Chapter VI: Marriage Bells (4)

Sir William Davenant was another poet-convert to the Catholic Church, and his conversion took place nearly at the same time as Crashaw's. Like that poet, also, he was in the favor of Queen Henrietta Maria during her exile in France. His life was full of adventure. As a child, he was acquainted with Shakespeare, who frequented the Crown Inn in the Corn Market, Oxford, kept by his father. That father rose to be mayor, and William entered at Lincoln College. Leaving Oxford without a degree, he became page to the Duchess of Richmond, and subsequently was attached to the household of the poet, Lord Brooke. Exhibiting a decided talent for dramatic composition, he was employed to write masques for the court of Charles I. These light plays, of which Milton's _Comus_ is the best specimen ever produced, were highly popular, and served for private theatricals in the mansions and castles of lords and princes. William Davenant had fame enough to be celebrated in his time, and to be made poet-laureate when Ben Jonson died; but his writings had not body of thought, original conception, or sweetness of expression enough to preserve them long from oblivion. His ballad, "My Lodging is on the Cold Ground," seems to have had more of the principle of life in it than anything else he wrote. During the Civil War, like many other authors, he flung aside his books, and girded on the sword. He was then known as General Davenant, and he negotiated in the king's name with his majesty's friends in Paris. Twice captured, and having twice escaped to France, he nevertheless returned, took part in the siege of Gloucester, and was knighted by the king for his services on that critical occasion. In 1646, we find him in France, in the service of the exiled Queen of England, attending Mass, and conforming to the discipline of the Catholic Church. Living in the Louvre with Lord Jermyn, he had once more leisure to cultivate his taste for poetry. There he began writing his longest poem, and a very tedious production it is.

But his versatile mind was now occupied by a new scheme. He promoted an emigration of colonists from France to Virginia, and, having embarked for the distant settlement, the ship in which he was sailing fell into the hands of one of Cromwell's cruisers. He was captured and taken to Cowes Castle, and is said to have escaped trial for his life through the kind intercession of his brother poet, Milton. It was not till after two years of imprisonment that he regained his liberty; and when at last he did so, all his efforts were directed to a revival of dramatic performances, which the austere Puritans had entirely suppressed. He succeeded at last in establishing a theatre, and, gaining support by degrees, he ultimately restored the regular drama. With the return of Charles II. his difficulties ended. King and people alike heaped their favors on him. He died at his house, in Lincoln's Inn Fields, in 1668, and was buried with distinction in Westminster Abbey. He was very handsome, of ready wit and a singularly fertile mind; but it is to be supposed that his attachment to the Catholic religion was not by any means a prominent feature in his character and career.

Like several of those already mentioned, John Dryden is but an imperfect link in the chain of English Catholic authors since the Reformation. It was not till a late period of his life that he entered the true church, but he lived long enough to impress on his works a decidedly Catholic stamp. Indeed, _The Hind and the Panther_, published in 1687, some months after his conversion, was looked upon as a defence of Catholicism. The hind represented the Roman Church, and the panther the Church of England. It was a singular circumstance, to which, so far as we have observed, attention has never been drawn, that three poets-laureate in succession, Ben Jonson, Sir William Davenant, and Dryden, were converts to Catholicity. The life of the last of these poets was too long and too eventful to allow of our recalling even the chief occurrences by which it was marked. Suffice it to say that before he was twenty-eight years old he had passed from Westminster School to Trinity College, Cambridge, and had acted as secretary to his kinsman, Sir Gilbert Pickering, who stood high in the Protector's favor, and went by the name of "Noll's Lord Chamberlain." On the death of Cromwell, Dryden wrote an elegy upon him, which was also a eulogy; and soon after the Restoration, he commenced writing for the stage coarse comedies and stilted tragedies. Married to a daughter of the Earl of Berkshire, he was appointed poet-laureate, with £200 a year. This was in 1670, the tenth year of the reign of his licentious majesty, Charles II.

When that sovereign expired (having been reconciled on his death-bed to the Catholic Church), Dryden eulogized him as he had eulogized Cromwell, and in the same poem turned with alacrity to the praises of James II. Nor was it long before he embraced the religion of the Duke of York. The motives which induced him to take this step have often been made the subject of debate. The authority of Lord Macaulay is constantly adduced in support of Dryden's venality and insincere conversion. But in opposition to this, it must be remembered that Dr. Johnson and Sir Walter Scott arrived at a different conclusion. The latter biographer of Dryden contends that the poet's writings contain internal evidence of his convictions having been in complete accordance with the step he took, and that many external circumstances contributed to make it easy for him to act in the way he thought right. Duty and interest are not always at variance; and if Dryden gained by the change in the first instance, when James II. was on the throne, he lost eventually many temporal advantages. Having refused to take the oaths of allegiance or forsake his religion, he was dismissed, under William III., from his offices of poet-laureate and historiographer; he had the mortification of seeing Shadwell, the dramatist, whom he had often ridiculed, promoted to wear his laurel; and for the rest of his life, he was more or less harassed by the ills of poverty. He educated his children in the faith which he had embraced, and they showed the strongest signs of heartfelt attachment to the person of the Sovereign Pontiff and the church of which he is the head. One of them entered a religious order, another was usher of the palace to Pope Clement XI. In writing to them both in September, 1697, Dryden said: "I flatter not myself with any manner of hopes, but do my duty and suffer for God's sake, being assured beforehand never to be rewarded, even though the times should alter.... Remember me to poor Harry, whose prayers I earnestly desire.... I never can repent of my constancy, since I am thoroughly persuaded of the justice of the cause for which I suffer." This is not the language of one who had sold himself for a pension of £100 a year. Dryden did not, like Chillingworth, return after a time to the Established Church. He died in the religion of his choice, and many of his poems, particularly the paraphrase of the _Veni Creator_, and the two odes on St. Cecilia's Day, breathe alike the devotion and the well-ordered ideas of a Catholic. There is much force in the closing line of this stanza:

"Refine and clear our earthly parts,
But, oh! inflame and fire our hearts!
Our frailties help, our vice control;
Submit the senses to the soul;
And when rebellious they are grown,
Then lay thy hand, _and hold them down_."

When Dryden, in _The Hind and the Panther_, describes the different Protestant sects, he very naturally gives the preference to the Church of England, and speaks of her with a becoming tenderness, she having been the church in which he was nurtured:

"The panther, sure the noblest next the hind,
And fairest creature of the spotted kind,
Oh! could her inborn stains be washed away,
She were too good to be a beast of prey!
How can I praise or blame, and not offend,
Or how divide the frailty from the friend?
Her faults and virtues lie so mixed that she
Not wholly stands condemned, nor wholly free.
Then like her injured lion (James II.) let me speak,
He cannot bend her, and he would not break.
If, as our dreaming Platonists report,
There could be spirits of a middle sort.
Too black for heaven, and yet too white for hell,
Who just dropped half-way down, nor lower fell;
So poised, so gently she descends from high,
It seems a soft demission from the sky."

Dryden's successor on the throne of letters in England was Alexander Pope, who was also a Catholic, though not a convert. His father, a linen merchant of Lombard Street, London, was a Catholic before him, and had been led to embrace the faith by a residence in Lisbon. His were the days of penal laws and various disabilities, among which was exclusion from the public schools and universities. Alexander's education, therefore, was private, and not of a first-rate kind. He may almost be called a self-taught man. He had seen Dryden when a boy, and he knew Wycherley, the dramatist, who is here mentioned because he was in the number of those who adopted the Catholic profession under the auspices of James II. Wycherley was, as Arnold calls him, "a somewhat battered and worn-out relic of the gay reign of Charles II." Macaulay has little respect for him, for the very reason that he could interest us--because he became a Catholic. He styles him "the most licentious and hard-hearted writer of a singularly licentious and hard-hearted school." But the gentle Charles Lamb was more indulgent to his memory and his works. "I do not know," he says, in the _Essays of Elia_, "how it is with others, but I feel the better always for the perusal of one of Congreve's--nay, why should I not add even of Wycherley's?--comedies. I am the gayer, at least, for it; and I could never connect those sports of a witty fancy in any shape with any result to be drawn from them to imitation in real life. They are a world of themselves almost as much as fairyland."

We will not pause to discuss the soundness of this criticism; we have to do with Pope, and chiefly with his religious character. No one can read his "Dying Christian's Hymn," beginning,

"Vital spark of heavenly flame,"

without being convinced that the author was capable of the deepest religious feeling. The times were not favorable to a Catholic poet, nor is it in Pope's writings that we must look for the strongest evidence of his faith. The "Letter of Eloisa to Abelard," indeed, could hardly have been written by a Protestant; but it says nothing of his personal religion. We find, however, by his correspondence with Racine and others, that though infidelity and gallantry were the fashion of his day, he was known among his friends as a _Papist_, and that he speaks of himself as such unreservedly. The words of Dr. Johnson on this subject are as follows: "The religion in which he lived and died was that of the Church of Rome.... He professes himself a sincere adherent.... It does not appear that his principles were ever corrupted, or that he ever lost his belief of revelation.... After the priest had given him the last sacraments, he died in the evening of the 30th day of May, 1744."

It is pleasing to reflect that this illustrious poet, so distinguished by his deep thought, his affluent imagery, his pathos, his scathing satire and matchless versification, recoiled in his solitude and sickness from the false philosophy of his friends, and closed his weary and painful existence at the foot of the cross; that he departed hence, not only with laurels on his brow, but with the Viaticum on his lips and the church's blessing on his drooping head. But it was not at the awful hour of death merely that he began to prize the religion which England proscribed. There is a little anecdote related of him which shows that he had a distinct and warm feeling on the subject long before he came face to face with the last enemy. He and Mrs. Blount had been invited on one occasion to stay with Mr. Allen, at Prior Park, near Bath, on a visit. Pope left the house for a short time to go to Bristol; and while he was absent, it happened that Mrs. Blount, who was a Catholic as well as himself, wished to attend Mass in the chapel in Bath, and requested the use of Mr. Allen's chariot for that purpose. But her host, at that time being mayor of the city, had a decided objection to his carriage being seen at the doors of such a place, and begged to be excused lending it. Mrs. Blount felt deeply offended at this time-serving, and, when Pope returned, told him her feelings on the subject. The poet was so incensed at this offence offered to his religion and his friend that he, and Mrs. Martha Blount too, abruptly quitted the house.

There is, happily, no need of our contending for the places which Dryden and Pope should occupy among literary celebrities. Their attachment to Catholicism at a time when it was especially distasteful to the English people--during the reigns, we mean, of William the Third and Queen Anne--did not detract from the popularity of their writings even while they lived. The striking genius of Dryden as a translator, his racy language and manly style, have been fully appreciated by posterity; and if we put Pope above him in the rank of poets, it is because we discover in the latter more profound philosophy and rhythmical sweetness. He enjoyed, too, an advantage over his distinguished predecessor in that he was not a convert, but had from childhood been imbued with the doctrines of the ancient faith. The Catholic system, even more than he knew, lent force and color to his imagination, restrained his philosophic speculations within orthodox bounds, and imparted a certain majesty and consistency to his verse, even when it was concerned with purely secular topics. It had done the like for Dante, Chaucer, Calderon, and Corneille before him, and it has done the like since for Thomas Moore, as we shall endeavor to show in a future number.

TO BE CONTINUED.

CATHOLIC YOUNG MEN'S ASSOCIATIONS.

The saying is becoming almost trite that the Catholic Church has done wonders in this country. Its rapid rise, growth, and spread are little short of miraculous. Half a century ago, the church was scarcely known here, save in a misty way, as something very remote and powerless. To-day it stands up as a factor to be counted in American polity. It points to its five or six millions of believers. It points to its cathedrals, its magnificent churches, its splendid educational establishments, its parochial schools, its illustrious hierarchy, its active and zealous priesthood, its religious orders and societies of men and women, its lay associations for various pious purposes, its newspapers, and its multiplying writers. It has seized upon the very genius of this new people. It lags not behind, but keeps apace with their enterprise; and scarcely are the piles driven in for the building of a new city or town than the cross is seen above the growing settlement.

Protestants have recognized this fact. They are daily bearing witness to its truth. It is but recently that the press, secular and religious, was alive with a discussion on "The Decline of Protestantism," here, in this very land. And the two foes that Protestantism had most to dread were, as all agreed, the one from without--Catholicity; the other from within--infidelity. It was expected the Evangelical Council would take into consideration the same subject: the best means to be adopted in order to beat off those two terrible foes--Catholicity and infidelity.

All this is well. It is well that the foes of the church should themselves testify to the irrepressible spread of the truth; that they should cut the dividing lines so clearly between Catholicity and infidelity--their Scylla and Charybdis, either of which is destruction to them. It is well that the men who within living memory despised the church should now come forward and testify that that church has conquered them. That they themselves should thus bear witness to the spread of Catholicity and the corresponding decline of Protestantism is flattering enough, if mere human feeling were allowed to enter into a question which involves man's eternal salvation; but it is well, also, that Catholics lay not too flattering unction to their souls.

They may occasionally point with pardonable pride to their swelling numbers and all that has been indicated above; but at the same time, it would be a fatal mistake to imagine that everything has now been done for the church of God; that it has nothing to do but run on smoothly in the eternal grooves fixed for it, sweeping triumphantly through the country, and bearing away all in its track. A young and a new Catholic generation is coming into possession. It does not know, and can scarcely appreciate, at what terrible cost, after what long and painful struggles, cathedral after cathedral, church after church, college after college, school-house after school-house, were built. It finds them there and is content, as an heir finds the woods and the fields won inch by inch by the toil and the sweat of his father. If the young generation would not squander its inheritance, would not see it dissipated before its eyes, and slip away out of its nerveless grasp, it must be up and doing while the morning of life is on it; tilling, trenching, delving, casting out the weeds, watching for the enemy that would sow tares among the wheat, that it may leave a larger, a richer, and a brighter inheritance to its own children when it is gathered to the soil of its fathers--the good soil consecrated by their bones.

Yes, a goodly inheritance has fallen upon the young Catholic generation of America to-day; and a goodlier yet is in store, to be won by their own endeavor. Never in this world's history was there a fairer field to fight the battle of God in than in this great country; and never yet, take them all in all, were there fairer foes and less favor to contend against. But let it be borne well in mind, the battle is a severe one; all the severer, perhaps, because the field is so open and Catholics are so free. Here in America there is nothing of the glory of martyrdom to sustain us--a glory that turns defeat into victory, and by one death wins a thousand lives. Ours is not the clash of arms and of battle, but of intellect. We have to reason our way along. The cry of "the decline of Protestantism" is a cry well grounded. The churches are losing their children. A reaction against Puritanism has set in as decided and as disastrous in its results as that which set in in England on the accession of Charles II. The children throw off even the gloomy cloak of religion to which their fathers clung long after the many deformities and defects it concealed had shone through the threadbare garment. The thought of young America to-day is, "Let the doctors wrangle about their creeds. All we know or care to know is that we have life, and let us enjoy it while we may."

And thus the battle of the age is coming to be fought out among and by the young--young America Catholic and young America non-Catholic. True, our ranks are swelling daily, and nowadays principally by native growth. The birth-rate, if classified as Catholic or non-Catholic, is so strikingly in favor of the former as to attract the universal attention of the medical faculty. Converts, too, crowd in upon us; but, numerous as they are, they are only driblets compared to the vast ocean that roars outside. Five or six millions is a mighty number; but there are thirty millions or more left. Were it not remembered that God, although the God of battles, is not always on the side of the big battalions, our hearts might sicken at the mustering of the forces--our six millions surrounded, absorbed, as it were, by that mighty army five times greater, stretching away dim in its immensity, yet meeting us at every turn, and, directly or indirectly, contesting stubbornly every inch of ground.

It is true that they are broken whilst we are one. They fight under a thousand different banners; and even while presenting a united front against us, they are rending each other in the rear. The deserters from our side are few--practically none--and such as do go become objects of infamy even to those who make a show of welcoming them. But besides the two directly opposing forces, Catholics, and Protestants of some professed creed, there is a neutral ground, vaster than either, and equally opposed to both--infidelity; and thither is young America drifting.

And truly it looks a fair region for a young man to enter. There is no constraint upon him beyond the pleasant burden, light to bear, of fashionable etiquette. A dress-coat and a banker's account will pass him anywhere. The man under the dress-coat does not matter much; and the inquiry as to how the banking account came into his hands is not scrupulously close. He will meet there the lights of modern science and literature--men who can trace the motions of the world, and find no Mover; who have sifted the ashes of nature, to find only matter; who have analyzed the body of man, to find no soul in him; to whom life is simply life, and death, death. There is the abode of wit, and scoffing, and irreligion, and bold speculation, and the unshackled play of the undisciplined intellect, and under it all the power to do as you please, because you may believe as you please, provided you sin not against the laws of etiquette.

Now, the work of the church is to break up that neutral ground, which, indeed, is the most formidable of the day. It must keep its own young men from being drawn thither, and win those that are there into its bosom. But although in very truth the yoke of Christ is sweet and his burden light, it takes a long time to impress that fact upon youth in the heyday of life. And with all the power of the prayer of the faithful, with the voice of the preacher, and the attractions of the ceremonies of the church, there is no merely human agency to win youth like youth itself; no sermon so powerful as the unspoken sermon preached by a Christian young man, set in the midst of a world that practically knows not Christianity. And this is one great point of the present article.

Our young men and young women who mix daily in the army occupying that neutral territory of infidelity are, or may be made, our best missionaries. There the voice of the preacher never or rarely penetrates. His voice is as "the voice of one crying in the wilderness." But though the preacher's words may not reach there, the effect of his words may be visible in the conduct of those whom his words do reach--the Catholic youth who live and move in the daily world.

Hitherto this point has been, perhaps necessarily, much neglected. Catholics have not half utilized their forces. They have not made use enough of the young. Indeed, the work of reclaiming them at all has been a severe one, and is still far from even the full means of accomplishment; for it may here be noted how Protestants cling to the godless school system, though many of their best thinkers and leading organs acknowledge that a system of education founded on no faith at all must naturally produce scholars of no faith at all. But it is time for Catholics to see that if they would not only keep their own--hold fast to the inheritance that their fathers bequeathed them--but also win more, something more definite must be done to hold together the young, and unite them in one common cause. If you want missionaries, you must educate them. If you wish the young to be Catholic, not on the Sunday only, but always, you must take the proper means to that end.

Our meaning is this: Catholicity must not be confined to the churches only. Half an hour's Mass weekly is undoubtedly a great deal when rightly heard; but it is, after all, only a portion of the spiritual food necessary to carry a man safely through the week. The poison of the atmosphere of utter worldliness that our young people breathe can only be counteracted by an antagonistic Catholic atmosphere; and this can only be created by having Catholic centres of attraction under church auspices, where Catholics may meet occasionally to converse, to read, to hear a lecture, or to amuse themselves in a healthful manner.

It is not long since, at the "commencement season," we were listening to the young orators of the graduating classes of our various educational establishments. Kind eyes looked on as they poured forth their eloquent ten minutes of benison on the heads of the comrades they were leaving behind them. It was pleasant to hear the words of wisdom, of eloquence, and the soundest morality fall from their lips. But the listeners, the admiring parents or friends, felt, nevertheless, that their boys were speaking comparatively from "the safe side of the hedge," and that it remained to be seen how far the good thoughts to which they gave utterance on leaving the college would guide them and rule them in the real battle of life that was only then about to begin.

What has become of the thousands of young men who have gone out and continue to go out, year after year, from our colleges? For the most part, they are lost to the eyes of those who trained their boyhood. They may continue to hold fast by the principles they imbibed at school, or they may not. In our large cities and towns, there are always more or less of our Catholic college graduates, most of whom are unknown to each other, or rarely meet. How different would it be had they places in which to assemble! Something has been done to meet this very striking want. Very many churches have attached to them this or that young men's association, devoted generally to literary pursuits; but for the most part, these excellent associations have not effected much; not because they have not the right spirit and energy, but purely from lack of organization, from not knowing exactly what to do or what not to do, from not being united with fellow-associations, and generally from lack of funds.

In New York, for instance, where Catholics boast of half a million of their creed; where they have so many magnificent churches, some of them with very wealthy congregations; with so many wealthy Catholic residents, professional men, and large business firms; with half a dozen weekly newspapers or more--where are the young men? Where is our Catholic hall, club, reading-room, library? Nowhere. Nevertheless, there are, in one shape or form, numbers of associations of Catholic youth scattered through the city, and greater numbers of Catholic youth still who do not and will not join them, because they do not find in them attraction enough.

Now, this is a thing worthy of being investigated closely, and remedied speedily. We Catholics ought to be ashamed of ourselves to see what the Protestants have done in the organization known as the Young Men's Christian Association, with its splendid reading and meeting-rooms, gymnasium, and lecture-hall, where the ablest lecturers of the world hold forth and draw the crowds of the city to hear them. Nor does this association stop here. It has multiplied itself, not only throughout the city, but throughout the country. Branch houses are covering the whole land; and, whatever may be its present or its future, it is certainly admirable in conception and organization. Its honor and reputation rest in its own hands.

There is only one association to which the Catholics of New York, speaking generally, can point as having achieved something; as not purely local, but general, in its character; as, in fact, a success, though it is still struggling almost in its infancy. This is the Xavier Alumni Sodality and its correlative, the Xavier Union. That admirable association, the Catholic Union, is designedly omitted from the present article, which deals only with the young men.

The Xavier Alumni Sodality was established in New York on December 8, 1863. It was intended originally, as its name implies, for graduates and ex-students of the College of S. Francis Xavier. It began with about half a dozen members. It gradually and very wisely widened its scope so as to take in the alumni of any Catholic college who might choose to join, as also merchants in business and professional men. Its objects may best be set forth by quoting from the printed "Constitution":

"I. The encouragement of virtue, Christian piety, and devotion
to the Blessed Virgin among educated Catholic gentlemen, the
perpetuation of friendships formed by them during their college
life, and the promotion of Catholic interests.

"II. The means to obtain this end shall be principally the daily
practice of certain devotions, the frequent and worthy reception
of the sacraments, and religious and social meetings at stated
intervals."

In the following sections of the "By-laws" we find:

"SEC. 14. On the Sunday following December 8, and on a Sunday
during Easter-time, there shall be a general communion, at which
all members shall be expected to assist. The first general
communion shall be preceded by a Triduum, or three days' spiritual
retreat.

"SEC. 17. In case any member of the Sodality falls sick, the Rev.
Father Director and the President (who is elected of and by the
members) shall appoint one or more members to visit him.

"SEC. 20. There shall be a Requiem Mass for the repose of the soul
of a deceased member as soon after his death as convenient. The
members of the Sodality are expected to assist at this Mass.

"SEC. 22. There shall be a standing committee called the
'Committee on Employment,' and consisting of the President and six
members of the Sodality, appointed by him at the January meeting.
[The members meet on the first Sunday of every month.] Its duties
shall be to assist young men to procure mercantile or professional
employment."

There are quite a number of special indulgences attached to the Sodality, whose genuine worth and practical tendencies may be faintly imagined from this short statement. Its effects, and the success attained by it, may best be judged from the fact that the half a dozen members of ten years ago have swollen to the number of over four hundred, notwithstanding losses by death and by members leaving the city. This number is being increased at every meeting; whilst out of the Sodality has sprung the Xavier Union, which, though established only two years ago, already numbers two hundred members.

To quote the "Preamble" of its printed "Constitution and By-laws"--

"The Xavier Union was organized in March, 1871, by a number of
gentlemen, members of the Xavier Alumni Sodality--a Society
established in 1863, and having for its object the encouragement of
virtue and Christian piety among the educated Catholic young men of
this city [New York], and the promotion of Catholic interests by
their united efforts.

"From this body, in order to unite its members more intimately,
better to carry out its objects, and to effect other desirable
ends not strictly within the scope of a purely religious body, the
Xavier Union has been formed.

"This Union has in view both the mental and moral improvement of
its members.

"By a regular and proper representation of Catholic questions,
by association with men of mature years and study, and by their
frequent meetings with each other, it hopes to keep alive among its
members a spirit of true Catholicity, and to encourage by example
all Catholic young men in fidelity to the teachings and practices
of their religion.

"It further proposes to promote the study of good books, and to
foster a taste for the sciences and arts; but it intends more
especially to exert itself in awakening and keeping alive an
interest in Catholic history and literature.

"While pursuing these ends, it has in view the furnishing its
members with every desirable means for their proper recreation,
both of mind and body. Thus it hopes, by guarding youth against the
temptations of youth itself, and withdrawing it from the no less
insidious than dangerous associations of a city, to encourage our
educated young men to a proper use of both mind and body, and to
make them ambitious to be and do good, that they may exert that
influence on society which is to them indeed a duty.

"In furtherance of these objects, the Union shall, through its
management, provide--

"I. A library.

"II. A reading-room having all desirable reviews and journals.

"III. Literary and musical entertainments."

The best comment on these objects and the desirability of them is to point to the success which has already attended this movement.

The Union, which is recruited exclusively from the Xavier Alumni Sodality, rents for its use a building containing a reading-room, reception-rooms, billiard-room, and a handsome library of six thousand volumes. It is found already that the accommodations are far too small, and a proposal is on foot to erect a building adequate to the growing wants of the society, and containing a large hall for the giving of lectures and for other purposes. The want of this was found last year, when, for a series of lectures given under the auspices of the Xavier Union, it was found necessary to hire one of the public halls. Of course, the question is mainly one of funds.

However, here is something practical, tangible, which can point to results, and which challenges the attention of all Catholics, particularly of our Catholic young men. The Xavier Alumni Sodality and the Xavier Union have so far done everything for themselves under the guidance of their able director. Their work, as may be imagined, has been very up-hill, for the entrance fees are not large; nevertheless, with the profit of lectures, they have constituted their only source of revenue. In the face of all difficulties, however, there they stand, an active and ever-increasing organization of educated young Catholic laymen, with their rooms for reading and amusement, and their library. They form already the nucleus of a great Catholic centre, which, with a little tact, a little generosity on the part of those who can afford to be generous, and who could not be generous for a better purpose, a steady perseverance in the way they have entered upon, may rival any club in the city, may be a rallying-point for the Catholic laity, and may furnish a constant supply of amusement, information, and recreation of mind and body for Catholics of all ages, but particularly the young.

Special attention has been devoted to these two organizations, because they are, beyond doubt, the most prominent associations of Catholic young men in New York. Indeed, at the present writing, we know of none equal to them in the United States. This is not at all said by way of flattery to the societies mentioned; rather by way of reproach to those who have neglected to form similar societies. Educated young Catholics are plentiful in most of our large cities; and wherever a number of educated young Catholics exist, there such societies as the Xavier Alumni Sodality and the Xavier Union ought to exist, with their rooms for association, meeting, reading, and amusement. Much the same programme, and much the same organization, and much the same aims and tendencies, would answer for all. A new and wonderful impetus would thus be imparted to Catholic thought, Catholic work, and, above all, to Catholic literature and education. An _esprit du corps_ would be engendered among our Catholic youth that is sadly wanting at present, and that would inevitably tell upon society. Any large Catholic project might be almost instantaneously taken up and discussed throughout the country; and, above all, Catholic young men would find places where healthy amusement was blended with instruction and blessed by a religious spirit.[87]

Neither need such organizations be restricted, as it were, to any special class. The Sodality of the Blessed Virgin, of which the Xavier Alumni Sodality is a branch, may be made to embrace all classes. It was founded in the Roman College of the Society of Jesus, on December 8, 1563, exactly three hundred years prior to the foundation of this promising offshoot in New York. The society has an eventful history. It began in the Jesuit Colleges, and was restricted to the students. It speedily spread thence throughout the world, embracing all ranks from the crowned head to the peasant. One branch took up one good work, another devoted itself to some other. It entered the world, society, the army, everywhere. Popes belonged to it, kings, astute statesmen, great generals, as well as the rank and file, and the humblest craftsmen. Many a saint's name glitters on its scroll. S. Aloysius Gonzaga, S. Stanislaus Kotska, S. Charles Borromeo, S. Francis of Sales, Blessed Berchmans, and many another consecrated in Catholic history, were all members of the Sodality of the Blessed Virgin Mary. So great was the good it wrought that popes have bestowed upon it many rights and privileges. It has had the glory of persecution. Infidel governments suppressed it from time to time, in France particularly, fearing lest it should lead men back to God; for if there is one thing more than another that the devil fears, it is seeing the young go from him wholesale.

Now, this matter is worthy the attention of all Catholics. Enough graduates go out yearly from our colleges, and enough intelligent and zealous Catholic young men are scattered through our great cities and towns, to take this matter up earnestly, and establish Catholic societies of this kind for practical, pious, and sanitary purposes. They might embrace in a short time all the Catholic youth of America. As has been seen, the Sodality of the Blessed Virgin Mary is very elastic in its constitution, though one in its organization and aims; and it may be made to embrace all classes and states of life. It has history, stability, saintly members, and good works innumerable to recommend it. It has been specially blessed and favored by many popes, and it has for its head the Blessed Mother of God, whilst those who enroll themselves in it do so as children of Mary.

Coming back to the opposing forces here at home--Catholicity, Protestantism, and infidelity--we see nothing more powerful to withstand the assault of the latter particularly than Catholic societies of this nature. The social atmosphere to-day is full of insidious poison. The young unconsciously breathe it from their infancy up. The edifice of faith in God was never more persistently assaulted by the united forces of the powers of this world. No persecution of the Roman emperors, unless, perhaps, that of Julian the Apostate, ever threatened the religion of Jesus Christ, the Son of God, with a tithe of the bitterness and hatred that frown upon it now. Men nowadays do not so much seek out the chiefs of the church, the pontiffs, and the bishops as the little children and the young of all ages. In some cases, as in Germany, Switzerland, Italy, and Brazil, they add open and violent persecution to its secret and more fatal forms. The great cry of the age--a good and earnest cry--is for education. Educate the masses! Educate all at any cost! That cry is good in itself, and is as old as the church of Christ, and no older. But to it is joined another cry: The church is out of date. It cannot educate. It has failed. It will keep the people ignorant and superstitious. That is just the right state for the priests. We know that of old. The priests in pagan times were just the same. They kept the people blind for their own sakes. But the newspapers have broken all that up. Men who read their daily _Herald_ or their daily _Times_ know a little too much for that nowadays. So out with the priests and their church altogether. We want the children to know how to read, and write, and cipher, and be intelligent. If they want religion, they may find it where they can. But religion is quite a secondary consideration nowadays. It used to be the first thing. That was the great mistake. We must now make it the last.

That is pretty much how the lights of the age--the scientific apostles--talk. Their opinions are re-echoed in the pages of journals which, compared to Christian or Catholic, are as a thousand, nay, ten thousand, to one; so that they are ever before the public eye in one form or other. Consequently, religion is not only thrown out of the school, but, to a great extent, out of the world altogether; nay, if the accounts our Protestant friends give of themselves be true, out of the pulpit also, when preachers preach "a theology without the _Theos_, and a Christianity without Christ." It is perhaps only natural, then, to find public morality at a sad discount; private morality, on a large scale, a thing ugly to inquire into, and commercial morality broken down before commercial gambling. It is not strange to find the loosest ideas on the marriage tie prevail, and a corresponding disregard of the sanctity of the household and the mutual obligations of husband and wife, of father and child, spreading wider and further every day. It is no wonder to find public amusements, as a rule, unfit to be witnessed by the eye of a decent man or woman. It is not surprising to see well-dressed crowds listening eagerly to brilliant lecturers, who in mellifluous accents and the chastest English, and in evening costume, pleasantly and quietly, and in the best possible taste, laugh away the idea of God and Christianity; and it is no surprise to find the children of those well-dressed crowds growing up and moving about the world, with no sense of Christian morality at all, and at best, to use an ordinary expression, a human sense of what is "square."

Right in the face of this scornful infidelity or shaky faith, it is noble to see the Catholic world, especially the young Catholic world, rising up everywhere to proclaim openly, boldly, and with no hesitation in the tone, its whole-souled faith in the Roman Catholic Church, its tenets, its doctrines, and its practices. Allusion, as will be understood, is made chiefly to the pilgrimages in Europe, and more particularly to the contingent furnished by Protestant England. A pilgrimage, composed of Catholic young men, visited, the other day, the shrine of S. Thomas of Canterbury; another soon after crossed over to France, to visit the shrine of the Sacred Heart at Paray-le-Monial; and doubtless others will follow. We see it advocated in the Catholic press that our young men here do likewise. They would do well; but whether their desire take living form or not, certain it is that in this country they are just as eager to give evidence of their Catholic faith as in any other. And just here, in this proposal to make an American pilgrimage to some of the Catholic shrines in Europe, step in the want and necessity of such Catholic organizations, distinct enough individually, but linked together more or less, and springing from a common centre, to aid effectually in making such a proposal feasible.

Coming back to ourselves, the rising Catholic generation may congratulate itself that it has fallen upon good times. It would be well for it to remember that these good times are the result of the labors of their fathers; and that as they were won by incessant conflict, so they must be retained. The present generation has not so many odds to contend against. That fact is perhaps as much a danger as a benefit. The Catholic generation that is passing away had to suffer more or less a social ostracism. The barriers between class and class are dwindling down; and to-day, on the whole, a Catholic does not find his religion mark him off from his fellow-citizens as a man to be left out in the cold.

That is no doubt very satisfactory. At the same time, however painful may be this kind of social ostracism, certain it is that the class who come under its ban are more apt to be circumspect in their conduct than classes removed from it. To-day the spirit of liberality is abroad; but liberality often means liberalism, which is a very different thing. The order of the day is that it does not matter what you are, Protestant, Catholic, Jew, or pagan, provided you only act as everybody else acts. This sudden effusion of brotherly love among all castes and creeds is no doubt very gratifying, and a vast improvement on old-fogy barriers; but, at the same time, it involves often a sacrifice of principle. It is a rank and unhealthy growth, springing from the neutral ground of infidelity, or that unpronounced infidelity known as indifferentism.

Catholics cannot enter the world as non-Catholics. Their religion must be more than a Sunday religion. It cannot be left outside on entering their office, nor in the hall on entering society. It must accompany them everywhere, not aggressively, indeed, so as to be outwardly offensive to the neighbor who does not believe in it, because he does not know it, or because he may not see its effects visible in those who profess to believe in it; its principles must guide them in the transaction of their business, in the amusements or recreation they take, as well as in the confessional or at the altar. Without this, it is no religion. Without this unaggressive, but none the less real, atmosphere of piety, surrounding and emanating from Catholics in the world as well as in the church, the heaviness of the present social atmosphere can never be lifted. It requires a constant current to and fro, and this can only be obtained by the creating of a Catholic influence right in the heart of the world.

This is for our young men to do by their societies and associations; by knowing each other, meeting together, consulting, and creating a tone that will tell sooner or later upon society. Many a fine young fellow is lost for pure lack of a good companion. Many a one spends his evenings in places and amid society that, if not actually sinful, are undoubtedly demoralizing in tendency, because he has no other society or place of amusement to enter. It is too hard upon the young to tell them that they must not follow the way of the world, if no better mode of recreation is provided for them. The blood of youth is coursing through its veins, and the heat will find vent, if not in good, then in evil. It is the place of all true Christians to help and provide that good, by aiding in the work of building up societies, halls, reading-rooms, and libraries for our young people. The blessing will come back upon their own heads in their children, in their children's children, and in the building up of a sound, moral, Christian tone among the young in these days, when it is considered more manly to deny than to inquire; to sneer at all religion than to kneel down and adore the God that made us to his own image. With our young men linked together thus, working together throughout the whole country, showing by deeds, and words, and open profession that they are Catholics, those who to-day, in 1873, wonder at the marvellous growth of the church within the last half-century, if God spares them another half-century, may find their country, if not Catholic, covered, at least, and blest from end to end, with Catholic homes of learning, piety, and charity; whilst the church may respond to the foolish taunt that is flung at her, that her religion is a foreign religion, and her children nursed in foreign ideas, by pointing silently to what her children are--by contrasting her Christian sons with the product and growth of an education with God left out.

FOOTNOTES:

[87] Besides the two Associations particularly mentioned in this article, there are numbers of others scattered throughout the country. In Brooklyn there is attached to almost every parish church a Young Men's Catholic Association. The writer restricts his mention of names necessarily to the two societies which stand forth most prominently in New York, and which give greatest promise of a bright future. If they can be improved upon by others already existing or to come, they would probably be the first to adapt themselves to the improvement. But as matters stand at present, their constitution and organization might be very safely recommended, at least, to embryo associations.

ENGLISH SKETCHES.

AN HOUR IN A JAIL.

There is nothing in the exterior of the building to indicate its real character, nor is it in any way calculated to strike terror into the mind of the beholder whose imagination, fed by early prejudices, connects the idea of a jail with gloomy precincts, drawbridges, and armed sentinels pacing before frowning gates. The jail of Reading, the chief town of the royal county of Berks, presents the very antithesis of all this. This is a gay edifice of variegated red brick and white stone, in the style called carpenter's Gothic--a rather appropriate name for the jocular mongrel performance it designates, and which is one of the most surprising hallucinations of the modern architect's mind. The building stands close by the Forbury gardens and at the back of the Catholic church. The delusion as to the character of the place is not dispelled on entering; the uninitiated stranger might, on passing the great door, still fancy himself in some free dwelling, where no abnormal impediments prevented his exit; but crossing the court, he ascends by a flight of steps to a second gate of ominous appearance, and before whose glittering steel bars the spell of liberty dissolves. Within this second gate there is another, equally formidable, which opens into a broad gallery lighted from the roof and crossed by light bridges at intervals, to which you ascend by a steep, ladder-like iron staircase. The second story is occupied by the women prisoners, the lower one by the men.

As few of our readers may have had the opportunity or the curiosity to go through an English jail, perhaps they would like to do so vicariously, as the Shah enjoyed dancing--sitting quietly in his chair, while foolish people fatigued themselves for his entertainment. We were accompanied by a young priest, whose ministry had frequently led him within the steel gates on another errand than curiosity; and, thanks to his friend's (Canon R----) introduction to the governor, we had permission to see every detail of the place. The aspect of the long galleries, with the bright-tiled flooring and white walls glancing in the flood of sunshine flowing from the roof, kept up the first impression of cheerfulness. There was nothing so far to suggest unnecessary rigor or broken spirits, still less cruelty and demoralization. All was airy and exquisitely clean. Warders in official uniforms paced leisurely up and down the corridors and galleries; and though the silence was broken only by their foot-falls and our own voices as we conversed with the warder who acted as our guide, there was no oppressive gloom in the atmosphere. The cells opened on either side of the gallery. They were each lighted by a good-sized window looking on the prison garden and protected by strong iron bars; in one corner was a complete washing apparatus, with a water-pipe over the basin; in another there was a gas-pipe. The furniture consisted of a small table, a stool, and a stretcher-bed, which is rolled up during the day. On a shelf were the prisoner's plate and mug. The Protestants are allowed the use of their Bible and the _Common Prayer-Book_; the Catholics have the Douay edition of the Bible and _The Garden of the Soul_; special good conduct is rewarded by the loan of story-books. Some of the cells were ornamented with prints from the _Graphic_ and the _Illustrated London News_. A man with a good conscience and sound health might live comfortably in one of these cells.