I SHALL never forget the evening of the day on which my father died. For a long while I knelt at a table in one of the quiet darkened rooms, and burning thoughts and emotions passed through my mind. I was thinking of the past, and made many resolutions for the future. It was then also that I first conceived the idea of entering the ecclesiastical state.
There are moments in one's history when the hollowness and emptiness of this world and all connected with it are brought home so closely to us that we instinctively long for something more elevating, to breathe a purer atmosphere, or walk a path that shall not prove so evanescent and disappointing as is our ordinary lot down here.
At such times as these certain objects spring up before the mind and seem to offer, to some extent, that for which our hearts are longing. With some it may be greater activity in public life that attracts them, while others lean more to retirement and solitude. With me it was the cloister that captivated my mind, and I desire in the following pages to describe what my experiences were, as following the dictates of my heart, I chose the path of a monk and threw in my lot with others whom I found in the same road before me.
I first made known to my confessor that I had a desire to embrace the ecclesiastical state, and he immediately urged me to enter monastic life, and so prepare for the "regular" priesthood, as he called it.
This involves the three vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience, which all must subscribe to who would attain to absolute perfection.
This man was a Jesuit, and not only my confessor but my director. The system of direction is being extensively adopted by the Anglicans throughout this country. It consists in seeking the advice of your confessor on all the minutest details of daily life, whether they be individual or domestic, which is supposed to be highly pleasing to God; but in effect the character of any one thus directed is rendered morbid and weak, and in many cases cast at the feet of a man least qualified to guide it.
All this is perfectly natural, it is human nature, for the priests who chiefly strive to become directors are the most narrow and egotistic of men, and are the first to wield those who are eagerly seeking for perfection. They appear to have divine motives to guide their actions, which, as clever men, they use like bellows to render the subject malleable, porous, and ductile. The poor deceived heart eventually discovers its error, but alas! generally too late to retrace its steps, and all the while is cheered with short-lived hopes, which though under a mark of sanctity, really deceive no one more than themselves.
There are three vows which they look upon as the symbols of perfection in a monk, and which form the goal of his lofty ambition. They are voluntary poverty, perpetual chastity, and entire obedience. The trainer takes great pains to instil these principles so thoroughly into the minds of those under his charge, that they shall become part of their very selves, while the ones who are trained also exercise determined efforts in the same direction. This seems to promise great reward in the complete power over mind and will, till every thought is brought into subjection; but this is an end that has never yet been reached by such carnal means as these.
But to return to my narrative. I shall never forget the day when I first left home for a foreign land. I was still but quite young, having only just attained my fifteenth year. It was on a cold, dark morning of the new year, a very cloudy day, with rain threatening, but I had bidden my friends good-bye the day before, and the moment of departure drew near.
My dear mother had been up the greater part of the night packing my trunks, and had now prepared tempting food for my last breakfast at home. This was indeed my last meal with her; but, how little I knew that I should never look upon her face again when once my back was turned from the house, yet she looked so loving and tender I thought I loved her more than ever before.
Even now memory brings her vividly back to me as she used to sit by the corner of the fireside on Sunday afternoons, her arm lying over the elbow of an old arm chair, which was her favorite seat. A devotional volume perhaps in her hand, with the forefinger between the leaves, while in a low, soft voice she would repeat any line that particularly attracted her attention.
Her faith was not the Neo-Catholicism of to-day, but the faith as taught by a Gotter or Butler. The solemn declaration made by Rome, whereby Catholic emancipation was obtained, would now be considered heresy, for the modern Vatican teaches that the pope has always been infallible, that he is by divine right supreme in all matters he deems important, over all potentates and all individuals. Almost every absurdity possible to imagine has at one time or other been proclaimed, and the victims of this creed must now receive them as articles of faith, and intentionally to doubt any dogma would, they teach, entail eternal perdition.
At length all the preparations were completed; one of my old schoolfellows came in and said the cab was waiting, while his mother, an Irish lady, the wife of an officer, now came to my side, and told me to be a man, to study to be faithful to my vocation and to the holy mother of God. She said I should have a capital time with the good fathers.
In spite of my thinking it a right state I was taking, I could not overcome all sense of sinking of heart at thus leaving my home, perhaps forever, and the railway station seemed to present a most dismal appearance to my imagination. There were the long line of carriages with the doors standing open; but, as in those days no lights were given in the train, they looked dismal enough, and but few passengers at that early hour to share the darkness.
The final leave-takings were now given, the doors slammed, and with a shrill whistle from the guard, we moved out of the station through mist and fog, which slowly turned gray in the morning twilight, and on to London, which was reached in due time. From there I embarked for my nearest seaport. We passed down the Thames amid broad sailing yachts, black, square colliers from the Tine, and heavy three-decked Indiamen, drifting slowly down upon the tide. After a while the smooth waters of the river were gradually exchanged for the waves of the ocean, which now lay stretched out before us.
The last head-lands of England sink under the horizon, while water—nothing but water—is to be seen all around, with the exception perhaps of a solitary white sail on the horizon now and again. Thus the morning and noon passed away and evening drew on. Hour after hour I sat on the deck, now lighted up by the silver light of the moon. All this time my reader can easily imagine how busy was my mind, first going forward and vainly endeavoring to pierce the future that holy life into which I hoped so soon to enter—then back to the home of my childhood, with all its early associations.
But ocean life has its many storms, and my present voyage, though but a short one, was to be no exception to the rule. The night to me was most dreadful, for the rain came down in torrents, while the thunder roared in the sky, and lightning flashed about us and was reflected by the waters. The ship pitched madly up and down, and I, sick and faint at heart, was glad to grope my way below, where most of the passengers had already clustered.
On looking back to that night, from the dangers of which it pleased God to preserve us, I cannot help thinking how like my outward condition was to many a poor soul who eagerly looks towards Rome as a haven of rest, where peace for the present may be obtained and holiness laid up for the future; but alas! where all the hollowness of that vast system is seen and laid bare, what storms and tossings of the heart and conscience take place, as the bright dreams of anticipated purity and perfection are rudely thrust aside, leaving naught behind but a spiritual desert denuded of every living hope, and leaving despair in the soul more dark and drear than very death itself.
If, on the other hand, we take the word in all its living simplicity, and drink in the refreshing draft from Him who is the fountain of life, how wonderful the effect, how blessed the result; for the wayfaring man, though a fool, shall not err therein, and peace shall flow into his soul from the One who said, "Come unto me, all ye that are weary and heavy laden, and I will give you rest.”
The long stormy night at length came to an end, and quiet seas succeeded the storm, and soon I could see in the distance the port to which we were bound, and then my eyes could rest upon the coveted fields of a Roman Catholic country and have my day-dreams realized, for I had often longed to see Roman Catholicism in its true dress and drink in its spirit at the fountain head.
That night I slept far away from the old house at home and the city of my birth, but I was nearer the spot where I was to devote my life to what I then believed the highest, holiest vocation to which a mortal could be called, the service of the church. Weary as I was in body, it was hours before I could compose myself to sleep, and when towards morning I fell into an uneasy slumber my dreams were of my home and my mother.