Chapter V: Part 5

"My Dear Dwight:--It _was_ cruel in me to write so
briefly, but if you knew what a press of duty came upon me just
at once, you would pity me, and indeed now I am in such a
confusion, that it takes some courage to write a line. But, my
dear friend, you have been so great a help to me, that it would
be worse than heathen in me not to give you one word of
explanation. I decided to submit to the Catholic Church last
Sunday night, and gave in my resignation to the vestry on last
Tuesday morning. I went to the archbishop, and to-morrow I make
my profession in St. Alphonsus' Church, before only two
witnesses, the least the rubric requires. This was in
compliance with the advice of the Bishop, who did not think it
well to give unnecessary publicity to the act. Plain and
sufficient arguments had long enough been addressed to my mind,
but my conversion at last I owe only to the grace of God. It
was the gift of God through Prayers, and now I can say 'Nunc
Dimittis'--for 'I believe, O God! all the Holy Truths which Thy
Catholic Church proposes to our belief, because Thou, my God,
hast revealed them all; and Thy Church has declared them. In
this faith I desire to live, and in the same, by Thy holy
grace, I am most firmly resolved to die. Amen.'

* * *

"I shall prepare for the sacraments next week, but beyond that,
I have formed no plans.

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"My dear Dwight, I feel that I have too long resisted God's
grace, and it will be one of the sins which I must now repent
of. God by His merciful kindness did not suffer me to be
abandoned, as, indeed, my resistance of His grace deserved, but
kindly pleaded with me, and I am now at the threshold of the
kingdom of God. Come with us, dear Dwight, come; God's time is
the best time. May our Lord bless you and direct you. Yours
affectionately,
"Francis A. Baker."

This closes the correspondence of Mr. Baker with the dear and valued friend of his youth and manhood, previous to his reception into the Catholic Church; and I have postponed the continuation of my narrative in order to complete my extracts from it, and leave the writer to tell his own touching story to the end.

Mr. Baker's conversion was the logical sequence of his former life, both intellectual and spiritual; it was the result of the accumulating light of the eleven preceding years, concentrated and brought to a focus upon the practical question of duty and obligation. The particular events which immediately preceded it, were like the stroke of the hammer on the mould of a bell, already completely cast and finished beneath it, and waiting only the shattering of its earthen shell to ring out with a clear and musical sound. "_The just man is the accuser of himself_," and Mr. Baker, whose deep humility made him unconscious of his own goodness, in the first vivid consciousness that the light which had led him to the Catholic Church was the light of grace, could no longer understand his past state of doubt, and reproached himself for it, as a sinful resistance to God. It is not necessary, however, to suppose that there was any thing grievously culpable in that state of doubt and hesitation.

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He was right in attributing his final decision to the efficacious grace of the Holy Spirit. But this grace was only the last of a long series of graces which had prepared him to receive it. It did not change, but only perfected his habitual disposition of mind. It produced a crisis and a transformation in his soul, but it was one to which a long and gradual process had been continually tending. It was not a miracle, or a sudden revelation. Careful thought and reading, and the assiduous cultivation of his spiritual faculties had brought him to the apprehension of all the data of a rational judgment that the Catholic Church is true. The apparently sudden moment of deliberation and decision was but the successful effort of the mind and will to come into the certain consciousness of the truth already fairly proposed, and to determine to follow it. It was a supernatural grace which made this effort successful, and elevated the just conclusions of reason to the certitude of faith. But it was not a grace which superseded reason or dispensed with the reasonable grounds and evidences of an intellectual judgment and the motives of a just determination.

Mr. Baker must have been drawing near to a decision during the whole of Lent; for his mind was evidently more deeply and earnestly bent on coming to it, when I saw him in Easter Week, than ever. He called on me on the Friday evening of Easter week, and his manner was much changed. His anxiety of mind broke through the reserve he had heretofore maintained, and instead of the guarded and self-controlled manner he had preserved in former interviews, he was abrupt and outspoken. At the very outset, he expressed his feeling that the question of difference between us was one of vital importance, in regard to which one of us must be deeply and dangerously in the wrong, and desired to discuss the matter with me fully. I suppose his intention was to see me more frequently than he had done, to open his mind more fully, and to get from me all the help I could give him in making up his mind. We had a pretty long conversation on theological points, without going into the discussion of fundamental Catholic principles. {108} The truth is, Mr. Baker had already mastered these principles, and was really settled in regard to every essential doctrine. He had no need of further study, but merely of an effort to shake off that kind of doubt which is a mental weakness, and perpetually revolves difficulties and objections which ought not to affect the judgment. The one particular point which we discussed most was in reference to some passages in the writings of St. Augustine concerning the doctrine of Purgatory--a doctrine which he had clearly stated his belief in, two years before. I answered his difficulty as well as I could at the time, promising to examine the matter more fully the next day, and to give him a written answer, which I accordingly did, but too late to be of any service to him, as the sequel will show. I left him with a strong impression that the crisis of his mind was at hand, and for that reason engaged all the members of the community to pray for him particularly. After leaving me, he called on a young lady who was very ill, and had sent for him to visit her. This young lady, who died happily in the bosom of the Catholic Church a few weeks after, had already sent for one of the reverend gentlemen of the Cathedral, and expressed to him her desire to become a Catholic, but had consented, at the request of her family, to have an interview with Mr. Baker before receiving the sacraments. When he came to her bedside, she informed him of her state of mind, and asked him if he had any satisfactory reason to allege why she should not fulfil her wish to be received into the Catholic Church before she died. He told her that he regretted very much that she had chosen to consult with him on that point, as there were reasons why he must decline giving her advice on the subject. She conjured him to tell her distinctly what he thought, and he again replied that he was not able to say any thing to her on the subject. She looked at him earnestly, and said, "I see how it is, Mr. Baker; you are in doubt yourself." Without saying another word, he left the room and the house, transpierced with a pain which he could neither endure nor remove. {109} He turned his steps toward the Cathedral, and walked around it several times, like one not knowing where to go, and then returned to his home and his study to remain in solitude and prayer, through several anxious days and sleepless nights. He was now face to face with the certainty that he dare not promise to anyone else security of salvation in the Episcopal Church. Yet, he was a minister of that Church, and was trusting his own salvation to it. To remain in such a position longer had become impossible to a conscientious man like him. Nevertheless, he went through the duties of Sunday, and again read prayers in his church on the Monday and Tuesday mornings. He had been censured for this, by some, as if he had acted a hypocritical part, but most unjustly. Certainly, if he had asked my advice beforehand, I should have told him that he had no right to do it. But the reader of this narrative will see that his own conscience had been frequently overruled on the question of exercising the ministry in a state of doubt, and on Sunday he was still in this state, undecided what to do. He did not actually give in his resignation until after prayers on Tuesday morning, and any candid person will surely admit that he was excusable, in the agitation of the moment, for thinking that it was better to fulfil the engagements he was under to his people until the last moment, when these consisted merely in reciting a form of prayer which is very good in itself, and contains nothing contrary to Catholic doctrine.

On Tuesday, the 5th of April, Mr. Baker gave a letter of resignation to the vestry of St. Luke's Church, called on Dr. Wyatt, who was the administrator of the diocese during the bishop's absence in Europe, and then went to see the archbishop. When he was admitted to the presence of this venerable and saintly prelate, he threw himself on his knees before him, and in accents and words of the most profound humility made his submission to the Catholic Church, and implored him to receive him into her bosom. {110} The archbishop, who knew him well by sight and by reputation, arose in haste from his chair to raise him from his knees, in a few warm and affectionate words welcomed him to his embrace, and begged him to be seated by his side and to calm himself. It was with difficulty that he could induce him to do so, for the barrier in his soul that had held it icebound for so long had given way: a torrent of repressed emotions was swelling in his bosom, and after a moment he burst into a flood of tears, the gentle and good archbishop weeping with him from sympathy. After a long and consoling conversation with the archbishop, he came over to St. Alphonsus' Church, which is near the Cathedral, to see me.

I was making a retreat that day, and was walking in the garden, when a message was sent me by the rector to go to the parlor to see Mr. Baker. As soon as he saw me, he said, abruptly, "I have come to be one of you." I invited him inside the inclosure, and he, fancying I misunderstood his words to imply that he was ready to join our religious congregation, answered quickly, "I do not mean that I wish to become a Redemptorist, but a Catholic." "I understand that," I replied; "let us go to the oratory and recite a Te Deum of thanksgiving." We did so, and then walked in the garden together for a short time. The first time I ever saw an expression of real joyfulness in his countenance was then. He was always placid, but never, so far as I could see, joyous, before he became a Catholic. To my great surprise, he chose me as his confessor. I left the time of his reception to himself, and he chose Saturday, the 9th of April, which was the anniversary of the death of his brother Alfred. On Saturday morning, I said Mass in the little chapel of the Orphan Asylum of the Sisters of Charity. Father Hecker, who was present, on account of the approaching mission, accompanied me to the chapel. After Mass, Mr. Baker made his profession, according to the old form, containing the full creed of Pius IV., and I received him into the bosom of the Church. {111} No others were present besides the good Sisters and their little children. He had been baptized by Dr. Wyatt, and the archbishop decided that there was no reason whatever for his being conditionally rebaptized. I performed the supplementary rites of baptism, such as the anointing with holy oil and chrism, the giving of the white garment and lighted candle, etc., at his own request, in the sacristy of the Cathedral, after his sacramental confession was completed. This sacred act was accomplished in the archbishop's library. During the week after his reception, and on the Third Sunday after Easter, April 17, he was confirmed in the Cathedral by Archbishop Kenrick, and received his first communion from his hand.

The conversion of Mr. Baker made a great sensation in Baltimore, and wherever he was known. It was announced in the secular papers, and for some weeks a lively controversy arising out of it was kept up. It was the general topic of conversation in all circles, Catholic and Protestant. The sorrow of his own parishioners, of those who had loved and honored him so much while he was connected with St. Paul's parish, and especially of his more near and intimate friends, was very great. His own near relatives, and a certain number of his intimate friends, never were in the least alienated from him, but remained as closely bound to him in affection as ever, while they and he lived. The great majority of those who had been his admirers, and who had listened with delight to his eloquent preaching, always retained a great respect and esteem for him; and during his whole subsequent life, he almost invariably won a regard from those of the Protestant community who were acquainted with him, second only to that of the Catholic people to whom he ministered. There were some exceptions to this rule, however. A few persons wrote to him in the most severe and reproachful terms. The usual pitiable charge, that his religious change was caused by mental derangement, was made by those whose wretched policy has always been to counteract as much as possible the influence of conversions to the Catholic Church by personal calumnies against the converts. {112} He was sometimes openly insulted, and much more frequently treated with coldness and neglect. Notwithstanding the respect with which so many still regarded him in their hearts, he was compelled to feel that he had become, in great measure, an alien and a stranger in the community where he had been born and bred. In a short time, his duty called him away from his native city, and, somewhat later, from his own State, into a distant part of the country. All the old associations of his early life were broken up; he had no longer an earthly home; and until his death he had, for the most part, no other ties and associations except those which were created by his religious profession and his sacerdotal office. Some six or seven persons were received into the Church soon after his conversion, three or four of whom were his parishioners; and some others may have been at a later period partly influenced by his example. But none of his intimate and particular friends were among the number, with the exception of his old and bosom friend and associate in the ministry, Mr. Lyman. His name and influence faded away, and were forgotten among the things of the past; while he, having bidden farewell to the world and taken up his cross, followed on after Christ, toward the crown he was soon to win, and was lost to the view of those among whom he had lived before, in the dust of the combat and labor of an arduous and obscure missionary career.

It is not to be supposed that Mr. Baker could hesitate long as to his vocation. He had in his youth dedicated himself to the ministry of Christ, but had mistaken a false claimant of delegated power to confer the character and mission of the priesthood, for the true one. Nine years had been spent, not uselessly; for the good example and eloquent instructions of a wise and virtuous man are always salutary; and he had been slowly preparing himself by the feeble light and imperfect grace which he had for the perfect gifts of the Catholic sacraments. {113} He was now thirty-three years of age, in the full bloom of his natural powers, with all his holy aspirations and purposes ripened and perfected, with a thorough knowledge of Catholic theology, excepting only its specially technical and professional branches, with all the habits suited for a sacerdotal life fully established. The only doubt of his vocation in his own mind was one of humility, and when this was settled by the decision of his confessor and of his bishop, his course was clear before him. He might still have chosen to remain in his own home and family while preparing for ordination. He might have remained in his native city, or in the diocese, as a secular priest, secure of the most honorable and agreeable position which the archbishop could bestow upon him, where he could have enjoyed all those domestic comforts and elegancies to which he was accustomed, together with the society of the beloved members of his family who still remained, without in any way interfering with his proposed career as a devoted priest. He chose differently, however, and from the promptings of his own soul, which instinctively chose what was most perfect. My religious brethren and myself used no solicitations to induce him to join us. His original desire for the religious life gave him a bias toward the regular clergy. What he saw of the little band of American Redemptorists, and of the mission which was given at the Cathedral, captivated his heart with a desire to become one of their number. He thought of one thing only--what was the will of God, and the most perfect way open to him to sanctify himself and others in the priesthood. His mind was soon made up on this point. He applied to the Father Provincial of the Redemptorists, who received him without hesitation. He settled his affairs as speedily as possible, and began his novitiate at once. As soon as the proper time arrived, he divested himself of all his property for the benefit of the surviving members of his family. His library he gave to the congregation, by whom it was afterward kindly restored to him, and is now in the possession of the Paulists at New York. {114} His only aim and desire, from this time forward, was to acquire the perfection of Christian and religious virtue. Forgetting all that was behind, he pressed forward to those things which were before, with a fixed aim and a steady, unfaltering step. He dropped into the position of a novice and a student so easily, and with such a perfectness of humility, that it seemed his natural and obvious place to be among the youths and young men who were with him. He was the favorite and companion of the youngest among them, and, it is needless to say, the delight and consolation of his superiors. After one year of novitiate and his profession, he continued for two years more studying dogmatic and moral theology, with the other accessories usually taught to candidates for orders. During this time he lost his amiable and excellent sister, Elizabeth Baker, to his great sorrow. Although his ordination was postponed much longer than is usually the case with men in his position, already so well prepared by their previous intellectual and moral training for the priesthood, he was not in the least impatient at the delay, and his long preparation gave him the advantage that he was ready at once to undertake all the most difficult and responsible duties of a matured and experienced priest. Besides this, he acquired that thorough and minute theoretical and practical knowledge of the ceremonies of the Church, and of every thing relating to the divine service of the altar and the sanctuary, for which he was afterward distinguished. He came out of his long retirement a workman thoroughly and completely furnished for his task, and imbued through and through with the spirit of the Catholic Church. I seldom saw him, and never exchanged letters with him, during all this period, each of us being absorbed in his own particular duties and occupations, at a distance from the other. As the time of his ordination approached, we were both of us, however, again in the same House, that of St. Alphonsus, in Baltimore. {115} It was in the summer of 1856 that he finished his studies, and, having some time before received the minor orders, began his retreat preparatory to being admitted to the three holy orders. During the retreat, his companion, F. Vogien, an amiable and holy young religious--with him and the saintly prelate who ordained them, now, I trust, in heaven--was full of dread and apprehension, often weeping, and even entreating his superior to postpone his ordination. With Father Baker it was otherwise. While I was in the church, during the evening, employed in the exercises of my own retreat, I often heard him singing the most joyful of the ecclesiastical chants in the garden, and his placid, pale face was lighted up with the radiant joy of a Soul approaching to the consummation of its holiest and most cherished wishes. He was ordained sub-deacon and deacon in St. Mary's Chapel during the week before the Sunday fixed for his ordination to the priesthood. On Sunday, September 21, 1856, he was ordained priest by Archbishop Kenrick, in the Cathedral. The Archbishop celebrated Pontifical Mass, the reverend gentlemen and seminarists from St. Sulpice assisted, and the clergy were present in considerable numbers, among them his old friend, Mr. Lyman, already a priest. Everyone who knows what the Cathedral of Baltimore is, and how the grand ceremonies of the Church are performed in it, will understand how beautiful and inspiring was the scene at Father Baker's ordination. The great church was crowded to its utmost capacity, but it was by Catholics only, drawn by the desire to see one who had sacrificed so much for their own dear faith. Father Baker, as he knelt with his companion at a priedieu, dressed in rich and beautiful white vestments, after receiving the indelible character of the priesthood, to offer up with the Archbishop the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, looked more like an angel than a man. {116} The holy and benignant prelate shed tears of joyful emotion when he embraced him at the close of the ceremony, and there was never a more delightful reunion than that which took place on that day, when the clergy met at the archbishop's table, to participate in the modest festivities of the episcopal mansion. A few days after, Mr. Lyman, Father Baker, and Myself, celebrated a solemn Votive Mass of Thanksgiving at St. Alphonsus' Church, for the signal grace we had received, in being all brought to the communion of the Holy Church and to her priesthood.

Here began the sacerdotal career, brief in time, but rich in labors and results, of Father Baker. He remained in Baltimore a few weeks, to celebrate his first Mass, and initiate himself in quiet retirement into his new priestly life and functions. The first fruit of his new priesthood was a convert to the Catholic Church, a young widow lady of highly respectable family, who was bred a Unitarian, and who had been waiting three years to be received into the Church by Father Baker. He baptized her and her two children, a few days after his own ordination. Soon after he began the missionary career, in which the greatest part of his subsequent life was employed.

It may not here be amiss to digress from the personal history of Father Baker, long enough to give some account of the nature of those missions in which he was henceforth to take so conspicuous a part, and of their introduction into this country. In doing so, I shall describe more particularly the method adopted in those missions with which I have been myself connected, without noticing any others which may differ in certain details; and this will suffice to give a correct idea of all missions, so far as their general spirit and scope is concerned.

Missions to the Catholic people have been in use for centuries in various parts of Europe. They are generally given by the members of religious congregations specially devoted to the work. The missionaries are invited by the pastor of the parish, with the sanction of the bishop of the diocese from whom they receive their jurisdiction. {117} The exercises of the mission consist of a regular series of sermons and instructions, continued for a number of days, and sometimes for two weeks in succession, twice or oftener in the day. The course of instructions, which is given at an early hour of the morning, embraces familiar and plain but solid and didactic expositions of the commandments, sacraments, and practical Christian and moral duties. The course of sermons, given at night, includes the great truths which relate to the eternal destiny of man, which are presented in the most thorough and exhaustive manner possible, and enforced with all the power with which the preacher is endowed. Several of Father Baker's mission sermons are included in the collection published in this volume, and will serve to exhibit their peculiar style and character. Frequently, the older children receive separate instruction for about four days in succession, closing with a general confession and communion. After the mission has continued a few days, the confessionals are opened to the people, and communion is given every morning to those who are prepared to receive. At the close of the mission the altar is decorated with flowers and lights, a baptismal font is erected, the people renew their baptismal vows after an appropriate sermon has been preached, and are dismissed with a parting benediction. The sacrifice of the Mass is offered up several times every morning, according to the number of priests present; and before the evening sermon there is a short prefatory exercise, which, in the Paulist Missions, consists of the explanation of an article of the Creed, followed by the Litany of the Saints. After sermon, the _Miserere_ or some other appropriate piece is sung, and the benediction of the Blessed Sacrament is given.

All this is very simple, consisting of nothing more than the preaching of the Word of God, the administration of the sacraments, and the performance of acts of worship and prayer, as these are ordinarily practised in the regular routine of the Catholic Church. {118} All that is peculiar and unusual consists in the adaptation of the preaching and instructions to the end in view, and in the daily continuity of the exercises. The object aimed at is to present in one complete view all the principal truths of religion, and all the essential practical rules for living virtuously in conformity with those truths, and to do this in the most comprehensive, forcible, and intelligible manner. The class of persons for whose benefit missions are primarily intended is that portion of the Catholic people least influenced by the ordinary ministrations of the parochial clergy, although all classes, even the best instructed and most regular, share in the benefit. All necessary available means are used to awaken an interest in the mission and to secure attendance. When this is done, continuous daily listening to instruction and participation in religious exercises prevents the impressions received from passing away, the people become more and more interested and absorbed, and are carried through a process of thought and reflection upon all the most momentous truths and doctrines, which is for them equivalent to a thorough education of the mind and conscience. The general instructions given in public are applied to the individual soul by the confessor in the tribunal of penance, as the judge of guilty and the physician of diseased and wounded consciences. Sin and guilt are washed away by sacramental absolution from all who are sincerely penitent; their souls, purified and restored to grace, are refreshed and strengthened by the Body and Blood of Christ in the Holy Eucharist, and the debt of temporal punishment due to the justice of God is removed or lightened, in proportion to the intensity of contrition and divine love excited in the soul by its own efforts to secure the grace of God, through the indulgences conceded by the supreme power of the Vicar of Christ.

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The earlier sermons are directed to the end of fixing the mind on the supreme importance of religion, and alarming the conscience in regard to sin. Afterward, special vices are denounced, particular dangers and temptations pointed out, those duties which are most neglected are brought out into bold relief, and every effort made to produce a thorough reformation of life. Toward the close, the scope and aim of the sermons are to animate and encourage the heart and will by appealing to the nobler passions and the higher motives, to awaken confidence in God, to portray the eternal rewards of virtue and point out the means of perseverance. All that can impress the senses and imagination, subdue the heart, convince the reason, and stimulate the will, is brought to bear, in conjunction with the supernatural efficacy of the word and sacraments of Christ, upon a people full of faith and religious susceptibility, under the most favorable circumstances for producing the greatest possible effect. Where faith is impaired, the effect is not so certain, and slower and more tedious means have to be adopted, with less hope of success, to restore the dying root of all religion, or replant it where it is completely dead. It is moreover certain, although it may not be evident to those who are destitute of Catholic faith, that there is an extraordinary grace of God accompanying the exercises of the mission; and this was so plain to the mind of an earnest Episcopalian clergyman in New England, on one occasion, that it led him to study seriously the subject of the Catholic Church, the result of which was that he became a Catholic, at a great personal sacrifice.

Public retreats had been given from time to time in the United States, by the Jesuits and others, before the series of Redemptorist Missions was commenced. This series, which began at St. Joseph's Church, New York, in April, 1851, was, however, the first that was systematically and regularly carried on by a band of missionaries especially devoted to the work. Since that time, the number of missionaries, belonging to several distinct congregations, has increased, and the missions have been multiplied. {120} The principal merit of inaugurating this great and extensive work belongs to F. Bernard Hafkenscheid, who was formerly the Provincial of the Redemptorist Congregation in the United States. F. Bernard, as he was always called, on account of his unpronounceable patronymic, had been for twenty years the most eloquent and successful preacher of missions in his native country of Holland and the adjacent Low Countries. Born to the possession of wealth and all its attendant advantages, but still more blessed with a most thorough religious training and the grace of early piety from his childhood, he received a finished ecclesiastical education, which he completed at Rome, where he was honored with the doctorate in theology. After his ordination, he devoted himself to the religious and missionary life in the Congregation of the Most Holy Redeemer, in which he speedily became the most eminent of all their preachers in the Low Countries. He was able to preach the word of God with fluency and correctness in three languages, besides his native tongue: French, German, and English. But it was only in the Dutch language that he was able to exhibit the extraordinary powers of eloquence with which he was endowed, and which made his name a household word in every Catholic family in Holland. His picture was to be seen in every house; the highest and lowest flocked with equal eagerness to hear him, and, on one occasion, the king himself came to the convent to testify his respect for his apostolic character by a formal visit. His figure and countenance were cast in a mould as large as that of his great and generous soul, and his whole character and bearing were those of a man born to lead and command others by his innate superiority, but to command far more by the magnetic influence of a kind and noble heart than by authority. Father Bernard brought with him to the United States, in March, 1851, two American Redemptorists, who had been stationed for some years in England, and had scarcely landed in New York when he organized a band of missionaries, to commence the English missions. {121} During nearly two years, he took personal charge of many of those missions, working in the confessional from twelve to sixteen hours every day, occasionally preaching when the ordinary preacher broke down, and instructing the young, inexperienced fathers most carefully in all the methods of giving sermons and instructions, and otherwise conducting the exercises of the mission in the best and most judicious manner. Father Bernard received Father Baker into the congregation, but soon afterward was recalled to Europe, where, after a long and laborious life spent in the sacred warfare, he is resting in the quiet repose and peace of religions seclusion. [Footnote 4]

[Footnote 4: Since the above was written, the news has been
received of the death of Father Bernard, from the effects of
a fall while descending from the pulpit.]

The superior of the English Missions, in the absence of F. Bernard, and after he ceased to direct them personally, was another Father with an unpronounceable name, F. Alexander Cvitcovicz, a Magyar, who was always called Father Alexander. It would have been impossible to find a superior more completely fitted for the position. Although he was even then past the meridian of life, and had been in former times the Superior-General of his Congregation in the United States, he cheerfully took on himself the hardest labors of the missions. It was not unusual for him to sit in his confessional for ten days in succession, for fifteen or sixteen hours each day. He instructed the little children who were preparing for the sacraments, and sometimes gave some of the morning instructions, but never preached any of the great sermons. In his government of the fathers who were under him, he was gentleness, consideration, and indulgence itself. In his own life and example, he presented a pattern of the most perfect religious virtue, in its most attractive form--without constraint, austerity, or moroseness, and yet without relaxation from the most strict ascetic principles. {122} He was a thoroughly accomplished and learned man in many branches of secular and sacred science and in the fine arts; and in the German language, which was as familiar to him as his native language, he was among the best preachers of his order. He designed and built the beautiful Church of St. Alphonsus, in Baltimore, although he was never able to complete it according to his own just and elegant taste. For such a man to take upon himself the drudgery of laborious missions, aided, for the most part, by young men in delicate health, incapable of enduring the hardships of old, well-seasoned veterans, was indeed a trial of his virtue. He undertook it, however, cheerfully, and we went through several long and hard missionary campaigns under his direction, until at last we left him, in the year 1854, in the convent at New Orleans, worn out with labor, to exchange his arduous missionary work for the lighter duties of the parish. Father Alexander was succeeded in the office of Superior of English Missions by Father Walworth, one of the American Redemptorists, who accompanied Father Bernard from England, and who continued in that office until, with several others, he was released from his connection with the congregation by a brief of the Holy Father, in order to form a new society of missionaries.

There has never been a finer field open to missions than the one which is found in the Catholic population of the United States, and seldom has there existed a greater need of them. The missions of St. Alphonsus Liguori, the founder of the Redemptorists, and his companions, were confined to villages, hamlets, and outlying districts, remote from episcopal cities and large towns. In his rules he directs his children to labor in places of this sort, because in Italy the most neglected and necessitous part of the people is only to be found there. In this country it was not so. The great need for missions lay in cities and large towns, where dense masses of Catholics were gathered, and where churches, clergy, and religious organizations of all kinds, were inadequate to the spiritual wants of the people. {123} A large part of the missionary work which has been accomplished has been, therefore, among those dense masses of the people in our largest churches and congregations, penetrating to the lowest strata, and bringing to bear a powerful religious influence upon the most uninstructed and negligent classes of the people. Some idea of the extent of this work may be gained from the fact that the missions given by the corps which F. Bernard organized, during seven years, from 1851 to 1858, were eighty-six in number, with an aggregate of 166,000 communions. They have been carried on on a similar scale, since that time, by the new Congregation of St. Paul, and by members of several older religious societies; so that, in the last seven years, the number of persons who have participated in the benefits of missions is, probably, nearly double the figures given above. There were other missions also given, during the first period, besides those enumerated, especially among Germans. It is, therefore, speaking within bounds to estimate the number of persons who have received the sacraments on missions, since 1851, at 500,000.

This is, however, much less than might have been done, if the number of missionaries and the facilities for attending their missions had been greater. Our Catholic population is a vast sea, where the successors of the apostolic fishers of men may cast their nets perpetually, without ever exhausting its abundance. In large towns, the population is so fluctuating and so continually increasing, that the work needs to be perpetually renewed at short intervals. There are also immense difficulties in the way of the poor people. The mass of them belong to the laboring class, and are, therefore, obliged to come to church very early, before their working hours, and again at night, after their work is done. They have no leisure, and can with difficulty rescue even the few hours necessary for listening to the instructions they so much need. Hence, many of them can get only as it were by snatches, here and there, a sermon or instruction during the course. In factory towns the case is worse. {124} Were it not for the accommodation usually granted by the overseers, in shortening the time, and giving leave of absence, it would be impossible to give missions to the operatives in many of our factory villages. Our modern system of society leaves out of the account the wants of the soul and the duties of religion. For many, there is even the hard necessity of working all night, and all Sunday. It is, therefore, difficult enough for our poor people to attend a mission well, when there is plenty of room for them in the church, and a good chance of going to confession without waiting longer than a few hours. Very frequently, however, in our large and overcrowded parishes, the church will not hold--even when crowded to suffocation--more than from one-fourth to one-half of the parishioners. The church is frequently filled two hours before the time of service. The porch, the steps, the windows even, are crowded, and hundreds go a way disappointed. It is easy to see what a drawback this is to the success of a mission, which requires a continuous attendance at all the sermons and instructions, and to the stillness and order in the church which are necessary to enable all to hear distinctly, and to reflect on what they hear. I have seen at least four thousand persons congregated in the streets adjacent to the New York Cathedral, besides the crowd inside.

Another difficulty lies in the vast number of penitents, and the small number of confessors. On many missions, confined strictly to one parish, there have been from four thousand to eight thousand communions; and, of course, that number of confessions to be heard within eleven days. At a recent mission of the Redemptorists, in New York, there were eleven thousand communions; and at one given a year or two ago, by the Jesuits, twenty thousand. Ordinarily, the number of confessors has been inadequate to the work. The people have thronged the chapel where confessions were heard, from four o'clock in the morning until night, often waiting an entire day, or even several days, before they could get near a priest. {125} At five in the morning, each of us would see two long rows--one of men and one of women--seated on benches, flanking his confessional. At one o'clock he would leave the same unbroken lines, to find them again at three, and to leave them in the evening still undiminished. At the end of the mission there would be still the same crowd waiting about the confessionals, and left unheard, because the missionaries were unable to continue their work any longer. More than one-half these people would be persons who had not been at confession for five, ten, or twenty years, and of these a great number had seldom been at church, and still more rarely heard a sermon. Hundreds upon hundreds of adults, of all ages, have received the sacraments for the first time upon these missions, many of whom had to be taught the doctrines of the Trinity and the Incarnation, with the other elementary articles of the Creed. I have several times, at the close of a mission, seen a row of grown-up boys seated before my confessional, of that class who roam the streets, loiter about the docks, and sleep out at night, unable to read, and scarcely able to tell who made them, much less to answer the question, Who is Jesus Christ? They had come to be instructed and prepared for the sacraments, swept in by the tide which was moving the waters all around them. Of course, they needed weeks of instruction and of moral preparation, to rescue them from the abyss of ignorance and vice in which they were submerged, and make them capable of living like rational beings and Christians. With some of them, a beginning may be made, and the germ of good planted in their souls. But many have to be left as they come, because there is no provision which can be made for their instruction. In a word, the nets are so full of a multitude of fishes that they break, and there are not workmen enough to drag them ashore. The work is too overwhelming for the number and strength of those who are engaged in it. In this respect, some missions which have been given in the British provinces, have been the most complete and satisfactory of any. {126} In St. Patrick's Church, Quebec, the vast size of the building enabled all who desired to do so to find room. Nineteen confessors were on duty, and others were appointed to instruct converts or ignorant adult Catholics. All who wished to go to confession were easily heard, without long waiting, or the accumulation of a great crowd of wearied and eager penitents pressing around the confessionals. It was the same in St. John's, where the Archbishop of Halifax and a large body of clergymen were hearing confessions constantly, although, even with this powerful aid, the missionaries broke down under the labor of preaching every day to six thousand or eight thousand persons in the great Cathedral Church, which had just been opened for service. In these places, however, the number of the people, though great, had a limit which could be reached, and the requisite number of priests were easily at the command of the bishop. In the United States, however, the work is out of all proportion to the number of priests who are either specially devoted to missions or who can be called in to aid these in their labors. The missionaries are too few to do the work alone, and the parochial clergy are too much engaged in their own duties to be able to give much of their time to additional works of charity. If it were possible to give missions simultaneously in all the churches of New York City, and if they could contain all the people, it would be easy to collect one hundred thousand Catholics together every night to hear the Word of God, and to bring from one hundred and fifty thousand to two hundred thousand to communion within fifteen days. In proportion to the population, the same results would be produced everywhere in the United States. It would require the labor of one hundred missionaries, during eight years, to give missions thoroughly to our entire Catholic population. At their commencement, however, and for some years after, there were but six or eight, and there are now, probably, not more than twenty priests continually employed in this work. {127} The necessity for it is, nevertheless, quite as urgent as it ever has been, and the benefit to be derived from it inconceivable. There are the vast masses of people gathered in our great centers of population, exposed to a thousand demoralizing influences, and most inadequately supplied with the ordinary means of grace. All that has been done for them hitherto, is but just sufficient to develop the immense need there is for doing more, and the great blessing that attends every effort to do it. Of course, the main reliance of the Church is, and always must be, upon the bishops and parochial clergy, and I have not had the slightest intention, in any thing I have said, to exaggerate the importance of the special work of missionaries. The episcopate and priesthood were established by Jesus Christ Himself, and are absolutely essential to the very existence of the Church. Religious congregations are of ecclesiastical institution, and are only auxiliary to the pastoral office. The multiplication of churches and of priests engaged in parochial duties is the most pressing need, and in no other way can the spiritual wants of the people be adequately provided for. It will be long, however, before the bishops will be able, even by the most strenuous exertions, to make the number of churches and clergymen keep pace with the increase of the population. Meanwhile, this lack of the ordinary means of grace cannot be supplied except by missions; and even where these means are amply provided, the subsidiary and extraordinary labors of societies of priests devoted to special apostolic works are necessary, in order to give their full efficacy to the ministrations of the ordinary pastors.

Besides our great towns, and their dense mass of Catholic population, there is another extensive field of missionary work, which has of late years been successfully cultivated, and which invites still further cultivation with a promise of a rich harvest. {128} I refer to the numerous new parishes found in the smaller cities and country towns and villages. Here a new phase of Catholic life and growth has commenced. The population is becoming settled and permanent. Catholics are making their way upward, acquiring real and personal property, blending with the body of their fellow-citizens, educating their children, and to a certain extent themselves belong to the second generation of Catholic emigrants from Europe, having been born and married in this country. In many instances, one pastor has two or more of these parishes to take care of. His time and thoughts are taken up with church-building and a multitude of other necessary duties. The country around is sprinkled over with Catholics, who have no resident priest among them. There is a vast amount of work to be done in instructing, confirming in the faith, bringing under religious and moral influence, and establishing in solid piety and morality, this interesting and hopeful class of Catholics. Nowhere have the missions been so complete and satisfactory as in parishes of this kind. The whole body of the people living in the place where the church is, can attend the sermons and receive the sacraments. Besides these, those living several miles away flock to the church as regularly as if they lived in the same street; and even from a great distance, numbers, who are usually deprived of the religious advantages of the Church, perhaps even have grown up without making their first communion, seize the opportunity with eagerness to come to the mission and remain for a few days, until they can be prepared to receive the sacraments of life. In Massachusetts alone, where congregations of this kind abound, the number of communions given in the Paulist Missions of the last five years, without counting those given in Boston, amounts to twenty-five thousand five hundred and thirty, on seventeen distinct missions, giving an average of one thousand three hundred and twenty-five to each congregation. These figures are a correct index to the numbers of the Catholic population in country towns throughout Massachusetts, Connecticut, New York, Pennsylvania, and other portions of the Northern States.

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The missions hitherto given have been intended immediately for the benefit of the Catholic people. Their incidental influence upon the Protestant community ought not, however, to be overlooked. Usually, our Catholic churches are so crowded by the faithful, that it is at least unpleasant, if not almost impossible for others to attend our sermons, especially on occasions of great interest. Notwithstanding this obstacle, thousands of Protestants have come at different times to hear the mission sermons, and there have usually been several converts on each large mission, sometimes as many as twenty, and on one mission, that of Quebec, fifty. Hundreds have been received into the Church, in this way, from all classes in society, among whom were two clergymen holding respectable positions in the Episcopal Church, which they gave up at a great worldly sacrifice. Besides actual conversions, a great effect has been produced in removing the prejudices and gaining the good-will of the community at large. The secular papers have almost unanimously spoken favorably of the missions. In many instances, the gentlemen and ladies of the vicinity have sent the choicest flowers of their gardens and hot-houses, to decorate the altar and baptismal font. Not only laymen, but clergymen have often manifested a wish to show kind and courteous attentions to the missionaries. Very seldom has any thing unpleasant occurred, or any annoyance been experienced--much less, indeed, than is encountered by missionaries in some other parts of the world from nominal Catholics. Employers have frequently lent their servants and work-people the means of conveyance to the church, or exempted them from a portion of their duties. It is impossible not to see how rapidly and generally the prejudice against the Catholic religion and the priesthood is melting away in this country. And this seems to warrant the hope that the time may soon come, when the faith may be preached to our separated brethren by means of missions especially intended for them, with rich results.

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The favorable impression already so widely produced upon those who have heard Catholic missionaries preach, proves how much we have to hope for in this direction. This has caused, in one instance, which seems to demand some notice, an attempt to obviate this effect, by representing our manner of preaching as part of an artful plan of Rome, to deceive the minds of the people by presenting only a portion of the Catholic doctrine under plausible colors. After several missions had been given in Cambridge and Boston, where many Protestants of intelligence attended, and more would have willingly done so if there bad been room for them, the rector of a Boston church, who was present several times, preached and published a lecture, in which he attempted to explain the real spirit and object of the Paulist Congregation, by which the missions were given. The extent of the impression made is proved by the following passage in a note to the lecture:--