaim. "Behold a world in
ruins! The whole earth clamouring for salvation,
and what can save it except that invincible love
which nothing can daunt or weary, which calmly
and firmly makes straight for its glorious goal. It
is not merely a question of saving certain people
from their enemies, it is a matter of saving both
people and individuals from the enemy of the whole
human race — love must deny the affirmations of
mortal mind."
,f"VOOR Pamela! She felt the real anguish of
|s^/ a political situation which demanded not
speech but action. As an outlet for her
feelings it was at one time suggested that she should
qualify to nurse the wounded, but her services,
like so many others at that time, were declined.
After a considerable delay she was informed that
a note had been made of her kind suggestion, etc.,
etc., like all official letters this was extremely polite
and utterly disheartening.
Then she had turned to knitting and had got
everybody else to knit and read aloud "The Power
of Silence" to them whilst they did so. But those
sewing meetings in the Parish room were not a
great success: the cottage women frankly said they
did not care about the books Miss Duffield chose.
And when she heard herself described a few weeks
later by the Post Mistress (who had been her
Grand-mother's housemaid in the days gone by
and who really ought to have known better) as "the
poor young lady what is off her head," she suc-
cumbed at once to her elder sister's suggestion of
a rest and change of air.
z^VERFECT quiet for a short period at Roselands,
l^y under Dr. Palmer's supervision would soon put
everything all right again, they said. It would
also give the gossips time to forget. Plenty of rest,
plenty of food, and plenty of fresh air, was Dr.
Palmer's infallible prescription for nervous break-
down. The first and last his new patient accepted
willingly: his idea of physical nourishment she
resolutely declined.
Evidently such generous hospitality was de-
signed to cheer up the invalids, but a sumptuous
breakfast, a hot luncheon, a gorgeous tea, and a long
late dinner were no source of joy to a girl like
Pamela. And that supper tray containing her bowl
of bread and milk, Mrs. Tudge's bovril and toast,
and Lady Agatha's small piece of bread, and glass
of wine worried her most of all. She grew to dread
the sparkle of the glass and the glitter of that well-
polished silver tray, which was so regularly placed
on a table on the veranda, just before bed-time,
by a smart attendant who wore a gold cross hanging
on a chain round her neck.
aLL day it had been a charming, wide, deep,
warm, south-west veranda, rendered pleasing
to the eye by quantities of pink, climbing
roses, and piles of bright blue cushions in every
comfortable wicker chair: in the evening time it
took on a different aspect: it suddenly ceased to
be a beautiful resting-place and became a battle-
field— and the fight took place in Pamela's own
mind. Her chair was no longer a sluggard's lure,
it held her spell-bound, there was no chance of
breaking away, no means of escape, from her enemy,
the enemy of doubt.
Whether to help herself to Lady Agatha's glass
of port wine or not was the question that bothered
THE + SIGN
her. She thought of the doctor and said, "No," of
the other patients, "No," of the opinion of the smart
attendant, "No indeed!" and then the remembrance
of her loved, lost brother, rushed back upon her,
overwhelming her with memories of his sympathy
and tenderness and his unchanging affection for
herself and she felt she simply must. "For his
sake," she murmured, "it is what he always wished.
I have denied it so often, but I know in my heart
that he was right."
appointed, as if she had been longing for her to
take the wine; but that was on the higher plane,
of course, symbolizing the sorrow of past ages for
the want of faith in the present day; on the dead
level of the actual plane on which one's butcher and
baker and candlestick-maker live (and after all
one has sometimes to be reasonable, Pamela
remarked to herself, even in a mad-house), it was
a matter of common honesty not to take that for
which one did not pay.
QFTER working amongst the poor in the parish
at home there had always come an inevitable
re-action Pamela remembered. She used to
feel disappointed, dissatisfied, exhausted, with no
idea of how to resuscitate her heart and soul. When
there was some domestic tragedy in the village and
she heard that her neighbours stood in need of
comfort, she had always known that she could give
it, but she also knew that it would take too much
out of her.
The price she paid on these occasions was
wholly inadequate to the service rendered, on a
par, in fact, with that tremendous headache which
she gave herself by solemnly affirming that she had
not caught a cold. "World-consciousness" she
called it, without exactly knowing what she meant.
She had read widely, quickly, rashly, not perhaps
deeply, and had consequently got rather out of her
depth.
Occasionally there came a flash of genuine
illumination and always she meant well. Never
had she meant so well as on that chilly summer
evening when she found herself alone on the veranda
with the silver tray and its contents, and tried to
make up her mind whether she ought or ought not
to drink Lady Agatha's glass of wine before that
venerable patient should appear to claim it.
II.
^^^•MiE first attempt was a failure. Just as her
a CA fingers were about to close around the stem
^^^V of that wine-glass a slight cough and the
rustle of old-fashioned petticoats warned
Pamela Duffield of Lady Agatha's approach,
frightening her into hesitation, and doomed to
postponement the desperate, fateful action. Then
through the open French window stepped the
beautiful old lady, with her kind eyes fixed upon the
other's face.
She looked funny, Pamela thought, rather dis-
eCCl
to the very last degree," some of her relations
had unhesitatingly declared after failing to
persuade her that a grown-up person cannot walk
abroad with unshod feet, and hair, however beauti-
ful, falling to her knees. "It gives a false impres-
sion," they had repeated, and Pamela had looked
surprised, and wondered why it should. But for
all her long loose hair, and small white feet, she
was honest as the day, and generous to a fault.
So far from being an adept in crime, klepto-
mania had never ranked amongst her little eccentri-
cities, this supper table episode was, in fact, the
first occasion in all her life on which she had been
tempted to touch anything that belonged to another,
and it was the very unusualness of the situation
which caused her to start and flush when the
owner's preliminary rustlings announced the advent
of her presence on the scene.
Y^\AMELA always thought of Lady Agatha as
ls^/ a dear old thing and would not have injured
her for the world; but in this matter she
somehow felt driven on, as if she could not help
herself. Her mind was vigorously at work. She
saw her action in two lights: as an acceptation of
Lady Agatha's view of life, and also as plain theft.
Just at the moment of the old lady's appearance
it stood out remarkably clearly, simply as theft.
She managed to hide her confusion by stooping
to pick up the white shawl which fell from the
sloping shoulders. Lady Agatha belonged to a
generation whose shoulders inevitably sloped. "She
was the sort of woman who had become elderly at
thirty-five," Mrs. Tudge said bitterly, and she con-
veyed the impression of having worn this shawl
or a shawl exactly like it for close on half a century.
Lady Agatha would undoubtedly have pre-
ferred a table by the fire and the door shut, but
Dr. Palmer considered it good for all his paying-
THE + SIGN
guests to be in the outer air as much as possible,
and as an example to Mrs. Tudge and Miss Duffield,
she obeyed him loyally, sitting for many hours a
day on her balcony sewing and reading; and Pamela,
who occupied the next bedroom used to take a
great interest in watching her movements through
the adjoining window.
Virginia creeper cover-
ed the glass roof.
XT must be lovely
on that balcony
in Autumn,
Pamela thought. Some-
times she decided to
go away for a while
and come back when
she could have Lady
Agatha's room. She
would feel more con-
tented if she could have
that room, that homely,
friendly-looking room,
with its vases of flowers
and shelves of books,
and tables covered with
baskets of colored silks
and Church embroidery.
If Lady Agatha
was as old as she
looked, as old as Mrs.
Tudge declared, how
could she see to em-
broider? That puzzled
Pamela. Also she
puzzled over whether
Lady Agatha was a
patient or only an old
friend of the Doctor.
Or perhaps both. Any-
how he seemed to
understand her. Every morning she used to have
a long talk with him up in her room, and then she
scarcely spoke a word to anybody else for the
remainder of the day; but Pamela felt it was not
the deliberate silence of disapproval, or the silence
which comes from a lack of interest in one's fellow
creatures: it was distinctly felt to be a kindly
silence.
Pamela remarked to Mrs. Tudge, "I sometimes
fancy, that somehow Lady Agatha is in pain, and
Roof:
Mary Dodge Ten Eyck
High on a peak o'er the city\
The sun sinking down in a glow
Gleaming pastel shades on the roofs
Over thousands of homes below
Roofs, burnished tile of tke wealthy,
Tall chimneys pierce haughty1 on high;
Symbols of towering ambitions
Whose avarice mounts to the sky.
Tin roofs of the tenement houses;
Flattened hopes crushed down to the heart
Merciless elements tinge them,
They are bruised v?ith poverty's dart.
Gray roofs of the mid-rank masses,
Some patched with neat squares of gold;
Blue gables, dark slopes, bright pitches,
Rise and fall like lives of the bold.
The pastel roofs of the city!
Soft, beauteous, housing with love
The millions of God's own children,
NIeath His vJide vaulted roof above.
has made a firm resolution never to complain to
anybody. I feel it. And I love her although she
has hardly ever spoken to me — because she has
hardly ever spoken to me I mean. It makes me feel
she is 50 good. The rhythm of the ether is a
vibration so intense as to be stillness compared
with other vibrations,
you know, and the
nearer we get to the
Source of Life the more
intense will be our con-
sciousness of silence."
"Rubbish!" said
Mrs. Tudge, "You don't
know what you are
talking about. She's a
;illy, selfish old cat, and
I hate her." Mrs.
Tudge's violent pre-
judices made it difficult
for Pamela — for any-
one— to converse with
her.
"There's a useless
life for you," she ex-
claimed one day at
luncheon, pointing at
Lady Agatha, and
speaking as if she were
deaf as well as dumb.
"The heartless
rich," was one of her
frequent themes, "They
ought to sell their
jewelry, and give their
property to the State,
and build almshouses,
endow hospitals, and
improve the conditions
of the working-classes,
give them bathrooms,
and rest-roms and — "
"Form a school of silence and higher thought,"
suggested Pamela eagerly, "teach them to find the
way to health, joy, wisdom, peace and love. I
have always clung to the belief that there must be
some interior way of finding 'Reality,' some process,
simple, piercing, profound, that should have
authority for all the world. I believe that by
eliminating certain foods and drinks out of our daily
regime of diet, we can spiritualize our bodies, and
THE + SIGN
enter into a realm of peace, calm, and joy, of which
the ordinary person is entirely unconscious."
EOR the moment Pamela had forgotten to whom
she was speaking and rushed on enthusiastic-
ally with her favorite subject.
"Don't let us make the mistake of complicating
their beautiful, simple, lives, let us rather teach the
working-classes how to need even less."
Mrs. Tudge stared at her with undisguished
contempt.
"No wonder your friends sent you here," she
said rudely.
"If you'd listen to me I could teach you. What
everyone wants is money and money's worth, 'more
meat, more money, and less men,' that's my motto.
The world must be ruled by women and every woman
must be free to do as she likes."
"And if she doesn't want to, make her," put
in Pamela, laughing, "that's what Punch would say."
It was a hopeful sign that she laughed, the
attendant thought. She had noticed that the patients
who laughed most left soonest, and with kindly
tact she set the new copy of Punch each week on
the top of the pile of magazines beside Miss
Duffield's chair. There were other comic papers
from which Dawson and her fellow maids derived
considerable amusement in the servants' hall but
having, as she explained, lived exclusively in the
best families she knew that a lady like Lady Agatha
would tolerate nothing funnier than Punch in the
drawing-room.
^^^HEY were three stubborn cases, Dawson
%/y thought, and Mrs. Tudge was far and away
the worst. What was the matter with her was
nasty temper, and the doctor knew it and no wonder
her husband had gone off to Australia to get out
of her way; she hated all recognized customs and
all existing laws, and was a public danger — safer
under lock and key.
The chief thing the matter with Miss Duffield
was that she wanted to be too good, impossibly good.
No one in this world or the next had ever been
as good as Miss Duffield wanted to be, according
to Dawson.
Lady Agatha was a lady and knew how to
behave as such. Anyone who had lived with the
aristocracy could see that at a glance. And if she
was a bit queer at times, well she was old, and it
might be left at that. Dr. Palmer thought very
highly of her, and enjoyed chatting with her and
discussing books. Lady Agatha was always order-
ing books and receiving parcels by post, and leaving
the contents lying about in the public rooms ; Dawson
guessed why; but Pamela was not curious: she
never opened them.
OR. PALMER had once asked her "Do you
read any of Lady Agatha's books?" when
she spoke to him about concentration, vibra-
tions, fixed ideas, linking-up, and the value of
definitely chosen thoughts arranged in a sort of
routine. At the time his remark had seemed irrele-
vant as did his explanation : "I was thinking of your
brother." Later on it suddenly dawned upon her
what he meant, and as she turned her eyes in the
direction of the book-table a long-drawn "0!"
escaped her lips. She could do no more on that
occasion than read the titles, her eyes were so full
of tears.
Another day she opened one and read a few
sentences and the thought of Charles and what he
would have wished nearly overpowered her. "Tom
Sedley from Charlie Duffield," was written on the
title page of one of them, in a school boy's hand.
How well Pamela remembered that writing and that
friend! How often Charles had spoken to her of
Tom and his mother and all their kindness to him,
not only in Rome, during his College Beda days, but
years afterwards when he was given charge of a
Mission in England.
QAMELA had never met the Sedleys never
perhaps wanted to till now when they stood
for a link with the beloved dead. Perhaps
she used secretly to blame them for her brother's
extraordinary mistake. It was to the influence of the
Sedleys soon after he left school, that his mistake
was undoubtedly attributable.
She had always been devoted to Charles he
was her own special brother, the nearest to her in
age of a large family, and whilst she considered
him in the wrong she nevertheless admired his con-
sistency. His life on earth had seemed to her a
whimsical, boyish affair, hardly serious, but certainly
complete; and she, who was like him in so many
ways, knew where the differences lay.
He was unsatisfied, whilst she was dissatisfied.
He wondered happily over things that puzzled and
distressed her. And sometimes she began to doubt
whether after all she was looking in the right
direction for the solution of the difficulties that
retarded the growth of her soul.
THE f SIGN
She knew that he had arrived at a stage where
he satisfied others as well as himself whilst she
was still desiring to give to others a something
which she had not yet received. She did not know
that her brother had understood exactly what it was
she- lacked.
aFTER seeing his name in that book on the
drawing-room table she felt it was more
necessary than ever to accept the symbols
offered to her each evening on the supper-tray. At
home she had denied it, refused it, rejected it, but
here in Roselands (call it Roselands, as Dr. Palmer
did, politely if you like, or simply say placed under
restraint, as Mrs. Tudge had no hesitation in doing),
here anyhow she clearly saw that her brother's life
and death pointed that way.
Before leaving home she had been certain she
was right. Now she doubted it. It was not Mrs.
Tudge, nothing that she had rudely said had con-
vinced Pamela of anything, and Lady Agatha had
hardly spoken a word. Yet it was the silent old
lady who had wrought the change — she and her
supper. Pamela wanted to share the secret of that
sweet radiance that was part of Lady Agatha's old
age.
Her two companions appeared to Pamela as the
two voices, good and evil. Mrs. Tudge was repre-
sented by bovril, Lady Agatha by bread and wine.
Pamela's mind was still troubled. She saw it like
that. Everything she saw or heard or did, at this
particular period of her life, partook of a mystical
significance. Various exquisite meanings and per-
ceptions sprang from it in all directions, with the
sense of infinite expansion.
CI
'VERYTHING presented itself so insistently
as a symbol that she had lost all power to
estimate or appreciate the thing itself. Yet
even as a thing, before she joined the Galsworthy
Crusade, bovril had never appealed to her imagina-
tion. Nowadays the very sight of it conjured up
visions of over-driven cattle, scenes of heartless
cruelty at the docks, and unjustifiable animal suffer-
ing on board ship.
In one of these pamphlets published by the
S. P. C. A. she had once read something about a
poor cow with its horn broken, which made her
feel so sick with pity and remorse that she never
touched meat again.
Translating everything she saw into wider
terms, and interpreting it according to a precon-
ceived idea, and a fixed standard of her own, she
said unhesitatingly that Mrs. Tudge's cup of bovril
stood for cruelty and pain and death; whilst her own
bowl of bread and milk signified simplicity and
peace of mind and human kindness. What the
other patients had replied the first time Pamela
made her angry is not quite suitable for repetition.
^w^RS. TUDGE suffered from an unusually hasty
1^1 M temper and a drastic mode of speech. Later
on, if she were no longer seriously annoyed,
"it was" she assured her opponent, "because she had
no patience with such fools and considered all Miss
Duffield's views on life utterly beneath contempt."
So they sat there day by day, those friendless
women, who were not able to make friends; for, as
Pamela said to herself, all conversation becomes
impossible when one member of the party says
nothing, and the other lays down the law about
Government, slavery, the position of women, the
need for Church reform, etc., etc., and contradicts
everything I say about the simple life.
After a while Mrs. Tudge would rise declaring
"she was getting chilly," ("getting the worst of the
argument," Pamela thought), and hurry off for a
brisk walk around the garden. Then Lady Agatha
would get chilly too and move indoors to the
drawing-room where there was a fire, and Pamela
was left on the veranda alone to await the coming
of the tray. The bringing of it seemed to her a
solemn ceremony with an insistent meaning.
gLL that she had so long and so vehemently
denied was now epitomized and symbolized
by Lady Agatha's supper. Here was some-
thing that insisted on a recognition — the initial
point of these high mysteries — something that
reproached her, there was no getting away from it
deny it as she would it returned unfailingly to bother
her night after night. It stood for something belong-
ing to the dark ages.
She shrank from the very thought of what it
was, "there is no need," she had protested always
vehemently and whilst her heart said Pain is an evil,
an unmitigated evil, to be pitied and cured, to try
to prevent herself from dwelling on the idea she
constantly repeated: "There is no such thing as
suffering it is all a mere delusion of mortal mind."
"There is and let them suffer" was the heartless
attitude which Mrs Tudge took up.
THE + SIGN
"There is and let us accept it as the safest
way" was what Lady Agatha had once so bravely,
so inspiringly replied.
"Tell me what you believe about suffering?"
Pamela had asked her suddenly one day, and with-
out a moment's hesitation, not appearing to be at
all surprised, rather as if she were thoroughly
familiar with the thought, Lady Agatha answered
calmly, "I believe it is the safest way."
"But not the way for me," thought Pamela, I
cannot accept it. Something always crops up to
prevent me. I simply can't. I am held back. If I
could only once break free and acknowledge suffer-
ing as the safest way as Lady Agatha does — as
Charles did — I believe all the rest of my difficulties
would fall into position and disappear.
She was not happy. This very uncertainty
involved real suffering. Suffering! The very thing
from which she shrank, the idea of which she so
strongly disapproved. She had gone further than
disapproval, she had denied the existence of suffer-
ing as absolutely foreign to the intention of the
Creator.
Already she believed everyone possessed all good
and there was no need for Grace, no use for pain,
yet night after night the sacramental system as an
alternative was placed before her, and the attendant's
very gold ornament seemed to point the way.
Bread and wine were the admitted symbols of
sacrifice. They recalled not only the Priest
Melchisedech in the Old Testament, they spoke of
submission to authority in the New. They preached
obedience even unto the death of the Cross, with
the added humiliation of Pilate's judgment hall.
Choose! Choose! cried the gold cross hanging
from the attendant's neok, each evening as she
carried out the tray. You want truth. You are not
bound. You are free, and you must use your own
free will to choose.
What a fight it was ! Poor Pamela ! She knew
that her enemy was herself. Yet all the time of the
struggle she also knew at the back of her mind that
if He conquered she won.
(To be concluded)
e
fACH Lent the vast nave of the Cathedral of
Notre Dame in Paris is filled with throngs
eager to hear the most popular preacher in
France. For years this distinction has fallen to the
celebrated Dominican, Pere Janvier. The London
Times describes this fervent apostle in action.
At 30 he had attained a wide celebrity, though no
more for the force and ardour of his eloquence than
for the rugged sincerity with which he used to direct
his penitents. On Palm Sunday he dealt with
"Modesty and Fashionable Amusements."
He begins by condemning the Puritans, the
Jansenists, who banished from human existence,
which they made "desperate and insupportable, all
relaxation, mirth, expansion of the soul." Such
restrictions are inevitably followed by terrible
reactions of intemperance.
Is life, then, to be given to nothing but amuse-
ment? The preacher grows animated, heated, his
metallic accents clang as he denounces "those
worldings who pass from drawing-room to drawing-
room, from club to club, from banquet to banquet,"
with no thought in their minds but of frivolity and
folly; "useless creatures, scandalous creatures, oc-
casions of wrath, of revolt, of exasperation, a public
outrage to the dignity of the human race;" in periods
of majestic violence he castigates the culpable
vacuity of their existence, the scandal of their false-
hood and libertinage, while his expressive hands,
rising and falling with the waves of his indignation,
seem to clutch these same worldings, to clasp and
squeeze them, to raise them aloft, and then to hurl
them down among the raised, listening faces down
into the avenging flames that are the portion prom-
ised to the rich who are evil livers.
Having dealt with the men of the world, he
turns to the women. A biting irony now sounds in
his tone as he lashes the importunate display of
feminine fashions. "Miserable creatures!" he cries;
"will you be content, in your latter days, to array
yourselves in poverty, in ugliness, in decrepitude?"
Then this avenging, inquisitorial vehemence
returns to a calm sobriety, serene vigour, and with
a melancholy sweetness Pere Janvier concludes, in
the words of Job: —
"They take the timbrel and harp, and rejoice
at the sound of the organ.
"They spend their days in wealth, and in a
moment go down to the grave."
The Labor Problem
Rev. R. A. McGowan
IV. — Labor Legislation
S^^HE welfare of the working people of the
M t\ United States is not being secured. To
^^^^ secure it the working people need the help
of the national, state and city governments.
Government ought to come to the rescue because
governments exist, first of all, for the welfare of all
the people and the working people form a large,
important, and needy section of the people.
Pope Leo XIII. laid down a general principle
in regard to government help in his Encyclical "On
the Condition of Labor." He said : "Whenever the
general interest or any particular class suffers or is
threatened wih mischief which can in no other way
be met or prevented, the public authority must step
in and deal with it." And to make the point more
explicit he goes on to say that "when there is
question of defending the rights of individuals, the
poor and helpless have a special claim to considera-
tion." "The richer class," he says, "have many
ways of shielding themselves and stand less in need
of help from the State, whereas those who are badly
off have no resources of their own to fall back upon,
and must depend chiefly upon the assistance of the
State."
Whenever a law is proposed which will benefit
the working people the cry instantly goes up that
it is class legislation. There is much hypocrisy in
this. A great deal of the opposition arises from
those who are not gaining by the legislation and
may stand to lose. It depends, indeed, on what class
is benefited by the legislation.
V»^E have always had class legislation and we
\l/ will continue to have it because people are
divided into classes. Legislation helping
manufacturers is class legislation. Legislation help-
ing farmers is class legislation. There are many
laws helping both classes. Men and women do
certain kinds of work. If the general welfare is to
be secured the interests of men at work in certain
occupations must be cared for, because the welfare
of men and their families depends in large part
upon the conditions met while at work. Class legis-
lation merely recognizes this fact and acts accord-
ingly.
That the welfare of the people working in in-
dustry is not being cared for goes without saying.
Unemployment, low wages, unnecessary accidents,
industrial diseases — such physical evils are known
to exist. The time has come in this country when
working people have no longer the laws on free
land to rely upon, and millions under the usual run
of things will live out their lives without owning
the means of their work and livelihood.
The ordinary method employees use to secure
a livelihood for themselves and their families is the
labor union. It has been a great help to them. But
it is a well-known fact that regardless of how much
good the labor union has done it has not given to all
industrial employees in the United States either
the certainty that they will always have work, or
a decent livelihood from their work.
^^^HE modern labor union movement dates in
I J this country from the late seventies and
eighties. The labor union movement as now
known dates from the middle of the eighties. It
did not grow much however until about twenty
years ago. During the past twenty years it is pro-
bable that wages have not gone up when measured
by the cost of living. They may have even declined.
Now, as then, we have periods of unemployment.
The unemployment of 1920-22 is not milder than
the unemployment of 1914 or 1907 or 1896. Work-
ing people are no surer of keeping their jobs.
So, while the union is needed and while work-
ing people hold fast to the union, they know that
they need something more. They know that a
particular class is suffering and is threatened with
mischief. They know that they are that class. And
so, though some are half despairing, and though
others are deadly indifferent, and though many are
still hoping that their unions can provide them with
all or nearly all that they need, there is a turn
towards asking help from the government.
The Bishops' Program of Social Reconstruction
issued by the Administrative Committee of the
National Catholic War Council recognized the need
of labor legislation, and proposed several laws for
the advantage and welfare of the working people.
THE + SIGN
This program in its entirety has received warm
praise from even non-Catholics.
©
HE proposed legal measures of the Bishops'
Program are the following:
A Federal Employment Service
A National Labor Board
Public Housing
Minimum Wage Laws
Social Insurance Laws
Safety and Sanitation Laws
Municipal Clinics
Vocational Education
Child Labor Laws
Still other proposals of immediate moment are
found in the Bishops' Program, such as the right
of the workers to organize, the advantages of higher
than living wages, workers' participation in indus-
trial management, co-operative societies, high excess
profits, inheritance and income taxes, copartnership,
co-operative production, etc.
But the point here is that certain laws of im-
mediate application are recommended by the
Bishops' Program as a part of the course of social
reconstruction which we are to run if the labor
problem is to be solved. Some are to be passed
by cities, others by states, and still others by the
Federal Government. They are needed to protect
the working people from the wrongs they now suffer.
They are not, however, to be held up as a
cure-all. Social legislation is only of partial worth.
But its worth is real, and the sufferings of the un-
employed and of large numbers of the employed
are real, too. The advantages that come from social
legislation should not be let slip from us.
Harnessing
^^^HE British Government has granted conces-
^/^ sions to Jewish interests allowing water rights
in Palestine for purposes of irrigation and
electrification. Although sharply opposed by the
English press, the promoters have undertaken the
preliminary operations. "The stimulus which
Palestine industry will derive from the realization
of the great irrigation and electrification project,"
says The New Palestine, "will be powerful aid to
a large Jewish immigration, the one substantial
factor rendering possible the early establishment of
the Jewish national home." In Palestine Nature
follows her law of compensation and in the lack of
ordinary fuel supplies considerable water resources,
commonly called "white coal." While the average
rainfall equals that of European countries, it occurs
mostly in winter. To be practically utilized, there-
fore, it must be collected and stored. The first step
in carrying out the project is the utilization of a
part of the fall of the Jordan below Lake Tiberias
for the production of electrical energy.
Lake Tiberias is a huge, natural storage reser-
voir of an area of 170 square kilometers where only
a small dam is necessary to make available a
quantity of water which with its fall is capable of
producing more energy than Palestine at present
requires. The Arabs are not enthusiastic over this
encroachment of modern industry upon their pastoral
life, nor are they convinced that it will enhance their
the Jordan
happiness. Their national paper El Karmel object-
ing to the draining of a swamp near Ceasarea
remarks that this area is inhabited by several
hundred bedouins who breed cattle there and
develop the important industry of plaiting mats
and baskets, using the undergrowth for the purpose.
The Government claiming to have sanitation as its
motive, El Karmel rejoins: "our answer is that we
have lived for hundreds and thousands of years with
the swamp as it is now, and we have the evidence
of Lord Northcliffe that we were happier before
the war."
Mr. Kamel El-Dajani, president of the Haifa
Chamber of Commerce, thus defines the opposition
to Zionist plans for colonization: "We people of
Palestine harbor no grudge against the Jews. We
have no animosity toward our old Palestine fellow-
citizens, nor against the righteous Jewish immigrant
who comes ready for the earnest work of coloniza-
tion. But the majority of the Jewish immigrants
who have entered the country since the armistice are
little intent on quiet, peaceful agricultural activities.
All they bring with them is their Socialist outlook
upon life. . . . True Bolshivists of Trotzky's and
Lenine's school, they demonstratively parade their
disregard and contempt for the religious rites of
all confessions represented in Palestine, not least
of their own Jewish coreligionists."
monism in Palestine
^^^>HE Peace Conference had its abandoned
M Cj children, the Irish, the Egyptians, the
^^^^^ Hindoos, the Catholic populations incorp-
orated in Jugo-Slavia and in Czecko-
Slovakia; it had its favored children, the Jews.
Of the concessions that were made to the latter,
some were quite legitimate; others, such as those
which had to do with
Zionism, were unworthy
and full of peril. Without
being in any sense of the
term an anti-Semite, it is
only necessary to open
one's eyes to see that the
foundation of a national
Jewish home in Palestine,
such as now appears in
reality and practice, en-
croaches on the legitimate
rights of Catholics of the
entire world and creates a
new centre of disturbance
in the Moslem world.
The two millions of
Israelites, who peopled
Palestine at the time of
the conquest of Jerusalem
by Titus, in the year 70
A. D., were scattered little
by little throughout the
Roman world, whither
they went to join the Jews
of the dispersion. Strictly
speaking, there was not,
except for Jerusalem in
(A. D. 117) and of Omar (A. D.637), a decree of
expulsion. However, the destruction of the Temple,
the prohibition to live in Jerusalem after the revolt
of the false Messiah, Bar-Kochba, and finally the
loss of all political influence, forced the Jews to
disperse themselves in great numbers throughout
the Roman Empire.
Cyprien Jourdin, C. P.
{Rector of the Passionist Retreat at Bethany)
against the Christians
THE HOLY CITY OF JERUSALEM
the time of Hadrian
<3
HEY benefited by a gracious toleration, even
during the epoch when persecutions raged
Antoninus permitted them
to move from place to place, which was rigorously
forbidden the others. Caracalla gave them the
right to the Roman city, and in spite of the rigor of
the law, polygamy was tolerated among them, Even
more, from the second century and up to the year
429 A. D., they had a real sovereign, a descendant
of Hillel, who bore the
title of Ethnarch or Patri-
arch, who was surrounded
by a sumptuous court, and
who sent his delegates
throughout the world to
organize communities with
a view of exercising
justice and seeing to the
religious cults. As far as
sovereign rights were con-
cerned, the only right
lacking was the power of
life and death.
However, their eyes
were always turned toward
Jerusalem, and one can
say that the first tentative
Zionist movement took
place in A. D. 363 under
Julian the Apostate.
This philosophic Em-
peror found the Jews some
of his best allies in the
war which he declared on
Christianity. He sent for
the principal chiefs of the
Israelite nation : "Why," he asked, "do you not offer
sacrifices to your God for the safety of the Empire?"
And when the Jews replied that they were not
permitted to offer sacrifices save in the Temple at
Jerusalem, at that time in ruins, the Emperor replied :
"That shall not prevent: I will rebuild it."
nIS wish to satisfy the Jews mingled in the
Apostate with his desire to give the lie to the
words of Christ ("The days will come," said
the Savior," when of this temple which you see, there
THE 1* SIGN
will not remain one stone upon another." Luke
XIX:5:6). Before starting on his expedition into
Persia, Julian wrote a long letter to the Jewish
community, in which he said: "If I return victorious,
I will rebuild your holy city of Jerusalen, I will
re-people it, and I will there give thanks with you
to the Almighty." The Emperor appointed a director
of works, a person of importance, formerly a
colonial administrator. Large sums of money were
placed at his disposal. This great enterprise was a
means of arousing the enthusiasm of the Jewish
people.
"The Patriarch of the Jews," says St. John
Chrysostom," offered the great treasures, of which he
was the guardian, and the people set to work with
all their resources of audacity, initiative and skill."
"The circumcized," says St. Ephrem, "were already
sounding the trumpet." The work was begun.
Frequent earthquakes did not retard or prevent the
work. The workmen endured many mishaps from
sudden upheavals of the ground and landslides.
The fall of a portico crushed a group of laborers.
Notwithstanding these disasters, the work continued.
Jewish tenacity and Pagan obstinacy continued the
war against relentless nature.
"But very soon a more terrible phenomenon
occurred," says the historian Pere Allard. "Let us
here give the words of the Pagan Ammien Marcellin :
'At the moment,' wrote he, 'when Alypius, aided by
the government of the Province, was pushing the
work forward, terrible globes of fire burst at frequent
intervals around the foundations, made the place
inaccessible to the laborers, and even burned some
of them.' And as the very elements fought against
the continuation of the work, the enterprise had to
be abandoned." Thus was the first Zionist attempt
thwarted.
"The Jews," says St. Jerome, "promising them-
selves until the end of time the restoration of the
city of Jerusalem, were forced to leave the city
like waters which flow toward the two seas. They
practiced anew the rite of circumcision, they sacri-
ficed victims, they observed all the precepts of the
Jews. It is not the Jews who will become Christians,
but the Christians who will be forced to become
Jews."
>jr^HEN the last descendants of Hillel died, (A.
\I/ D. 429), the Zionist hopes were not ex-
tinguished, for the Ethnarch had for successor,
until the Middle Ages, the Exilarch or chief of the
exiles of Babylon, the real chief of the Jews even
in the Roman Empire. Without doubt Judaism
suffered from the intrusion of the Emperors at
Constantinople in its affairs, but much less than did
Christianity.
In the Middle Ages the Jew was often reviled.
He held himself or was forced to hold himself aloof.
Living and exiled in his Ghettoes, one can easily
imagine that he cherished the hope of one day
securing his revenge. In our days, the Jews, whose
numbers seem to have increased to about thirteen
millions, enjoy in certain countries a prosperity
above the average; in others they are to a great
extent kept apart from the natives by custom or
tradition. Even in certain nations where he has
acquired power in financial and commercial affairs
and where he enjoys complete equality before the
law, the Jew is still regarded with a disagreeable
smile.
Owing to these various attitudes toward the
Jew, a Jew born in Budapest in 1860, one Theodore
Herzl, created the modern Zionist movement, the
object of which was the founding of a Jewish
nationality, a political Jewish state, whence the
Israelites could compel the esteem of the world.
Herzl's idea was a modern state which could be
established, if necessary, in another country than
Palestine. Herzl wished to solve the Jewish pro-
blem. He understood that his co-religionists of the
entire world, even where they enjoyed complete
political rights with full religious liberty, would
never assimilate with the body and soul of the
nations where they lived. The Jew would always
remain an element refractory to perfect fusion. The
ultimate reason which prevents the total blending
of the Jewish people with other peoples is the
indissoluble union in Judaism of two elements, which
everywhere else are found separate, religion and
nationality. This is true of the entire history of
Judaism.
QS far as concerns religion, this is easily seen;
in maintaining that Jewry is also a nationality
non Jewish writers have merely witnessed
to the voice of Israel itself. "The entire world,"
said one of the American Jewish delegates to the
Peace Conference, Rabbi Stephen Wise, "the entire
world. . . . knows that the spirit of Jewish national-
ity has never ceased since the Romans expropriated
the Jews from their national home nineteen centuries
ago." Zionism, in the thought of its founder Herzl,
THE + SIGN
and his co-workers, was to revindicate before any-
thing else Jewish nationality, one people, one law,
one language, one territory. When Herzl proposed,
in default of Palestine, of which he could not reason-
ably dream, to establish a Jewish state in Uganda,
the despair of the Zionists, was tragic. Herzl with-
drew and died (July, 1904), believing that all his
plans had failed and were unrealizable. Neverthe-
less he left behind him an immense mystic hope in
the restoration of Zion. Zionism did not die with
him. The Jews did not wait till the end of the
World War to point out their claims. From 1917,
when the successes of English arms assured the
conquest of Pales-
tine, an interven-
tion of Lord
Rothschild obtain-
ed from the
British govern-
ment a declara-
tion which was
as good as a
promise. This
declaration from
Balfour, of which
the importance
cannot be exag-
gerated, opened a
new era for the
Zionists. Here is
the declaration: "dome of the rock,
Foreign Office, 2nd November, 1917.
Dear Lord Rothschild, —
I have the great
pleasure of sending you from the Govern-
ment of His Majesty the following declar-
ation, which has been submitted to the
Cabinet and received its approval.
"The government of
His Majesty looks favorably upon the
establishment in Palestine of a national
home for the Jewish people and will employ
all its efforts to facilitate the realization of
this project, it being clearly understood
that nothing will be done to violate the
civil and religious rights of the non-Jewish
peoples in Palestine, nor the rights and
political conditions which the Jews enjoy
in all other countries."
I will be obliged to
you if you will bring this declaration to the
knowledge of the Zionist federation.
m
Sincerely yours,
Arthur James Balfour.
HEN one reads this declaration one under-
stands the enthusiasm which manifested it-
self at the time of its publication and on the
anniversaries of this celebrated promise. What a
providential oracle for the Zionists! When the
entire world was at war, when the Russian Empire
which had perse-
cuted the Jews,
the Empire of the
pogroms, was fall-
ing to pieces a
new Cyrus show-
ed the Jews the
way to Holy Zion !
Was not this at
last the accom-
plishment of that
wish of all the
years which they
had repeated on
Easter night :
"next year to
Jerusalem!" Was
this not a means
THE SIGHT Qf br;nging them
back there to trace a path amongst so many ruins?
The Lord had said : "Fear not, for I am with thee :
I will bring thy seed from the east and gather thee
from the west. I will say to the north : Give up :
and to the south: Keep not back: bring my sons
from afar, and my daughters from the ends of the
earth." (Isaias XLIII-5,6.)
All this is mysticism, but mysticism can in-
fluence millions of men. All that the Jewish
spiritual masters, formerly the only oracles of
Judaism, can do is to moderate these explosions of
joy and to eradicate all that is provocative and
aggressive in these words. The "Jewish World"
assures us" that the universal empire promised to
the Jews will not exploit the Gentiles for the benefit
of one nation. No — the Jews have for their mission
the good of the whole world, and it is for that
reason that they have a right to empire."
1?
THE t SIGN
XF the moderate spirits think thus, and if these
are carried away by an excess of jubilation
which cannot help but disturb them, what
must the masses be thinking? A people who have
been constantly told that they have been persecuted,
mocked and jeered at for centuries by the Christians,
who have been accustomed to mix instincts of
revenge with zeal for its own interests and its
fidelity to its own personal welfare, will these
people maintain their balance in the midst of their
joy and hope renewed? Must Jewry not passion-
ately hope to humiliate Christianity in its turn, to
revenge itself ? Noble and lofty souls are not more
numerous in Isreal than elsewhere. One perceives
the response and the danger, confirmed only too
vividly by the present conditions in Palestine.
Since the great offensive of Marshall Foch
made the victory of the Allies certain, the Zionists,
anticipating the armistice, seized on the declarations
of President Wilson to claim the realization of the
Balfour promise. The "Jewish World" wrote in
October, 1918: "The thesis of the Wilsonian peace
which dominates more and more the aspirations of
people desirous of securing a truce between two
massacres, claims the independence of each nation
provided that that nation insists on it. Why should
not the Jewish nation, if it exists, or if it wishes
to exist, have the same privilege as other nations?"
^^^HE more surely to win possession of the
%/J Promised Land, the Zionist Committee of
Palestine has laid at Jerusalem on the Mount
of Olives the first stone of a Hebrew University.
A congress of about two hundred delegates of the
Jews of Judea met together in the Holy City with
the view of strongly organizing Palestinian Judaism.
Many great newspapers of England sent special
correspondents. A representative of the British
government, Major Ormsby-Core, commemorating
the historic declaration of Mr. Balfour, gave it this
interpretation : "We are of the opinion that the Jews
who voluntarily desire to come to Palestine to live
here, may be considered in Palestine as belonging
to the Jewish nation, that is to say, as Jews and
nothing else. When I shall return to my country,
I will report to the British government what the
Jews of Palestine have already done to realize their
ideal and what work has been accomplished already
to secure a national home on a Hebraic basis. I
will report that you all, from wherever you may
have come, from Russia, from Salonica, from
Bucharest or from Poland, America, or England, are
united in Palestine with a common ideal, that of the
creation of national centre for the Jews of the whole
world."
Thus is clearly advertised the pretension that
Israel does not consist solely of a religion or a race,
but is a national entity with its members scattered
throughout the world, awaiting the return of their
territory. Jerusalem must become for them a
religious, political and national centre.
This claim of Jewish nationality must have
been reiterated in the Jewish congresses held in
different countries after the Armistice. The Jews
of America above all sided with the Zionist move-
ment.
XN the Congress held in Philadelphia from the
15th. to the 17th. of December, 1918, four
hundred delegates, representing the three
millions of Jews in the United States, voted a reso-
lution charging the delegates of the Jewish Congress
of America to work with the representatives of other
organizations and especially with the Universal
Zionist Organization, in order that the Peace Con-
ference should recognize the aspirations and the
historical claims of the Jewish people relative to
Palestine, and declared that it was in accord with
the declaration of the British government of the
2nd. of November, 1917, approved by the Allied
governments and the President of the United States,
that there must be created in Palestine a political,
administrative and economic administration fitted
to assure, under the protection of Great Britain,
the development of Palestine into a Jewish republic ;
being clearly understood that nothing should be
done which would injure the civil and religious
rights of the non-Jewish peoples of Palestine, nor
the rights and political conditions which the Jews
enjoyed in other countries. (The Jewish World,
17th. January, 1919, p. 446.)
The sending of a delegation of six members,
having at its head the Rabbi Stephen Wise, was a
direct consequence of this resolution. This dele-
gation and that of other nations did not content
themselves with approaching different politicians.
They demanded to be received officially and heard
by the Peace Conference itself. They had too many
friends therein not to be assured of a friendly
reception. The "Jewish World" complacently re-
ported in February, 1919, that Judism was "well
enough represented," even strongly represented, at
THE 1* SIGN
the Peace Conference which ruled the fate of
Europe.
of the indigenous population, composed primarily
of Christians and Moslems.
aNDER these conditions the Zionist claims
could not but triumph. Article 95 of the
Treaty of Sevres formally recognized them
in declaring that it conceded the administration of
Palestine to the British Empire under a mandate.
The British Empire would be responsible for putting
into execution the original declaration made on the
2nd. of November, 1917
by the British govern-
ment and adopted by the
Allied Powers in favor
of establishing in Pales-
tine a national home for
the Jewish people. It
seems that this article
definitely settled the
Zionist question, al-
though it may well be
that the Treaty of Sevres
will be revised.
The Zionists did not
wait for the Treaty of
Sevres to state openly
the concessions which
would be made them by
this treaty, and to inter-
pret the foundation of a
national home for the
Jewish people in the
sense of a Jewish repu-
blic. Their ambition was
to create a national state
at once, where they
would hold the upper hand, relegating Christians
and Musselmans to the rank of citizens of the
second class. The British government seemed in-
capable of measuring the scope of this audacious
dream and ambition. Its method of acting in Pales-
tine tends inevitably to assure to the Jews there a
predominant position, so that in a little while they
will be masters of the country. Once Jerusalem
and Palestine had been captured from Turkish
domination, it was a most elementary proposition
that the government should be confided to a Christian
or a Musselman. One or the other should have had
the advantage of representing the large majority
*
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^tt^HAT did the mandatory power do? It gave
\\j the post of Governor of Palestine to a Jew,
Sir Herbert Samuel. His being a Jew renders
him unpopular among the Christians and Mussel-
mans, and has besides the great disadvantage of
his not representing a seventh part of the indigenous
population of Palestine. The mandatory power had
promised in the declar-
ation of Mr. Balfour not
to interfere with the civil
and religious rights of
the non-Jewish popula-
tion of Palestine! How
has England kept that
promise? She has sub-
jected this population to
an administration nearly
exclusively Jewish, in-
stead of making a wide
appeal for their colla-
beration. She has every-
where installed a Jewish
supremacy as odious to
the Musselman as to the
Christian. Since 1919
the control of finances
and public employment
have been for the greater
part in the hands of the
Jews. Besides, the Zion-
ist administration was
known as the official
collaborator of the
English administration
in settling all the economic, social and other ques-
tions affecting the establishment of the national
Jewish home and the interests of the Jewish popu-
lation in Palestine, distribution of lands, contracts
for public works, etc. Considerable sums have been
pledged by the Zionist Jews of all countries for the
enterprise of restoring the "national Jewish home in
Palestine. "The Jews secured possession of great
tracts of land in all sections of Palestine. The Arab
peasants, it is true, are attached to the soil, but as
a certain number of them had debts, they allowed
themselves to be tempted by seductive offers,
made by Jewish committees in command of enor-
mous financial resources.
CHURCH OF THE HOLY SEPULCHRE
THE + SIGN
CERTAIN citizens in the cities who had
acquired land with a view to speculation
easily sold these when the Jews put a good
price on them. The land once sold never returns
to the Christian or Musselman as the only legal
proprietor is the Jewish committee which never
gives it up save to its co-religionists. Trade falls
every day more and more into the hands of the
Jews, whose commercial aptitude is proverbial, and
who make considerable use of loans from the Jewish
banks at the rate of three per cent, while the non-
Jew must pay as high as ten or twelve per cent.
Such are a few of the unhappy manifestations from
the economic point of view of the Zionist expansion
in Palestine.
This manifest partiality on the part of the
British government toward the Zionists, and all that
vast financial organization put at the service of
Jewish religious enthusiasm and exalted nationalism,
have exasperated the Christians as well as the
Moslems in Palestine. Not being able to secure
recognition of their rights from the mandatory
power, and on the other hand not being able to
make headway against Jewish finance, they retaliat-
ed by violence. There can be nothing more odious
to a follower of Mahomet than to have laws made
for him by a Jew. Between Islam and Isreal there
is an abyss. Palestine has been the meeting place,
as it were, of the religious creeds of nearly the entire
world; and this fact, combined with the fact that
since the Crusades, it has been the possession of
Islam, makes the constitution of a Jewish state
there among the impossibilities of the present hour.
The result is, notwithstanding the influence of
England, that the reaction against the Jew has
assumed violent proportions in Palestine, which is
peopled by a large majority of Musselmans who are
all exasperated by the encroachment of Jewish
colonization. In their eyes Zionism exemplifies
Jewish supremacy and their own subjection to a race
cursed by Allah a hundred times in the Koran. This
is the real reason for the bloody brawls which took
place between Jews and Musselmans at Jerusalem
in 1920 and 1921. At Caiffa, and above all at Jaffa,
sooner or later the world of Islam will not fail to
take the part of its Palestinian brothers placed
under the yoke of the "Yahond-Guorond" (monkey-
Jews), as the natives of Palestine call them.
In the allocution which he delivered in the
secret Consistory of May 10th., 1919, when the
status of Palestine was not yet fixed, His Holiness
Benedict XV, thinking of the future of Palestine,
spoke in these moving terms : "We are asking our-
selves with greatest anxiety what decision will be
taken about Palestine in a few days time by the
Peace Conference being held at Paris. It will
surely be a cruel blow to Us and to all the faithful
if a privileged position is given to unbelievers in
Palestine, and our sorrow will be deep if those to
whom the great religious monuments are delivered
are not Christians."
The diplomats at the Peace Conference, forced
to take notice of the delegates of some few millions
of Jews, closed their ears that they might not hear
the words of the common Father of hundreds of
millions of Catholics.
^f^^HE actual developments in Palestine proved
^SJ that the fears of the Sovereign Pontiff were
not chimerical. Benedict XV. renewed his
protests with a force which should have aroused
from their apathy and awakened the consciences of
Catholics to the gravity of the perilous situation.
"It clearly appears," said the Holy Father, "that
the condition" of the Christians in the Holy Land
has not only not been ameliorated, but has become
even worse than it was before because of newly
made laws and political institutions. Without dis-
cussing the intentions of the authors of these laws,
in actual fact they tend to empower Jews to displace
the name of Christian from places which have
always been known as Christian. We find many
people actively employed in secularizing the holy
places and transforming them for worldly usage,
importing there all sorts of attractions which simply
make for voluptuousness, which are condemnable
in any case, and above all in that land which
contains the great monuments of our religion." It
is easy to illustrate this allocution of the Sovereign
Pontiff by actual facts, the publication of which
was forbidden in Palestine by the British govern-
ment. Instead of exaggerating, as certain Zionist
journalists tried to suggest, the Holy Father did not
even reveal the whole truth in the matter.
^tt^HERE is now the time when one encountered
\I/ in the streets of Jerusalem only the caravans
of pious pilgrims of all nations, of all
languages and of all religious confessions, pressing
forward to venerate the Cross, the sign of our
THE t SIGN
redemption, in the very locality where it was first
erected ?
Where is now the time when immorality did
not dare publicly to proclaim itself in the holy city
of Jerusalem, and when certain houses, whose titles
I shall not name were unknown therein?
Today what does one find at Jerusalem under
the new Zionist Jewish republic? Moving picture
shows which re-produce the most immoral films of
London, Paris or New York, and dancing parties
face to face with Calvary. This very year the
government authorized a costume ball on Holy
Saturday; when the clergy protested, the ball was
not forbidden but simply postponed till Easter
Sunday.
The Cross, the venerable sign of our redemption,
but an object of horror to the Jews, is daily insulted
by them with hate as well as ridicule.
One sees in the more frequented streets of
Jerusalem, students of the Jewish schools covering
their eyes with their hands and spitting on the
ground when certain Religious pass by with the cross
on their breast to emphasize the disgust which is
inspired by their sight of the Cross. Often too the
sight of a priest or of a Religious is an occasion for
showing their hatred of the Cross. They make the
sign of the Cross with their fingers and then spit
on it. Yet these are but a few of the pleasant things
which Zionism reserves for Catholics in the future!
SACED with these facts Benedict XV. did
not cease to press his cry of alarm. Since
the British mandate, under the protection of
which these things occur, had not yet received the
official approbation of the League of Nations, the
Holy Father appealed solemnly to the heads of all
the governments: "Since," he said, "the affairs of
Palestine are not yet definitely regulated, we pro-
claim our wish that, since the time has arrived to
fix the status of Palestine, that the rights of the
Catholic Church and those of all Christians should
be safeguarded in their integrity. Certainly our
intention is not to take any rights away from the
Jews, but we maintain that these must not in any
way prevail over the sacred rights of Christians.
And we ask emphatically of all the governments of
Catholic peoples, and also non-Catholic, to inter-
vene, with that distinction, as powerfully as possi-
ble with the League of Nations regarding those
rights, of which the British mandate must take
account."
Many great spirits have followed with sym-
pathy the Zionist movement, in the hope that it
might prove at last a solution of the Jewish problem,
that is to say, that it would give a country to "all the
poor devils of Judaism," to all the Jewish elements
not assimilated in Roumania, Russia, and the
Ukraine, which number around six or seven millions.
This is pure delusion : Palestine can never, even
under the best government possible, contain and
feed more than two million inhabitants.
Y?=^ERE then is the history of the Jewish people
\ P during twenty centuries, since they suffered
the blood of the Messiah, the Son of God
and the Son of David, to fall upon them and their
children. "Their entire existence, wrote Lamennais,
"has been nothing but a long prodigy; a new miracle,
yet always the same, a universal, perpetual miracle,
manifesting to the last day the inexorable justice and
the holiness of a God whom this people dares to
deny. Without any apparent principle of life, they
have lived; nothing has been able to destroy them,
neither captivity, nor the sword; isolated in the
midst of nations who repudiated them, they found
no place of repose. A seemingly invincible power
pressed them on, agitated them, and would not let
them rest anywhere. They carry in their hands a
torch which lights the entire world, and them-
selves remain in darkness. They await that which
has already come; they read their prophets and
do not understand them; their sentence, written
on each page of the books which they were ordered
to cherish, brings them joy; like those great
criminals of whom antiquity writes, they have lost
their intelligence; crime has troubled their reason.
Everywhere oppressed, they are yet everywhere.
Every nation has seen them pass; all have been
seized with horror at their aspect; they were
marked with a sign more terrible than that of Cain :
on their foreheads a hand of iron had written:
'Deicides!' "
Current Fact and Comment
VACATION TIME
Vm^HILE the purpose of a vacation may be
\Jy relaxation and recuperation, very frequently
that purpose is thwarted with serious physical
and spiritual setbacks. Without much exaggeration
it has been said that no man needs a vacation more
than he who just had one. Those who wisely plan
their holidays will not fail to count on spiritual
safeguards. If these are necessary in the momentum
of ordinary life, much more are they for the dis-
tractions and temptations of those rampant days.
Vacation from vacare, "to be free," does not imply
relaxation of moral restraints or a temporary de-
parture from the sphere of God's presence. Your
vacation should not produce a harvest of regrets.
Let there be no dishonest excuse for having missed
Mass. The gay round should not exclude a visit
to the chapel and the Faithful Friend, and through
prayer actual graces should be solicited and the
faculties preserved from utter saturation with
material things.
A WIFE'S OBEDIENCE
fiEMINISM having succeeded in placing woman
on a plane of equality with man and in
the consequent invasion of man's positions
and privileges, the word "obey" seemed idle and
obsolete for the woman in the Episcopal form of
marriage. There is question of deleting it. This
word does not appear in the Catholic form of marri-
age. Nevertheless the Church stands for the spirit
of it and claims that it represents the proper attitude
for the woman in married life. She could not do
otherwise in view of St. Paul's direction: "Wives,
be subject to your husbands." This precept is
based on the very nature of things. While the dis-
tinctive qualifications and ineffable dignities of the
wife are recognized, it is presumed that in the
family, as in any organization, there can be no equal
division of authority without failure and discord.
In the well-regulated family, affairs will shape them-
selves as the Apostle prescribes. The authority
vested in the husband is not designed to give him
personal advantages but, as with all .authority,
implies compensating responsibilities and burdens.
This authority must be exercised with firmness and
circumspection with the temporal and eternal in-
terests of the family ever in view. The wise young
woman will assure herself that her prospective
spouse measures up to these ideals. Only those
who marry to be pampered will object to the sub-
ordination which the Apostle ordains.
WANTED— GROWN-UP SUNDAY SCHOOL TEACHERS
^^HE movement to impart religious instruction
V, J after school hours to Protestant children
attending the public schools was not under-
taken without a numerous corps of volunteers ready
to impart that instruction. These came trained from
that wonderfully elaborate system — the Protestant
Sunday School. Compared with this as to system
and efficiency the Catholic Sunday School might
not merit commendation. This may be due to our
great complacency in and reliance on our parochial
schools. During that scant hour of catechism on
Sunday mornings, when alone it seems practical to
assemble the children, the pastor is frequently other-
wise engaged and must leave the instruction to
others. These are usually too young or incom-
petent to do more than "hear" the lesson. Why do
not our men and women emulate the zeal of earnest
Protestants in this matter? Our children, both those
in rural districts and those whom some parents
insist on sending to public schools, must get their
religious instruction in that brief period. Think of
the consequences of superficiality or of neglecting
means to interest and impress? We suggest that
there are many with bent and talent for this im-
portant work who would be surprised by the interest
and satisfaction they would derive from it. You are
not normal if you do not like to come in contact with
children and do something to earn their appreciation.
If you want to make your pastor happy go to him
and volunteer to teach in the Sunday school.
20
THE 1* SIGN
RADIOING RELIGION
>^JUNDREDS of little ears listen nightly to
JL.J bedtime stories radioed from the Sandman or
the Man in the Moon. The assumed names
of these story-tellers are a clue to the themes with
which they entertain the credulous children. Occa-
sionally thrusts are made at unkindness and dis-
obedience, but it seems to be considered wi.se
policy not to introduce supernatural motives. May
we not nope that Catholic enterprise will arrange
through this popular instrument to reach our children
with messages of instruction and edification supple-
menting the catechism or drawn from the old and
new Testaments and from the lives of the Saints?
When the natural motives prevail in the ethical
training of children wierd results follow. "Willie,
I am glad to hear you say that you would like to
be an angel. What would you do if you were
one?" "I'd fly up to the top of that cottonwood tree
in our yard and take my kite out of it." The teacher
was showing her class a copy of "The Angelus" and
wanted to know what the man and woman were
doing. After much suggestive questioning a hand
finally went up. "I know, teacher," said its owner.
"Well, Johnny, what are they doing?" "Lookin' for
potato-bugs, teacher," replied Johnny triumphantly.
How extensive may be the use of the radio for
religious purposes may be deduced from an appeal
from the mountains of Eastern Kentucky. "We are
a farming people but far away from railroads or
other good roads that would give us access to out-
side communication. Most of our lands are hills
and rough at that. We have reasonably good schools
and a good community house, but no churches.
Once in a while a minister visits our locality and
delivers a sermon, but this does not happen more
than three or four times a year. Our people are
interested in sacred worship, and when an oppor-
tunity offers they flock in to take part, but we are
not able to employ a regular minister. I have taken
the matter up with them of installing a radiophone
in our community house, that we may meet often
and hear the Word of God as it is delivered by some
able minister in some other part of the country,
and they are very enthusiastic about it."
THE WOLF SHALL LIE DOWN WITH THE LAMB"
QMONG the astonishing attempts at accomplish-
ing church union is the plan of five Anglican
and five Presbyterian clergymen to receive
a twofold set of orders embracing both their
churches. They claim that they take this step with
the understanding that it does not imply a repudiation
of their own ministry.
Circumstances have made Anglican belief and
practice quite familiar to us. Your Anglican friend
would assure you that nothing essential in faith
separates you from him. A numerous body of them
admit everything for you except the supremacy of
the Pope. But what is Presbyterianism with which
some Anglicans entertain the thought of union?
Presbyterianism gets its name from its system
of church government which is by representative
assemblies as opposed to a hierarchy of bishops.
These assemblies are called presbyteries. Ordina-
tion produces the teaching elder as distinct from the
lay elder and church authority is vested in an
assembly of both. Its creed is founded on Calvan-
ism, specifically on the Westminster Confession,
with its hopeless view of predestination, the com-
plete depravity of all the race and the claim that
there are those unchosen who do not share in the
Atonement. Lately these tenets have been modified.
The founders insisted on the union of Church and
State and the duty of civil authorities to suppress
heresy. Baptism is esteemed as prescribed by
Christ but not as a necessary means of salvation.
Christ is not substantially present in the Lord's
Supper but only by effect for believers. The service
is rigidly simple; there is no liturgy; in some
churches instrumental music is barred; the sermon is
the feature of the gathering, the minister generally
appearing in lay attire.
Fancy Anglicanism compromising with all that
— Anglicanism with its mass and sacraments, its
vestments and statues, its reverence for an annointed
hierarchy, its full trust reposed in the boundless
merits of the Savior! Fancy Anglicans accepting
their ministry at the hands of a Presbyterian elder!
THE f SIGN
SANE PROHIBITION
^^^EMPERANCE advocates in Ireland have met
V J and formally petitioned the officials of the
provisional Government for an effective regu-
lation of the liquor traffic. These advocates pro-
bably have sufficient reasons for their concern.
Experience proves that no class of legislation re-
quires greater sagacity in the lawmakers than pro-
hibition. And herein is afforded a clear opportunity
to prove the contention that Ireland possesses the
wisdom and acumen requisite for self-government.
Furthermore her lawmakers have an immense ad-
vantage in the object-lesson of prohibition as applied
in this country.
From this source they can learn first of all to be
fair in the enactment itself, leaving no occasion for
opponents to claim that fanaticism employed selfish
motives or exploited the nation's temporary exigen-
cies. Again, let the law be so plain and compre-
hensive that it will not require a long train of
supplementary legislation to render it effective. With
us, the original law, the Eighteenth Amendment, is
directed against the use of intoxicating liquors as
beverages alone. The enforcing legislation presumes
to include beverages that are really not intoxicating.
The Rev. John Cole McKim declares in the
North American Review: "It is certain that the
digestive organs of the normal adult could not
accommodate a fluid containing one half of one per
cent of alcohol in sufficient quantities to inebriate
him. A common sense definition of an intoxicating
beverage would seem to be that of a fluid which
would probably inebriate the average adult if taken
in normal beverage quantities." Our enforcing
legislation further presumes to dictate as to who may
use wines or liquors for sacramental or medical
(non-beverage) purposes and in what quantities.
And the courts have declared these usurpations legal
and binding. Further, the wise legislator will not
rely upon high taxation alone. It is a futile
subterfuge. While it discourages the multiplication
of saloons, it opens a profitable field proportionately
for the reckless bootlegger.
THE MELTING-POT
^^^HE result of the recent elections in a number
V J of cities seemed portentous to a certain-
weekly journal of sociology and it invited
replies to the queery: What is the matter with
America ? It was stated that immigration was over-
throwing the traditions of the Pilgrim Fathers, the
social structure of the Puritans and the heretofore
dominant Anglo-Saxon culture. It was observed
that in almost all the older American cities political
power is passing into the hands of immigrants or
the children of immigrants who are partly assimi-
lated economically or who socially have remained
alien or have become nondescript half-breeds. They
use their power in a manner extremely distasteful
to Americans of the older stock. These implications
are the result of irritation and distorted vision.
True, the passing of the old order is matter for
regret. There was a distinctive American ideal
developed in social and political life and this
development is charmingly recorded in a distinctive-
ly American literature. If this ideal is vanishing,
the later immigrant is no more to be blamed for
that than the Anglo-Saxon, as such, can be credited
for what was good in it. Conditions favored the
simple life and moderate prosperity paved the way
for culture and liesurely occupations. But the dis-
covery and rapid development of the country's rich
resources quickly involved both native and immi-
grant in a very disturbing turmoil. The immigrant
with his fine domestic traditions and centuries of
culture behind him was involved along with the
native in the material deterioration. Before coming
in contact with the immigrant the Yankee moving
west in search of oil and gold soon shed the gentle
manners of the New England town.
Over the same period there has been a similar
decline in culture in the mother-country of the
Anglo-Saxons due also to great industrial changes.
The immigrant does not become a "new" and pecul-
iar American nor has he wrought a change in
America. Rather has the New America changed
and absorbed him. The late war was a supreme
test and the general revelation of loyalty proved
that assimilation is progressing satisfactorily.
A Mystery Chapel In Rome
Rev. Gabriel Demey, C. P.
PART III.
"^^^^HE Faithful Custodian of that wonderful and therefore the more precious of the relics in the
m (T\ spot caught the subdued remark of the Sancta Sanctorum are not open to hand or eye.
^^^^^ pilgrim priest, "that name, the Sancta They are hidden away and securely, jealously pro-
Sanctorum, is so evidently appropriate; so tected. This was not always so. Originally they
splendidly true," and promptly went on saying, were displayed to full view and open veneration.
"Yes, it is both. However, there is another reason They were thus up to the eighth century,
why this oratory
received that
e x t r a o r dinary
name of the
5ancta Sanctorum.
It might well be
considered an en-
larged reliquary
or even itself is
worthy to be re-
garded as a relic
because of its
dignity, antiquity
and associations.
The steps which
lead up to it, the
Scala Sancta or
Holy Stairs are
one of the most
highly prized of
Christian relics
for they are the
steps which led
up to the Palace
of Pontius Pilate
in Jerusalem, were
travelled by Our
Blessed Lord and
were even stained
with His bloody
foot-prints and that is the reason why none is per-
mitted to ascend them except on prayerful knees;
and other steps are beside them for descent and
for common use."
It is well known that the laws of the Church
for the safekeeping of holy relics are very strict.
She was taught by bitter experience from unscrupu-
lous thieves and wicked imposters to be very alert
©
MASSIVE GOLD. RICHLY JEUfcLMJ RELIQUARY OF THE
SANCTA SANCTORUM
UT Leo III
changed that
arrange-
ment; he put them
securely away
from hands and
from eyes that
were were not al-
together controll-
ed by reverence.
He ordered a very
large and strong
relic case to be
made of cypress
wood — a strong
box indeed — and
this he not only
fortified but orna-
m e n t e d richly
within and with-
out. Inside it was
carefully par-
titioned and deli-
cately lined, and
into these spaces
the more valuable
of those precious
treasures were
carefully placed,
each in the compartment made for it, each with its
own letters of identification for any future need
and an accurate and detailed catalogue of the con-
tents of the supurb and secure reliquary was taken
and kept in the archives of the church. That box
was locked after the manner of locking in the
middle ages.
But that was not enough to satisfy the mind
of the Pontiff. That strong, spacious and elaborate
THE + SIGN
container — that
primitive safe was
made part of a
very wonderful if
primitive safe-
deposit vault. The
locked box was
firmly fixed into
the altar directly
under the table of
it there in the
chapel, and that in
such a manner as
to become actually
a part of the altar
itself.
"Now," added
our clerical guide,
"note well that it
was this strong cy-
press relic box that
was first named by
that pope the
Sancta Sanctorum,
and this in the
course of time gave
its name to the
chapel." The original title of the edifice was the
"Pontifical Basilica of St. Lawrence, the Martyr."
^^=^HE watchful spirit of Leo III. carried pre-
V_ J caution for these prized possessions even
further. The aperture beneath the altar into
which the Sancta Sanctorum was fixed he closed
by a bronze door and not one but two of these heavy
doors sealed it, the one closing on the other and
so the Sancta Sanctorum of Leo III. anticipated the
modern safe. (It is, in fact, the model after which
the safe was later made.) Each of the two doors
was locked with a separate key and each key was
entrusted to the care of a separate authority so
that neither could have access to that mine of super-
natural wealth without the other, nor could either
custodian in any way make use of his key without
the written authority obtained each time from the
Holy Father.
But the climax of determined exclusiveness and
security was added when a staunch grating of hand-
wrought ornamental iron was fixed across the front
of the altar-safe and thus all approach to the
reliquary was
made ordinarily
impossible.
Iw
PRECIOUS RELIC OF THE HOLY CROSS IN THE SANCTA SANCTORUM
E listened to
these details
after our
imaginations had
been raised to a
high plane, and
from this interior
viewpoint the cha-
pel itself became
highly suggestive
of a diminutive
fortress by its
strong walls, its
somber light from
one window and its
main entrance kept
closed by heavy
bronze doors. We
had entered from
the adjoining mon-
astery through the
narrowest of dark
passageways.
The impression
was heightened when we noticed that every approach
from without was barred. On either side of the
bronze doors or main entrance there is a small,
square, windowlike opening through which alone
the outside world may merely look within, but those
apertures are evidently an afterthought and were
in fact cut through by order of Nicholas III. Both
of these are barred exactly in the same manner as
the Sancta Sanctorum, there under the altar. The
combination is impressive in a way which cannot be
better described than by calling it weird.
For over five hundred years outsiders have been
thus kept out. True it is that from the eighth to
the sixteenth century the chapel still served its
original purpose as the domestic oratory of the
popes and the treasures of the Sancta Sanctorum
were seasonably exposed to the veneration of the
faithful. But since the spoliation of Rome, in the
early part of that century that treasure trove has
remained hidden; even the interior of this holy spot
was excluded from view, except for the glimpses of
it which might be had by looking through those
apertures, barred and forbidding, on either side of
the closed entrance. There have been now over five
hundred years of this isolation and silence and that
in the midst of frank and wide open Rome.
XT all became very mysterious. Generations
came there and brought with them patches
and snatches of the wonderful stories which
that morning we had listened to in their accurate
detail; with their patches and their snatches they
had stood and stared through those openings into
that somber light, that emptiness and that age old
silence of the chapel; and they passed on and they
carried with them their own impressions and ver-
sions of all this mystery to tell the next generation
which would come and look through the same barred
openings into the same vacancy and into the same
stillness and turn away with mystery more mystified.
All this, as can easily be seen — the bars and the
silence and the absence of all life and the fragments
of fact, glorious but fading more and more into the
mists of long-gone time, — began to play upon the
curiosity of the people and stimulate the imagina-
tions of the ignorant so that they filled with their
fancy what was wanting to them of fact, till history
became fable and wild fantasy was the greatest
fact connected with the Sancta Sanctorum in the
general mind of the Roman people. They concealed
behind those locks and bars every form of supernal
power and personality.
The notion which had most commonly taken
possession of the minds of the people was that
the prophets Moses and Elias were there and they
alone would, because they alone could, break the
bars before them
and open t h e
bronze doors of the
5ancta Sanctorum.
These could and
they would, but
then— Ah! That
would be the end
of the world! The
Sancta Sanctorum
would never be
opened till the
day of judgment!
J^HE people
V^ J came and
the fancies
came and the peo-
ple and the fan-
THE t SIGN
cies passed away as such things pass. But the tiny
temple remained through all the restless changes
of the last five hundred years. Silent, still,
unchanged it stood in the rich possession of itself,
a majestic creature, indeed, suggesting the very
majesty of the changeless, silent and selfsatisfied
God.
None the less human than the simplest child
of the street, even the scholar is susceptible to the
powers of the imagination and so the aloofness of
this holy sanctuary began to play upon the curiosity
of some of the learned men and to challenge their
credulity. More than once during these years has
an iconoclastic savant sought, legitimately, indeed,
to penetrate the mysteries of this imposing little
basilica.
But Rome, thank God, respects tradition as in
every other direction she moves very cautiously; the
pope of today follows the same path as the pope of
ten years ago; and he followed the paths of his
predecessors and so one by one ttie curious and
irreverent and aggresive and irritated scholars went
up to the Vatican and down to their books more
irritated still, and the Sancta Sanctorum remained
as before silent, undisturbed.
X
&§§
;S!&^q
m §» i ... HjBJwI'kSliIi
tifl
■
j| Li J ■!
"1
THE PAPAL ALTAR OF THE SAXCTA SANCTORUM
N 1870 the Venerable and Persecuted Pope
Pius IX. came in his sorrow and made an
humble pilgrimage to the Scala Sancta to
plead with the Suffering Lord Jesus to comfort His
Suffering Spouse, the Church. After he had per-
formed the devotions in the usual manner, ascending
the Holy Stairs on his knees, he celebrated Mass in
the ancient papal
chapel of his pre-
decessors and
made up his mind
afterward to open
the Holy of
Holies. But when
he approached the
labor he suddenly
changed his mind,
turned away and
said, "No, it is not
the Will of God."
So the hidden
treasure remained
untouched and
there was more
food for mysterv.
The pope went off
THE 1* SIGN
and never returned and so the proud little part of
a one time pompous palace saw that pope pass as
had passed the popes preceding and went back again
to its emptiness, its silence.
In spite of the fact that irreverent and ruthless
science was using its battering-ram on every closed
door during the years of Leo XIII. the brazen doors
of the Sancta Sanctorum remained closed. This
pope opened up wide, one after another of the con-
cealed avenues of his-
tory; he even threw the
doors of the Vatican
Library open to the
public and invited all
students to enter, and
the supercilious came
with a rush as far as
the doors.
There they halted
because truth w^as with-
in and so the Vatican
Library is not very
popular. Seeing these
doors, opening one after
another at the touch of
the great master of
learning the scholars
asked this pope to open
the doors of the Sancta
Sanctorum and permit
them to delve into its
mysteries.
Trie Golden Rose
Francis Kean MacMurrough
Who or what has the Golden Rose-
Especial gift of the Pope —
Is a holy person or close,
Holy with unwonted scope.
King or one of roy"al degree
May treasure this leafed ore,
But must be of nigh sanctity,
Deep Versed in sacred lore.
Four Golden Roses now adorn
The Sancta Sanctorum Cr?pt —
Resplendent on the altar stone
Where the rich wine Blood has dript,
A priest was making archeological studies in the
subteraneous department of the Sancta Sanctorum
and found a piece of wood, under or very nearly
under the altar of the Holy Chapel and he hastened
to bring this "marvelous discovery" to the same
pontiff as proof incontestible that the Sancta Sanc-
torum had been tampered with and should be im-
mediately opened and examined.
However the Head of the Church did not seem
to be moved or in any
way able to see any-
thing "marvellous" in
the finding of a piece
of wood under or below
an altar and so he
answered these pleas
very calmly by saying
"Everything is granted
to you except what you
ask." And the book-
man went as other
bookmen had gone be-
fore, quite perturbed,
but the little chapel
remained as silent and
as empty as before.
There Pope alone in Mystic rite,
From immemorial years,
Has called to earth the Lord of Light
With holy prayers and tears.
^-'HEY brought to
%/J him an array of
arguments and in-
ducements that it was
possible profane hands
had fallen upon the treasures during the historical
sacking of Rome years before; they reasoned that
the light fingered experts of which the world was
full had possibly broken into the cypress box of his
namesake Leo III. and profaned the sacred contents.
But the broadminded Leo to whom they were talking
seemed to be deaf.
The great scholar and archeologist, Commenda-
tori di Rossi, who was most highly esteemed at the
Vatican, wanted to study one of the mosaics of the
Mystery Chapel, a very simple favor for so great
a man to ask, but he had the greatest difficulty
obtaining the permission from Pope Leo XIII.
ft
ND so the Sancta
Sanctorum con-
tinued till an-
other came along. He
was an aggressive
Jesuit and he was writ-
ing a critical life of St.
Agnes. Now, an ex-
tremely difficult ques-
tion faced this writer.
It was this: — Accord-
ing to all recognized traditional authorities St. Agnes
was beheaded, at the age of about 12 or 13 years.
This Jesuit, however, had discovered that there was
a very reputable Greek authority who contended
that the saint was a woman of mature years; that
this was very evident from her zeal for the faith
which would be ordinarily impossible in a mere
child; more than that this same authority stated
that the saint was not beheaded, but that she was
burned to death.
o
HE Jesuit took the precious document; pocket-
ed it; trudged off to the Passionist monastery
THE + SIGN
smiling, confident with his powerful passport
and convinced, quite convinced that every door
would open wide before him — even the stubborn
and bolted bronze doors of the Sancta Sanctorum
would swing loose at the power which he held in
his pocket. Now he would convince the Greek
and all the world that St. Agnes was surely not
more than 12 years of age. He knocked with author-
ity on the door of the humble monastery and asked
to see the Custodian. He met the Passionist. Very
shortly after the two priests met the Jesuit left the
monastery; but he left as usual quite convinced —
No, not of anything new about St. Agnes but con-
vinced that Cardinal Satolli was right and strongly
convinced that he would rather meet again the
prelate or the pope than the Passionist. And the
ancient chapel still stood silent.
But has the hidden treasury never been opened
even to this day? Does the same obstinate, sphinx-
like silence hang over that beautiful but ever empty
chapel? Must the stout grating still stand before
that altar to spoil the view of an exquisite piece
of art and arouse more mystery still before the eyes
of coming generations? There are three separate
lists of the contents of the Sancta Sanctorum there
in Rome; to read them is to become dazed at their
number and extraordinary character, and incident-
ally to acquire a prurient curiosity to know more ;
to experience an impulse to break through the vague,
the uncertain, the doubt and the mystery and to
kill all wild and foolish stories at a stroke. But
that is a very reasonable impulse and aim. Why
then can it not be done ? Why should that gigantic
and mysterious relic case not be opened?
XT has been opened! That opening has been
declared by the highest scientific authorities
to be the greatest "find" in modern times.
The illustrious archeologist, Rev. P. Grisar, was
commissioned to carry out this important work and
associated with him were three other conscientious
scholars. The authorization was given and the
commission appointed by the pope of saintly
memory, Pius X. in May 1905. These four com-
missioners assisted by the Passionist Fathers, im-
mediately proceeded to their labor and their dis-
coveries thrilled the world. The official news was
immediately published broad-cast by Father Griser
through the columns of the Civilta Cattolica, and
immediately the wires began to flash congratulations
upon this scientist.
But for us it was not so important to know the
warmth of these congratulations as to learn the
character of the discoveries. The contents of the
cypress box made by Leo III. were carefully
examined and box and contents were found to be
jn perfect preservation; they were compared with
the astounding items mentioned in the official cata-
logues and verified. It was, indeed, a triumphant
day for our Holy Mother the Church!
XN the first article published in the Civilta
Cattolica by the Eminent discoverer he says,
"I shall never forget the impression made on
us as our eyes fell on that collection, an impression
which increased at every instant as one by one
precious reliquaries of gold and of silver, of bronzes
and of precious woods appeared. Those little
caskets shining in their native brilliancy! Those
gorgeous colorings and artfstic designs of the ancient
treasures! But when we drew them forth from
beneath the altar's dim light we were lifted up to
a higher world, transported beyond ourselves! We
remembered that these were the holy objects which
have been for more than nineteen hundred years
deeply loved and sacredly guarded by succeeding
popes and venerated by numerous generations of
the Roman people and by the countless multitudes
of pilgrims who in the past have come from every
part of the world to offer there their homage and on
these blessed relics to feast their devotion. What
memory! What emotion! I would not express in
writing the feelings of that first day except to say
with all sincerity they were those of complete
ravishment!"
QND that is a fact which has been experienced
and a truth which has been declared here
long, long ago. It is written there large in
letters of gold. The altar there in that recess is
flanked by two pillars of priceless porphery which
support the span and in the architrave are the words
"NON EST IN TOTO SANCTIOR ORBI LOCUS"
Put into English those Latin words of the Great
Sixtus V mean. "THERE IS IN ALL THE
WORLD NO HOLIER PLACE." The little
basilica is the Sancta Sanctorum, the Holy of Holies.
One of the lowly travellers here quietly remark-
ed as in reverie, "That name, the Sancta Sanctorum,
is so evidently appropriate; so splendidly true."
27
Saints and Sinners
Luis Coloma, S. J.
Copyrighted 1922, by The Sign
SYNOPSIS OF PREVIOUS INSTALLMENTS:
Curra, Countess of Albornoz, wife of the Marquis of Villamelon, is an intriguing woman of society in Madrid.
She habitually neglects her son Luis and her daughter Lili, as well as her husband, and involves herself in
various political and personal intrigues of a disreputable character. She forces her confidant, John Velarde, to
fight an unnecessary duel to defend her "honor," and the man is killed in so doing.
The scene then shifts to Paris, where Spanish refugees are gathering after the Revolution in Spain which
has overthrown the Italian "usurper" to the Spanish throne, Amadeo, and established a Republic.
Jacob Tellez, a cousin of Curra, and husband of Elvira, Marchioness of Sabadell, whom he has basely
deserted, himself a libertine and politician of the worst type, ex-Ambassador to Constantinople, from which city
he had been forced to flee after a vulgar intrigue with the Cadi's wife, arrives in Paris.
Jacob Tellez has been entrusted with important Masonic documents by Victor Emmanuel of Italy to carry
to his nephew Amadeo in Spain. In desperate want of money, Jacob steals the documents, which place in his
hands valuable weapons with which to attack and blackmail certain Spanish politicians. By chance "Uncle''
Frasquito, a Spanish nobleman, finds the Masonic seals attached to these documents in Jacob's room. Jacob
rashly gives the seals to Frasquito to add to his collection of these oddities.
Jacob finally decides that his best plan to secure ready money is to be reconciled to his wife, who has
recently won a lawsuit and a considerable fortune. He has in the meantime attracted the favorable attention
of Curra, who wishes him to take the place of her late confidant, Velarde.
Jacob interviews Father Cifuentes, S.J., his wife's friend and confessor, and seeks to persuade him to help
him in his reconciliation with Elvira. But Father Cifuentes, and Diogenes, a dissipated nobleman, but loyal to
his friends, by letters warn the Marchioness of Villasis, with whom Jacob's wife is staying at Biarritz, of Jacob's
hypocritical plans. Jacob starts for Biarritz, thinking that Father Cifuentes is really on his side.
The Marchioness of Villasis persuades Jacob's wife to leave Biarritz befdre his arrival, and seek refuge
at Lourdes. She plans to see Jacob herself and discover what his real intentions are, and if he is insincere,
thwart his plans. Elvira has left with her certain important papers to use during the coming interview, and
has notified Jacob that the Marchioness has full power to settle all the questions involved with him. Jacob
arrives at the Marchioness's villa, and is announced. The latter prepares to meet him.
CHAPTER XVIII.
"M^^^HE reader must realize that this interview
m C\ with the Marchioness was a very import-
^^^V ant one for Jacob. He had been entrusted
with important papers by Victor Emmanuel
of Italy to carry to his royal son in Spain, in the
hope of bolstering Amadeo's vacillating throne;
papers which had been in the hands of the Free-
masons of Italy, and which they now intended to
use to support Masonic influences in Spain, by com-
pletely foiling certain politicians who were opposed
to the revolutionary influences of the lodges.
The Marquis of Sabadell, ruined, had arrived
in Milan from Constantinoule, and presented himself
at the lodge in which Garibaldi had initiated him
years before. The Venerables welcomed him as
an envoy from the Great Architect, and presented
him to Victor Emmanuel as a man who could carry
the necessary documents to Spain, and thus give to
King Amadeo's policy the direction desired by
Italy.
/f~\ UT Sabadell arrived too late, as the reader
v|Gj has already seen; and the fall of King
Amadeo had destroyed all the fine prospects
which Jacob had woven in Paris. He thus found
himself alone and ruined once more, and necessity
had caused him to try to use the documents for his
own purposes with the resulting complications and
dangers which we have already described.
His original idea had been to hand the docu-
ments to the Alfonsists or Carlists, according to
whether the former or the latter seemed more
assured of victory. At the same time, it was abso-
lutely necessary to throw the Masons, whom he had
so grossly deceived, off his track; to accomplish
which, Jacob had evolved the idea of a reconciliation
with his wife, and of secluding himself by her side
for a year, living peacefully upon her income, and
using it as a means of ridding himself of his
debts.
28
THE + SIGN
Y?=CIS reconciliation with his wife was therefore
I JP the key to the castle in Spain, which he had
built, and which he was determined to insert
in the coming interview. He accordingly entered
the room, serene and smiling, with the air of a
friend who advances to meet another. Upon seeing
him enter, the Marchioness greeted him warmly,
saying affectionately:
"Well, Jacob! And how are you? I see that
you look the same as when we met five years ago
in Brussels: do you remember?"
Jacob warmly pressed the hand the lady had
offered him, and answered with equal affection: "Of
course I do! But you seem hardly to have passed
your twenty-fifth year; always so — "
"Jacob ! Why kill truth for the sake of a mere
compliment? Can't you see that my hair is per-
fectly white?"
"Pshaw! That is a mere refinement of coquetry.
You powder your hair like the Marchionesses of
the court of Louis XV!"
The Marchioness laughed, and Jacob seated
himself upon a chair, finding that he was slightly
embarrassed after this first greeting. Hoping to
force the Marchioness to speak first on the subject
in his mind, he talked of how politicians of all the
schools and causes were flocking to Biarritz. At
this the Marchioness broke the ice by remarking
pointedly: "Yes. It would seem that Biarritz is
the scene chosen for diplomatic relations."
* I'ACOB played; he did not understand what she
\^y meant, and replied in the dicatorial manner
of the politician: "The issue is very doubtful.
I believe no cause will succeed."
"None?" queried the Marchioness, laughing.
"Not even mine?"
"That's quite another thing, "replied Jacob,
smiling.
"No one can resist petticoat diplomacy. I have
heard it said that the world is ruled by petticoats —
skirts and cassocks."
"Is that so, Herr Bismarck? I presume that
you know that I have been appointed plenipotenti-
ary."
"Yes," answered Jacob. "I have the credentials
with me." He laid on the top of the table between
them the letter which his wife had written the
evening before, dictated by the Marchioness of
Villasis. The latter read it carefully, as though she
had not seen it before, and then returned it to Jacob,
saying: "It seems quite correct. Now Bismarck
may tell me what he proposes to do."
"I think it more fitting," said Jacob, "that M.
Antonelli — shall we say? — should expound her
policy, or rather his, first, before me."
"Very well, I shall expound mine first, waving
all ceremony. My policy is: 'Our Father who art
in Heaven — Thy will be done — Forgive us our
trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against
us — Lead us not into temptation — Deliver us from
evil.' "
The Marchioness so stressed some of these
words that her policy was easily understood by
Jacob. He, whose sins were thus pardoned, under-
stood her remarks to mean but this, and was filled
with hope.
"This is Italian policy," he said. "It is very
clever."
"Roman, not Italian," replied the Marchioness.
"It is very holy."
** — ^ACOB thought that the moment had arrived
\V" when it would be better to drop that humorous
tone used by Spaniards even in their most
serious moments.
"Listen to me, Maria," he said. "I am pleased
to arrange this matter with you rather than with
Elvira, for you are a woman who knows the world,
and can therefore the more readily understand my
position. Elvira is an angel with swan's wings.
You are an angel with the wings of an eagle."
It was a well-turned simile, and the Marchioness
smiled at the compliment.
"My situation," continued Jacob, "is simply
this. I have been much in the world, and I am
tired of it. The higher I have been raised in life,
the more contemptible have my triumphs become to
me. I have ascended to high peaks — "
"You should not say ascended, but descended"
interrupted the Marchioness. "You should say that
you have descended into the mire and lost sight
of virtue, that all ideas of honor and decency were
lost."
This sudden attack disconcerted Jacob. He bit
his lips and said bitterly: "This is Roman policy
filled with intolerance."
"Yours then is Bismarkian, with criminal —
notice that I say criminal — condescensions."
V
ACOB paled with anger and bowed his head.
He knew that his evasive moral criterion,
THE 1* SIGN
which covers vices with pompous names, was reject-
ed as false under present circumstances; that the
Roman policy called vice, vice ; and infamy, infamy.
He therefore came to the conclusion that he had
made a mistake in trying
to justify his past. He re-
solved to repudiate his
past emphatically.
"You are doubtless
right, Maria, "he said at
length." "But you must
admit that it is not at all
charitable to refuse to
lend a helping hand to one
who wishes to live decent- .
ly. Father Cifuentes, "he
©
To a Skylark
Harold Reid
added, "who is more
Roman than you are, has
not refused."
"What did Father
Cifuentes say to you?"
"He gave me this
letter to give to you."
And Jacob handed the
letter to her.
The Marchioness read
this, as she read the previ-
ous one, as if its contents
were unknown to her.
Then she said: "This is
quite another thing. Father
Cifuentes' slightest word
is law to me. Explain
what you wish to me care-
fully and concisely."
Jacob at last believed
that he was mastering the
situation. What plan
could he have other than
of passing his whole life
in fervent adoration of
Elvira, satisfied with burn-
ing at a distance, like the
candle of a beggar, on the
lowest portion of the
altar? He owned an old
castle in Granada, with lands and forests, where he
hoped to retire, and there realize the ideal Grandee
of old Spain, as master and protector of the dis-
trict. Would Elvira go with him to this retreat?
There would be noble work there aplenty.
Airy, rejoicing creature
When in the mottled sky
I can perceive no feature
Yet hear thy rapture cry"
I v?ould suppose an angel
Forgetting heavenly birth
Were hovering in the ether
Singing to charm the earth.
Were y'ou a bird of night-time
Off in the sky afar
Thy wing so lofty flying
Would brush a dusty star.
Wherefore do'st tune thy music
Whence thy joy-theme inspired
Sure 'tis a theft from heaven
Eloquence heaven-fired.
Does brightness make thy1 singing
Or does thy1 lay1 unfold
Clouds that enshrined tke blueness
Freeing the sunshine gold.
If you vJould sing forever
The sun would ever shine
Heedless of hours of darknecs
Caught by such strains divine.
Sing on, thou dear delighter
Tense thy throat yet a while
God ment that 'thereal gayness
To teach the sad to smile.
Ah, now, your melody's ended
Tru, I had never known
HovJ near I was to heaven
But thou art still and flown.
HE Marchioness listened to his romantic and
eloquent tirade with extreme wonder, for
among Elvira's papers she had the deed of
sale for the very castle of which Jacob spoke, sold
to satisfy Jacob's credi-
tors, and which Elvira had
secretly purchased from
the usurers in order to
own this last relic of the
family to which her son
belonged.
The Marchioness still
smiled good-humoredly in
the face of this ignoble
farce, and hastened to tell
Jacob that she could
imagine no plan more in
keeping with Elvira's
tastes; that she accepted
it without hesitation and
would herself indorse the
plan.
"Is it not true that
mine is a splendid idea?"
exclaimed Jacob. To be
sure, he added, he had
heard in Paris that Elvira
had won an imporant law-
suit and was, as a result,
very wealthy. This had
made him hesitate in his
plan, because the world
was malicious and would
not hesitate to say that
this step of his was due
not to repentance for past
evil, but merely a play for
his wife's money. That is
why he had proposed re-
tiring to his castle where
they could live on an in-
come which was his
own.
"As I hear you, Jacob,
the more my ideas coincide with yours. Any
decent man would feel as you feel, and I
have a very simple remedy for all your
scruples."
"What is that?" queried Jacob, in suspense.
30
THE t SIGN
OHE Marchioness raised the lid of her desk,
and taking out the document which she had
written the evening before, showed it to Jacob,
saying with a frank and charming smile: "Sign this,
and the Rubicon is crossed."
Jacob read the document with surprise. His
lips contracted and his cheeks reddened. "But,
Maria: this is impossible. I can never sign this."
The document was a complete renunciation of
all authority which the law might allow in the
administration of his wife's property, or in the
management of his son's patrimony. Jacob was
furious at finding himself caught in his own meshes,
while the Marchioness, seemingly much astonished,
asked him: "Why can't you sign? What's wrong
about this?"
"If — if I sign that, I would renounce my position
as a husband."
"On the contrary, it raises your position and
dignity as a husband in public opinion."
"There are surely cases where the testimony
of one's own conscience is sufficient for a man of
honor."
"But, man of honor! You have said that honor
depends on public opinion."
Jacob could find no way of escape by argument;
so breaking through all forms of constraint, he
cried angrily: "Roman policy, with all its vile
priestly intrigues!"
"Be careful what you say, Jacob!" exclaimed
the Marchioness emphatically, "or you will make me
think that your Bismarkian policy covers some
infamy."
"Yours covers some intrigue in which Father
Cifuentes' hand is visible."
"Father Cifuentes' hand! Poor Father Cifu-
entes! I cannot detect it."
** — t'ACOB was silent. Finally the Marchioness
ffl- asked him, without losing her serene placidi-
ty: "Do you absolutely decline to sign this?"
"I shall not sign," replied Jacob furiously.
"Then it is evident that if the reconciliation is
not to be effected, that the fault is yours and yours
alone, for your wife has yielded all that can be
yielded, and your very suspicious obstinacy destroys
all that might have been accomplished."
"I ignore all that you and that Cifuentes have
been plotting. But I shall have some kind of under-
standing with Elvira."
"Elvira will not come to Biarritz."
"I will go, then, to where she is."
"I think you will not!"
"We are not separated legally, and the law
allows me to reclaim my wife and son whenever I
so please."
The Marchioness drew herself up in her chair
in a menacing manner: "Try to do that. Dare to
do that, and the second you make a move she will
present to the court a plea for a divorce which will
ruin you entirely."
"Let her present it, if she so wishes. Where
are the proofs?"
"She has them, Jacob! Sufficient for a divorce,
and enough to imprison someone! Patience has a
limit, and also for foxes, when lambs cease to be
lambs!"
^^HE Marchioness' insinuation frightened Jacob
^SJ and he immediately tried to discover if the
existence of these proofs was but a pretence.
"You cannot terrify me with mere words, "he
cried disdainfully. My conscience tells me that no
such proofs exist."
"Maybe your eyes will convince your con-
science," said the Marchioness quickly. Opening
a little drawer in her desk, she showed Jacob from
a distance a package consisting of four or five
letters, saying: "Rosa Penarron's handwriting and
yours are so clear that experts would not be needed
in court to identify them."
All the blood in Jacob's body rushed to his
face, and with one of those brutal instincts which
show themselves in the natural man, he made a
move as if to snatch them from the woman. But
she, quick as lightning, ran to the open window,
and leaning out with the letters in her hand, cried
with great vehemence: "Mademoiselle, take the
rope away from Monica or she will fall! "Then,
turning toward Jacob, a trifle pale but still calm,
she added, still at the window: "I thought she would
kill herself! Children are always frightening
one."
Jacob had remained in his seat, but now stam-
mered: "Is Monica with you?"
"Of course she is! Would you like to see her?"
And, without pausing for an answer, she called
again: "Mademoiselle, bring the child in here."
Monica soon entered, followed by her governess,
and ran to jump onto her grandmother's lap, look-
ing at Jacob with the smile of a child who is
petted by everybody.
31
THE 1* SldN
COMPLETELY surprised, Jacob paid no atten-
tion to her, seeking in vain for an explanation
as to how Elvira had secured possession of
these letters, which were undeniable proofs of one
of the most compromising episodes of his career.
The Marchioness kissed her grandchild affection-
ately, thanking God from the bottom of her heart
for having given Jacob this blow from a tin-bladed
sword; for these terrible papers were but a few
letters from her lawyers, which she had kept in the
little drawer of her desk.
What she had accused Jacob of was certain,
but no proofs existed; and Rosa Penarron, his only
accomplice, having been dead for two years, it
would be impossible for Jacob to discover the
deception.
Jacob coldly took his leave. Filled with rage,
bewildered, he jumped into his carriage and told
the driver to go to an hotel in Bayonne where he had
stayed the night before. Biarritz was too small to
stay hidden there successfully from the Spanish
politicians and emigrants who thronged the place
since the fall of Amadeo and the proclamation of
the Republic.
There could be no doubt that Jacob's undeceiv-
ing had been a cruel one, and with his illusions
destroyed, there arose in his soul a terrible anxiety
and fury against the Marchioness of Villasis and
Father Cifuentes, the rage which the wicked feel
against those who, they know, have full right to
despise them. Of all the wounds which he carried
in his soul, none hurt him more than that one of
the victors had been a priest.
In the full fury of his rage he felt like strangling
the quick witted Marchioness of Villasis with the
bandana handkerchief of the hypocritical Cifuentes.
{To be continued)
St. Augustine's Seasonable Homily
^^^HE feast of the Precious Blood is now immov-
y J able and is assigned to the first day of July.
The Church dedicates this month to the
special honor of the Precious Blood. The gospel
of the feast includes the verse from St. John "But
one of the soldiers with a spear opened His Side,
and immediately there came out blood and water."
We transcribe St. Augustine's commentary:
"The evangelist carefully chose his word, not
saying "he pierced" or "he wounded" or any other,
but "he opened" His Side, for then in a certain
manner a door of life was opened whence issued the
sacraments of the Church, without which there is no
entering into the life which is the true life. This
blood which came forth was shed for the remission
of sins. Water gives wholesome refreshment: this
water also cleanses and refreshes. We are reminded
that Noah made a door in the side of the ark by
which the animals that were not to perish might
enter, by all of which the Church was foreshadowed.
Similarly the first woman was formed from the side
of the sleeping man, and she was called life and the
mother of the living. Thus a great blessing was
indicated even before the great evil of the fall.
Upon the second Adam, his Head bowed, a sleep is
cast and unto Him a Spouse is formed who came
forth from the Side of Him sleeping.
O Death, whereby the dead are revived! What
is there fairer than that Blood ? What more whole-
some than that wound? . . . Men were held in
bondage by the devil and ministered to demons;
but now they are delivered from bondage. They
were able to surrender themselves, but to free them-
selves they were unable. The Redeemer came and
paid the price, shed His Blood and ransomed the
world. Do ye ask what He purchased? Behold
what He gave and you will discover what He
bought. The Blood of Christ is the price. What
is its value? What but the whole world? What
but all nations? Men either fail to esteem their
ransom or are exceedingly vain who say that the
price sufficed to deliver only one nation, or that they
themselves are so mighty that it could be given
only for them. Banish the vain thought. What
He gave, He gave for all."
What Do You Know About:
Vocations?
HFEW years ago a priest and teacher in
a foreign seminary, who consequently had
much to do with the important question
of vocation, wrote a book on this most
important subject. In this book called "The Priestly
Vocation," he combats the prevailing idea that a
vocation consists in the subjective feeling that God
wishes one to enter the priesthood; or, in a certain
attraction or inclination to that state.
The author did not deny that a vocation is
necessary for the priesthood, but contrary to the
commonly accepted belief, said that the vocation
required is nothing more nor less than the call of
the bishop admitting one to Holy Orders. With
reason we can infer from this teaching, that in
the case of one desirous of entering the religious
life, vocation consists in the call from the superiors
of a community to the aspirant to profess the vows
of religion. However, before such a call comes
from the bishop or religious superiors, there is no
such thing as vocation; there can be at most, only
a fitness or disposition to receive such a call.
Such positive and unmistakable teaching
opposed to the generally received opinion called
forth a storm of protest. Immediately a dispute
arose about the doctrine of vocation. This was
finally settled when the Holy Father, Pope Pius X.
approved the book and its teachings and decreed
as follows :
1. No one has any right to ordination ante-
cedently to the free choice of the bishop.
2. One condition to be looked for on the part
of the one to be ordained, and which is called the
sacerdotal vocation, by no means consists, at least
not necessarily and as ordinary law, in a certain
internal aspiration of the subject or an incitement
of the Holy Ghost, to enter the priesthood.
3. On the contrary, nothing more is required
in the one to be ordained than that he be lawfully
called by the bishop; that he have a right intention,
together with the fitness found in those gifts of
grace and nature, and proven by that probity of
life and sufficient learning. All which give a well
grounded hope that he will worthily perform the
duties of a priest, and comply with his obligations
in a holy manner.
This then is the doctrine of the Church in
regard to this important subject. It is the vocation
which gives one the right to become a priest. God
does not manifest a vocation independently of the
call of the bishop to Holy Orders. The bishop's
call is to be regarded as the call of God, or,
vocation properly so called.
In the second paragraph the Church expressly
declares that the vocation which is necessary for
ordination, does not consist (at least not necessarily,
nor ordinarily) in an interior feeling or attraction to
enter the priesthood.
The Church finally teaches that the bishop
in giving the call to Holy Orders and to the priest-
hood must be assured that the aspirant has a right
intention and that he be fitted for this sublime office
physically mentally and morally. What has been
said thus far concerning the priesthood, applies by
inference to the religious life. The idea which has
been held by many since the Seventeenth century
that vocation consists in the subjective feeling that
God wishes one to be a priest, or, in the inclination
or attraction for the priesthood, is utterly false and
calculated to do much harm.
We come now to some practical conclusions.
What must the boy or girl, the young man or young
woman do in order to decide what state of life they
shall embrace? In other words, how are they to
find out if they are called, or have a vocation to
the priesthood, the religious life, or to the married
state ?
After long and earnest prayer and frequent
reception of the sacraments they should ask them-
selves these two questions :
1. Am I able, physically, mentally, and holily,
to fulfill the duties of this state in life?
2. Is my intention in desiring to enter this state
of life pleasing in the eyes of God?
If the conscientious answer to these two
questions be in the affirmative, you need have no
hesitation in aspiring to enter the priesthood, the
religious life, or, the married state.
33
ArcKconfraternit)) of
the Sacred P
assion
The Heart of Jesus Crucified
aNTIL now, in the successive numbers of
THE SIGN, we have explained the
Nature and End of this Archconfraternity.
If anyone should wish further inform-
ation on this subject, we request them to write to
THE SIGN, and their questions will be answered in
the next issue of the magazine.
As this Section of THE SIGN is devoted to
the interests of the Archconfraternity of the Passion,
all important announcements, as also all items of
news from the different branches of the Archconfra-
ternity will henceforth appear herein. We invite
the Reverend Directors of the Different branches
to send us, from time to time, for publication, items
of news which are of more than local interest, and
which will tend to advance the grand purpose of the
Archconfraternity.
Our chief object, however, in this section of
THE SIGN will, hereafter, be to give practical
instructions on the subject of Meditation on Christ's
Sacred Passion. After devoting some short space
to Archconfraternity Announcements, to Answers to
Questions from the Members, and to News Items
from the different Branches, we will treat of the
subject of Meditation on the Passion of Jesus Christ.
NECESSITY OF MEDITATION FOR A
CHRISTIAN LIFE
>«EDITATION on the great truths of religion
vfJ is indispensibly necessary for a true Christian
life. The Christian life is a supernatural life
— a life animated, ruled, controlled and guided by
the supernatural truths of religion. These truths
have been revealed to us by God purposely that
they might serve us as the light and guide and
animating principle of our life. Mere knowledge of
them, however, is not sufficient.
Now Meditation is the only natural means by
which such deep conviction, keen appreciation and
vivid realization of truth can be attained. This is
owing to the very condition of the human mind,
at least in its present state. Truth cannot be
thoroughly appreciated and vividly grasped without
a mental effort. We must open the eyes of the
mind and gaze fixedly upon truth, if we will take
it in, bring it home, thoroughly grasp its meaning
and vividly realize its import, just as we must
open our bodily eyes and gaze fixedly at material
objects, if we will take them in and apprehend
them in such a way as to be impressed by them.
This opening of the mind's eyes and gazing fixedly
at truth is what is meant by Meditation.
"MY HEART GREW HOT WITHIN ME
AND IN MY MEDITATION A FIRE SHALL
FLAME OUT." says holy David. Tis through
Meditation and only through meditation that the
flame of faith and religious fervor is kept alive and
the fire of divine love and zeal are enkindled in
the soul.
On the other hand the radical cause of all sin
and religious indifference in this world, is the
neglect of serious thought or meditation on the truths
of religion. Men allow their minds and hearts to
be completely engrossed with the things of this
world and don't give themselves time to take a
serious view of life — to think of God and their souls
and the life after death. "WITH DESOLATION
IS THE WHOLE LAND MADE DESOLATE,
BECAUSE THERE IS NO ONE WHO THINKS
IN HIS HEART." says the Prophet Jeremias.
PECULIAR EFFICACY OF MEDITATION ON
THE PASSION
QLL that we say here of the salutary effects of
Meditation on the truths of religion is partic-
ularly true of Meditation on the Sacred Passion
of our Lord and Saviour. The Passion of Jesus
Christ is an epitome of all His teaching — a summing
up and confirmation of all the truths of religion.
34
THE + SIGN
Nothing reveals so clearly the majesty and sanctity
and justice of God as the atonement which Jesus
was required to make for human sin; nothing pro-
claims so loudly the vanity of all things earthly as
the sufferings Jesus underwent for human salvation;
nothing brings home so vividly the goodness of God
for men as the death Jesus endured through love of
men. How can anyone think seriously of the details
of Christ's Passion — the Agony in the Garden, the
Scourging at the Pillar, the Crowning with Thorns,
the Mockery and Insults, and the Bloody Tragedy of
Calvery and not be deeply impressed.
MEDITATION ON THE PASSION
The Distinctive Feature of the Passionist Order.
DOW this Meditation on the Passion is the dis-
tinctive feature of the Passionist Order. St.
Paul of the Cross, our Holy Founder, was
preeminently the Saint of the Crucified. 'Twas
meditation on the Passion that made him a saint.
The thought of the sufferings of Jesus was ever
uppermost in his mind. His own experience, there-
fore, convinced him that what meditation on the
Passion had effected in his soul, it could also effect
in the souls of others, and this led him to establish
his Order. So that Passionists are first to sanctify
themselves through habitual meditation on the
Passion, and then, they are to labor for the salvation
and sanctification of others by striving to lead them
to meditate on the Passion. Speaking of his mis-
sioners, St. Paul says: "Let them teach the people
to meditate devoutly on the mysteries, sufferings
and death of our Lord Jesus Christ, from whom as
from a fountain proceedeth all our good.
This profitable and salutary consideration is a
most efficacious means for withdrawing the minds
of men from iniquity and leading them on to the
Christian perfection at which we aim." "And," he
continues, "Let them briefly and perspicuously
deliver rules for meditation on the Passion and
Death of Jesus Christ, and spare no pains to render
this meditation very frequent and continual." And
again in another place in his Rules, he repeats the
same injunction : "Let them not only exhort, but
also instruct the people how to meditate piously on
the mysteries of the Life, Passion and Death of our
Lord Jesus Christ. Let them teach and instruct
them to accustom themselves to prayer, and at the
same time, lay open and refute the pernicious error
of some who imagine that meditation on Divine
Things is an employment proper only for Religious
and for the Clergy."
MEDITATION ON THE PASSION
The Grand Object of the Archconfraternity
QOW the Archconfraternity of the Passion is
one of the ways by which the Passionist
Order promotes this devotion to Christ's
Passion. The grand object of this Archconfraternity
is to lead Christian people to tha regular practice of
meditation on Christ's Sacred Passion. This is why
we will for the future, every month, devote some
space in THE SIGN to the all important subject
of Meditation on Christ's Passion. We propose to
explain the Nature of Meditation or Mental Prayer;
to expound a Method of Mental Prayer; and
especially to give numerous instances or samples of
Meditations on our Lord's Sacred Passion, so as to
afford every help to the practice of daily meditation
on the Passion.
We feel assured that these instructions on the
subject of Meditation on the Passion, will be most
welcome to the readers of THE SIGN, especially
to the members of the Archconfraternity. There
are vast numbers of truly devout Catholics in this
country to-day, frequent communicants, who sin-
cerely desire to live all for God and to grow in His
holy love — Catholics who are not contented with
merely performing their strict duty by keeping the
Commandments of God and His Church, but are
ambitious to do more than what is of strict obli-
gation; who really yearn for Christian Perfection
and for a life of prayer and union with God,
but are held back by ignorance of a Method of
Meditation or Mental Prayer. Perhaps they never
even heard of such a thing as mental prayer or at
least never understood that it was something which
the laity should practice as well as the clergy and
religious. If such generous souls could be brought
to understand the benefits of Mental Prayer or
Meditation — especially Meditation on Christ's
Sacred Passion, and if they could be induced to give
some time daily to this exercise, how rapid would
be their spiritual progress!
We hope to reach many of these devout souls
through the pages of THE SIGN, and in the words
of St. Paul of the Cross, "lay open and refute the
pernicious error that meditation on Divine things
is an employment proper only for religious and the
clergy."
With the Passionists in China
XT was, I think, an inspiration
to finish our last letter to
THE SIGN while on board
the river steamer in sight of Shen
Cho Fu, as it would have been next
to impossible to add
anything to it after
arrival for many-
reasons, which this
letter shall give in
detail and at length.
In that same letter
we promised to give
some idea of our
Mission and our
plans for the future
in its regard. We
think now it were
better to defer this
to yield place to
what is of more
pressing need, and
doubtless of greater
interest to the
readers of THE
SIGN.
You have already
received, it is as-
sumed, several short
letters that we sent,
as it was not possi-
ble at the time to
send more detailed
information con-
cerning the famine
that is raging like
a vast conflagration
over a large area of
North and West
Hunan. The dis-
trict affected was
entirely in charge
of the Spanish
Augustinian
Fathers. Since we
came and have
taken formal pos-
session of the dis-
trict assigned to us by the Sacred
Congregation of the Propagation
of the Faith, we share with the
Augustinians the area included in
the Famine District.
It may seem rash to say that few,
if any, of the readers of THE SIGN
can imagine the pitiable sights and
intense sufferings that are implied in
the one word "FAMINE."
o
URING the last two years
there has been insufficient
months of 1920-1921. The Chinese
merchants are not less wise than the
merchants elsewhere, and profiteer-
ing was the order of the day. Rice
was scarce, and they who had it de-
manded enormous prices,and the mid-
dle classes and the
poor were barely
able to live through
last year. There
was some want and
some deaths, but it
was mostly in the
outlying districts,
and in Hunan it
never became gen-
eral.
Another cause of
shortage was the
civil war in China.
The regular and
rebel army had to
be provisioned, so
advance agents
were sent into
every section of the
country and offered
tempting prices to
those who held the
stores of grain. The
added profit was
eagerly grasped and
the rice was trans-
ported to a central
depot to be requisi-
tioned and sent to
the soldiers when
needed.
Q
"I WAS HUNGRY
"AS LONG AS YOU
TO ME—"
AND YOU GAVE ME TO EAT "
DID IT TO THE LEAST OF MY BRETHREN, YOU DID IT
rainfall for the crops of rice to
mature fully. In consequence there
was a stunted growth of the grain,
which ripened all too soon under
the burning sun. These meagre
crops were gathered in and the rice
in reserve was used up in the winter
36
O alarm was
sounded and
no fears were
entertained, for the
Chinese as a race
are not a far-seeing
people, and worry
seldom disturbs the
calmness of their
souls. The winter
was quite spent and soon the new
crops would be harvested, so why
be disturbed or uneasy? Instead of
anticipating danger they rather re-
joiced at the large profits that had
come to them, at least, so thought
the profiteers.
THE 1* SIGN
But the next year's crop was an
utter faHure! The long continued
drought of last summer burned up
th.c young shoots, and the harvest
was not more than 5% normal. The
merchants who had even a meagre
stock of rice demanded prohibitive
prices, and the common people were
soon reduced to extremities. The
scarcity of food has now extended to
every class, and to-day no one in
North or West Hunan, rich or poor,
can see any relief till the next
crop is gathered in the early
fall.
^%J 'HERE is no assistance
§ ) to be expected from
^^^ the Government, nor
from other Provinces of China.
When famine devastates one
Province the others are apa-
thetic or indifferent to the
cry of distress ; nor is it
certain that the cry of dis-
tress is heard by the rest of
China.
The means of communica-
tion— telegraph and telephone
— are not to be found in the
interior; even in large cities
they are few in number,
primitive in arrangement, most
annoying, and unreliable.
Newspapers and magazines
arc few and the means at their
command for gathering news
meagre to the last degree.
There are no railroads near
us; and when the water is
low in streams and lakes, time
or schedule means nothing.
The coming or going of boats A 5
is most uncertain, and can
never be relied on. From all these
circumstances and conditions it can
readily be seen that relief organiza-
tions such as you know in America
are not to be expected here. A
flood or an earthquake occurs in
one locality in America to-day, and
before nightfall, relief trains sup-
plied by State and Federal Authori-
ties are speeding to the rescue. But
here in China it is literally true that
one District or Province has no care
nor concern about its neighbors.
The foregoing will help the
readers of THE SIGN to under-
stand the causes that have led up
to the crisis of "FAMINE" that is
now present in Hunan ; the lack of
regular i
iter-ch
inge ot
ii
formation
between
dislric
ts, an<
1
why the
situation
is not
»eing r
:lii
ved. The
soldiers
)l botl
reguh
r
and rebel
army arc
not s
iffering
u
ant; they
are as wt
11 rationed iio\
S in times
of plent;
>, but
the ci
•ili
ins, men.
women i
nd chi
dren, ;
re
in abjei I
poverty ;
nd dying of st
in
ation.
©s
actual
scriptk
con, lit i
n. ()i
«
:::n:i
FOR FOOD
here to see and then only, can one
realize what it means. Many of the
children have become deformed,
crippled, and blind from lack of
nourishment. Deaths among the
children are most numerous.
The other day the Spanish Father
who is with us called me to the
door. A woman clad in rags and
tatters begs for food, and a little
medicine for the baby. Two tiny
tots are huddled in a basket strapped
to her back. One of the babies is
dying, beyond all doubt. It is
starved to death as is the mother.
We give the woman a bowl of rice.
Then Father says : "I will now give
37
the medicine to the baby; the only
medicine that will do tins child any
good." I raise my hand and pro-
nounce the words, "I baptize thee in
the name of the Father, and of the
Son, and of the Holy Ghost." This
is a daily, almost an hourly oii hi
rence.
On the Feast of the Seven Sorrows
of Mary a man came to the Mission
ith a child tied to his back. It was
deed a pitiable sight that greeted
us, when he unstrapped his
burden and laid it before us.
An infant, not more than a
lew months old, emaciated and
wasted to a mere skeleton.
Tt was blind in both eyes, the
nose eaten away almost en-
tirely, and the little body
covered from head to tool
with disgusting sores that
emitted a fetid odor. The
father asked for medicine.
We knew its days were num-
bered so Father Raphael
carried it to the church and
baptized it ; undoubtedly it has
used its passport to heaven
long before this.
BFEW days after that a
boy came to the Mis-
sion and by shouting
and excited gesticulations
iskedusto come at once. Father
Timothy went with him and
the sight that greeted him
would make a life-long im-
pression if it was not being
repeated in equally harassing
fashion each day. The father
NT and mother and five of the
seven children were huddled
together on the floor from weakness
and from disease that follows in the
track of starvation. He baptized the
parents and the children. The
mother died the same night with
one of the children. The following
day the father died, and within
the next two days three other
children. We brought the two
orphans to the Mission and if need
be, shall do without food rather than
allow the first ones whom Provi-
dence has sent, to go without shelter
or food.
If we had an orphan asylum to
care for the abandoned babies and
for the children who are brought
THE + SIGN
to us, we could reach out for hun-
dreds of little ones who are dying
without baptism. The other day I
picked up a New York newspaper
that was used in packing our trunks,
and the heading that caught my
eye was :
"Americans Offer $10.00 A Bunch
For Paris Asparagus."
Imagine my thoughts as I read
this! Is it possible that there are
among such Americans wealthy
Catholics, who squander the
price of salvation for dainties
and luxuries whilst literally
thousands of human beings
are starving to death for the
absolute necessities of life? I
have thought of the money
spent for movies and theatres
and luxuries of all kinds, and
it staggers one to think of
these things and to see our
helplessness in the face of
such misery.
XF only some one from
here could go there and
preach not only in the
churches but on the street
corners as well, and make
known what famine and star-
vation mean! It is certain
that for every dollar given to
the Mission a soul can be won
for the Church and for Jesus
Crucified. What slogan would
be more appealing: "A SOUL
FOR A DOLLAR!" Oh, tell
the people, and tell the readers
of THE SIGN, and tell every-
one in America how precious
in God's eyes are souls, and
the privilege that is theirs to
help the work in China and in other
foreign Mission Fields. It is no
exaggeration to say that hundreds
could be fed for an entire week for
the $10.00 spent for a single bunch
of asparagus.
Fortunately we were able to help
many and are still helping many with
the money given us before our
departure from America. We shall
continue our help to the last penny
and feel certain that God will send
more when our funds are exhausted.
O far, I have written only or
principally of the famine as
it affects the children; but
the adult population is suffering as
much and in many instances, more ;
for natural instincts are not dead
in many of the Chinese, even among
the pagans. They will suffer hunger
themselves to give to their children.
One family was visited and they
were at the time eating. Each one
had a bowl of boiled grass with a
few grains of rice, but so few, that
the rice in the bowls of the entire
family would not fill a tablespoon.
THE REMNANT OF A FAMILY OF SEVEN
FAMINE VICTIMS
And this is the kind of nourishment
that alone is available for most of
the people.
In some places the parents sell
their children, principally the girls,
at $2.00 a head. They are sold at
public auction, and at times are given
for one Mexican dollar. Reports
have come to us that parents in utter
distress and distraction have killed
and eaten their own children.
All this widespread and general
misery will continue till the next
crop of rice is gathered. The soldiers
and government officials have full
and plenty, and they show no con-
cern for the men and women who
38
are about them and in extreme want.
One official was heard to say when
representations were made to him :
"After all, what difference does it
make? These many who are starv-
ing to death now, will make rice
cheaper for those who are alive
next year I"
\^fc ' HE government has estab-
l ) lished one relief station in
^^^ Shen Cho Fu (and there
should be at least a score or
a hundred). This station is
located in a pagan temple at
the northern end of the city.
Here a continued stream of
poor starved humanity is pour-
ing in all day. Each one at
certain hours is given a watery
soup that is supposed to keep
them alive till the next day.
As each receives his scanty
allotment a clash of green
paint is put on his face to
show the public that he has
received his share of the
government bounty, and to
prevent his returning a second
time. To view these wrecks
of humanity as they go and
come from the temple, would
draw pity from a heart of
stone.
The other day a woman
came to one of the Fathers
asking him to buy two big
water jars, so as to be able
with the money to buy some-
thing for her starving brother.
He gave her a dollar and told
her to keep the jars. When
she showed the money to her
brother he was pleased and
said : "Now give me a bowl of rice
and then I shall die contented." So
it happened. He was given the bowl
of rice and the next day he died.
He was in such a weakened condi-
tion that no nourishment could save
him.
^^-^HERE are so many cases like
4 J this that they become ordi-
^- nary and commonplace. There
are hundreds of homes in which for
months no fire has been lighted,
because they have nothing to cook.
They have sold their utensils and
household furniture, yes, and cloth-
ing and other necessities, to be able
THE 1* SIGN
to buy something to cat; when
everything is sold, nothing remains
for them but a terrible and gnawing
death from starvation.
Nightly they die in the streets.
Nude skeleton figures are found in
groups in the fields and roadways
where they dropped and died from
hunger; their skin drawn over their
wasted bones. Each morning as the
sun rises it is but to show the
tragedies that famine has wrought
during the dark hours of the night.
No exact figures can be given of the
number of those who have died, or
who will die before this terrible
scourge has spent its fury. Many
die in their homes, or out in the
fields. To the government they are
only groups of beggars, and when
they are gone so many less to care
for and feed.
XT is worthy of note that whilst
the conditions are extreme
with no relief in sight, and
the authorities show no concern,
the people are patient and seldom
exhibit impatience or discontent,
much less show any disposition to
resort to violence which desperation
might readily provoke. There are
isolated instances but they are the
exception.
Three hundred famine sufferers
invaded the city of Poo Tung, but
were pacified when the merchants
gave them 3000 coppers. The refu-
gees from the famine districts of
Hunan were begging for food and
for money but were refused all aid
by the merchants. Provoked by
their taunts and threats they began
to rob the shops and stores of every-
thing in sight. The word was soon
passed along and soon all the shops
were closed and barred ; then the
refugees began to loot private
houses. They were finally induced
to leave by the united action of
merchants and people.
No estimate has been made of
the number who must die for want
of food in Hunan. There are
6,000,000 in the grip of famine which
has followed on the two years of
drought in which no crops have
been harvested. More than half of
this number are in our Missions.
In the June issue of THE SIGN,
it was proposed to begin the found-
ing of two Burses; one in honor of
the great Founder of the Passionist
( Irder, St. Paul of the Cross, whose
tireless and self-sacrificing zeal for
souls redeemed by the Precious
Blood of our Savior, may well serve
as an exemplar to stimulate zeal in
this lofty and noble cause.
The second Burse was to be in
honor of St. Gabriel, the Passionist
Student Saint, who died when a
mere boy, but whose life was
featured by an all absorbing love
and sympathy for the Sorrows of
Mary.
These Burses would insure support
and education for two missionaries
whose field of labor, would be the
Chinese Missions. It is not possible
to propose an object more lofty, or
more appealing to the deep Faith of
Catholic people.
When this proposal was made it
was not realized that the FAMINE
was so general, or so destructive in
character. THE SIGN has there-
fore sent all contributions received
thus far to the Fathers in China,
asking them in the name of the
donors to reach out a helping hand
to the hungry and starving and
dying people.
Until the FAMINE abates in fury,
all contributions sent to THE SIGN
will be forwarded promptly to the
Fathers in China for this most
humane and merciful purpose.
Contributions received from May
10th. to June 10th., are hereby
gratefully acknowledged:
F. N., W. Hoboken, N. J $ 5.00
E. S., W. Hoboken, N. J 3.00
A. G. H, \V. Hoboken, N. J... 2.00
M. M. E., Newark, N. J 5.00
N. D., Brooklyn, N. Y 2.00
M. C, Brooklyn, N. Y 1.00
E. L., Philadelphia, Pa 5.00
A. H, Philadelphia, Pa 20.00
Airs. E. K., Baltimore, Md.... 50.00
Miss S., Baltimore, Md 5.00
N. O. B, Tuckahoe, N. Y 10.00
S. J. P., Darners, Mass 5.00
F. G. H 2.00
Anon 3.00
Anon 100.00
39
The cities which are suffering most
are Yuan (how and Sinn Cho Fu.
ilT^E are fully conscious dear
Ml readers of THE SIGN that
^*^^ what we have written is
gruesome and harrowing. But if
you were here and saw what we
see you would know we have given
you not the grim reality, but only
the barest outline. As we said in
this letter the corpses when found
are generally nude; for robbers
prowl about the city at night and
when they come upon a poor wretch
who is dying of starvation, they
stand about and as soon as he is
dead, strip the body and sell the
rags for a few coppers or for a
little rice. Every day beggars come
to the Mission and ask us for rice;
they return for a bowl of rice for
father or mother, or for son or
daughter, and if they came to you,
would you have the heart to refuse?
What is it we ask from the readers
of THE SIGN? In the first place
we ask for prayers for the famine
sufferers, to obtain relief; that God
will deign to bless this year's crops
of rice. We ask prayers for their
souls that the sufferings they are
now enduring may render them
docile to the message of Christ's
appeal from the Cross ; "And I,
when I shall be lifted up from the
earth, will draw all things to My-
self." Pray that the Precious Blood
of Jesus will make fruitful the seed
of His word here in China.
^w^E ask for your alms, your
rl 1 help, your money. We have
^*S spent nearly all we brought
from America, but the need is press-
ing, it is great. Money can never
be expended to better advantage
for God's sake and Christ's sake
than now and here. We ask you to
give generously and give quickly,
to help the dependents of our Mis-
sion here in poor pagan China.
In our next letter we hope to ful-
fill the promises wc have already
made, and tell about our Mission
and our plans of campaign.
The Passionist Fathers of China,
per Father Celestine, C. P.
Index to Worthwhile Reading
You and Yours. .Martin J. Scott
S.J. P. J. Kenedy & Son. New
York. Price $1.50.
Home is the fulcrum which the
forces of good and evil use to send
the world rolling towards heaven or
hell. Fr. Scott brings to this vital
subject exceptional talent, rare com-
mon sense, and an intimate know-
ledge of the ups and downs, of
family life. He talks to each mem-
ber of the family and tells each in
turn, his or her duty in the family
circle in language too clear to be
misunderstood.
Father is the "head of the family."
He should rule the home with
gentle firmness, lay down the law
only when necessary, but then in no
uncertain terms, and form his chil-
dren more by example than by
precept. Character is caught more
than it is taught.
Mother is the "heart of the
family." It is her privilege to enter
deeply into all the joys and sorrows
of her husband and children. It is
her ability to maintain an habitual
sweetness of disposition in all the
adverse circumstances of family life,
that contributes more than anything
else to the making of "Home,
Sweet Home." The dignity of
Mother is sublime; her responsibility
is very great ; her influence for good
or evil is simply incalculable. "The
hand that rocks the cradle rules the
world."
Sons and daughters are reminded
of their duty of honoring, rever-
encing and obeying their parents ;
of doing nothing that would dis-
please them; and of consulting them
in all matters of importance, especi-
ally in the great affair of life, —
choosing a wife or husband. Chil-
dren who break their parents' hearts,
will eventually have their own
hearts broken.
The final chapters on the higher
life will instruct generous souls,
anxious to walk in the more perfect
way, as to the nature of a religious,
or a priestly vocation and the man-
ner of corresponding to it. Also
they will be reminded of the rich
reward that awaits such a life of
sacrifice,— a reward that will last
through-out eternity.
On the whole, the book is a
masterpiece. The style is limpidly
clear; there is no friction; one reads
entire chapters without effort.
We say of this book what we
seldom say of any book,— it is all
too short !
The Catholic Citizen. John A.
Lapp. The Macmillan Co. New
York. $1.00.
This is an excellent book, one of
the best of its kind yet published.
The author adheres strictly to the
purpose expressed in the opening
lines of his introduction, "to set forth
the essential facts of American
citizenship and the civic and social
problems with which the citizen must
deal.
Starting with the assertion that
the "highest purpose of government
is the promotion of justice and fair
play for all the people," Mr. Lapp
proceeds to show how our great
democracy endeavors to measure up
to this high ideal.
The author justty observes that
too often, dishonest members of
political machines, are placed
in authority to further their own,
unlawful interests. "Candidates
elected by corrupt practices will
serve the interests that bought their
election instead of the interests of
the people."
We think that the author places
too much blame on the ordinary
citizen for this regrettable state of
affairs. "If politics are corrupt, it is
because the citizens are not honest,
or, they do not do their duty
they refrain from voting, or fail to
vote intelligently." The author
seems to forget that precisely here
is the "Crux" of the whole political
situation, viz: the ordinary citizen's
inability to "vote intelligently." How
can he do so, when the very source
of his information — the daily press
is controlled by political machines,
and so cleverly manipulated by their
agents as to make it scarcely possi-
ble even for the man of scholarly
attainments to obtain exact know-
ledge of the moral character and the
political ability of this or that
candidate who is 'up' for office.
"Capital and Labor," "Money,"
"Banks and Banking," and "Insur-
ance" are some of the interesting
social problems which are handled
very capably.
The appendix contains the
"Declaration of Independence" and
the "Constitution of the United
States."
Bunny's House. E. M. Walker.
Benziger Brothers. New York.
$2.00.
The central figure in this story is
a good natured, well meaning
London lad, Ernest Grills, who is a
typical product of a godless educa-
tion and a godless home. The
perpetual fog of the great city in
which he is born and bred is sym-
bolical of the habitual state of his
soul. He knows not whence he
comes, whither he is going; nor any-
thing definite about the God Who
made him.
Ernest seeks peace in the
quiet of country life at Bunny's
house. Several circumstances con-
duce to his remaining there. Airs.
Parracomb, young, fascinating, in-
telligent, and a Catholic, comes into
his life. At her suggestion he prays
daily, "Who shall be my guide? . . .
The Father, the Son, and the Holy
Ghost !" Mrs. Parracomb makes a
startling avowal ; her husband still
lives; she is not free. Ernest's
dream is shattered. The Light in
his soul dies out. He simply does
not care about the Whence nor the
Whither of his existence. He
determines to break away from the
associations which have wrought
such woe in his life. Far off Canada
beckons ; thither he hastens, heading
straight for St. Ann de Beaupre, there
"to put a candle" for Mrs. Parra-
comb. Thus the books ends — a
gleam of light above the fog.
The book has a realistic smack
to it, and leaves the definite impres-
sion how difficult it is for the god-
lessly educated to attain unto Light.
CATHOLIC THEOLOGICAL UNION
3 0311 00155 0255
BZ 801 _S54 v=l
Sign (Union City. E. J, j