Chapter IV: We All Meet to Part (3)

The first Brother who re-entered Paris on the day after the signing of the armistice at Versailles was the Director of the orphanage at Igny. It was like an apparition once more from the world without, after the long imprisonment under the fire of the enemy.

It must not be forgotten that, besides all that we have mentioned from the beginning of the war to the end of the first siege, teaching was not neglected by the Brothers for a single day; all else that they were doing was but a supplement to their ordinary occupations; and all went well at the same time, in the schools, the ambulances, and on the field of battle. It was as if they multiplied themselves for the good of their fellow-countrymen.

Acknowledgments in honor of their courageous devotion were sent from nearly every civilized country; but amongst all these we select one for mention as having a particular interest for Americans. We give it in the words of M. Poujoulat--first stating, however, that the _Académie Française_ had awarded an exceptional prize, declared “superior to all the other prizes by its origin and its object,” to the Institute of the Christian Brothers. M. Poujoulat writes as follows:[138]

“In 1870, we were abandoned by every government, but when our
days of misfortune commenced, we were not forgotten by the
nations. There arose, as it were, a compassionate charity
over all the earth to assuage our sorrows. The amount of
gifts was something enormous. One single city of the United
States, Boston, with its environs, collected the sum of eight
hundred thousand francs. The _Worcester_, a vessel laden
with provisions, set sail for Havre, but on hearing of the
conclusion of peace, the insurrection, and the second siege
of Paris, the American captain repaired to England, where the
ship’s cargo was sold, and the amount distributed among those
localities in France which had suffered most. When this had
been done, there still remained two thousand francs over, which
the members of the Boston Committee offered to the _Académie
Française_, to be added to the prize for virtue which was to be
given that year. ‘This gift,’ said the letter with which it was
accompanied, ‘is part of a subscription which represents all
classes of the citizens of Boston, and is intended to express
the sympathy and respect of the Americans for the courage,
generosity, and disinterested devotion of the French during the
siege of their capital.’

“The Academy, in possession of this gift, deliberated as to
whom the prize should be decreed, it being difficult to point
out the most meritorious among so many admirable deeds. After
having remarked, not without pride, upon the equality of
patriotism, the Academy resolved to give to this prize the
least personal and the most collective character possible.

“‘We have decreed it,’ said the Duc de Noailles, speaking for
the Academy, ‘to an entire body, as humble as it is useful,
known and esteemed by every one, and which, in these unhappy
times, has, by its devotedness, won for itself a veritable
glory: I allude to the Institute of the Brothers of the
Christian Schools.’

“After the Director of the _Académie Française_, in an eloquent
speech had justified the decision, he added that ‘this prize
would be to the Institute as the Cross of Honor fastened to the
flag of the regiment.’”

Already had the Government of the National Defence perseveringly insisted upon Brother Philip’s acceptance of the Cross of the Legion of Honor, the reward of the brave; but his humility led him to do all in his power to escape it, and he had already refused it four times in the course of thirty years. It was only when he was assured that it was not himself, but his Institute, that it was desired to decorate in the person of its Superior-General, that, sorely against his will, he ceased to resist. Dr. Ricord, in his quality of principal witness of the devotedness of the Brothers, was charged to attach the Cross of Honor to Brother Philip’s cassock, in the _grande salle_, or principal room, of the mother house. Never had the saintly Superior known a more embarrassing moment than this in all the course of his long life; and when he conducted Dr. Ricord to the door of the house, he managed so effectively to conceal his new decoration that no one would have suspected its existence. He never wore it after this occasion; and this Cross of Honor which he wished to hide from earth remains as a sort of mysterious remembrance. It has never been found again.

Always clear-sighted and well-informed, the Superior-General had been watching the approach of the insurrection of the 18th of March, and sent away the pupils of the Little and Great Novitiates, foreseeing that Paris was about to fall into the power of the worst enemies of religion and civilization. The satanic character of the Commune declared itself in the words of Raoul Rigault, one of its chiefs, who said: “So long as there remains a single individual who pronounces the name of God, everything has yet to be done, and there more shooting will always be necessary.” The Commune began its work by beating down the cross on the church of S. Géneviève, and putting the red flag in its place. We cannot wonder, therefore, at its hatred of the Christian Brothers--their Christianity being an unpardonable crime. They were not even allowed to remove the wounded, who were left to die untended in the street, rather than that they should be succored by religious.

Two decrees were passed, one putting the state in possession of all property, movable or otherwise, belonging to the religious communities, and the other incorporating into the marching companies all valid citizens between nineteen and forty years of age. The Commune was returning to its traditions of ’93, “interrupted,” it was stated, “by the 9th of Thermidor.” There were to be no more Christian schools; no more Christ; no more religion; no more works of piety, Catechism, First Communion, the Church--all these were proscribed, and none but atheists might keep a school.

But we will give some extracts from a circular issued to his community by the Superior on the 21st of June, 1872, in which he briefly notes down the events of these dreary days:

“The festival of Easter (April 9th) was spent in anxiety,
sadness, and mourning, for Monseigneur the Archbishop and
several priests have been arrested as hostages.

“April 10th: Some of our Brother Directors were officially
informed that my name had been placed on the proscription list,
and that I should be arrested forthwith. Yielding, therefore,
to the solicitations of my Brother Directors, and to the
injunctions of our dear Brother Assistants, I quitted Paris to
visit our houses in the provinces.

“On the 11th of April, towards ten o’clock in the morning,
a commissioner and delegate of the Commune, accompanied by
forty of the National Guard, surrounded the house, announcing
that they had orders to take me away, and to search the
establishment. Brother Calixtus told them that I was absent,
and accompanied them wherever they wished to go. They carried
off the money that remained in the chest, as well as two
ciboria, two chalices, and a pyx, after which they declared
that, in default of finding the Superior, they were to lead off
the person who had been left there in his place.

“The dear Brother Calixtus presented himself, and was ordered
by the commissioner to follow him; whereupon there ensued
a scene which it would be impossible to describe. All the
Brothers insisted on following our dear Brother Assistant;
and some even of the National Guards were moved to tears. A
crowd of people collected in the street, expressing grief and
indignation. The commissioner then gave a promise that Brother
Calixtus should not be detained a prisoner, at the same time
bidding him get into a cab, which took him to the prefecture
of police. There he was set at liberty, and returned to the
mother-house.

“From the 10th to the 13th our Brothers of Montrouge,
Belleville, and S. Nicolas were expelled, and lay teachers
put in their place. On the 17th the house at Ménilmontant was
searched at the very time that the Brothers were engaged with
the classes; they were arrested, and detained prisoners until
the 22d, during which time they were threatened and insulted
in various ways. On the 18th a staff of military _infirmiers_
was substituted for the Brothers in charge of the ambulance at
Longchamps, and the Brother Assistants were officially informed
that it was resolved upon to arrest the Brothers _en masse_,
in order either to imprison them or to enrol them for military
service. Thus they put soldiers with our sick, and intended to
send us on the ramparts to defend the cause of our persecutors,
who were also the enemies of order and religion. It was a
critical moment, but Providence came to our aid in a particular
manner. Many persons, several of whom were unknown to us,
offered their assistance in contriving to send out of Paris
those of our Brothers who were between nineteen and forty years
of age, and, thanks to God’s goodness and to this friendly
aid, a certain number, by one means or another, daily effected
their escape.

“During the period between the 19th of April and the 7th of
May, all our free schools were successively closed, and the
emigration of the Brothers continued. This, however, could
not be completely accomplished; new orders, more and mote
suspicious and oppressive, having been issued by the Commune,
an increasingly rigorous surveillance was kept up, and the
Brother Director of S. Marguérite and two of his subordinates
were arrested in their community. Towards the 7th of May, from
thirty to forty of the Brothers who were attempting to escape
were also arrested, either at the railway stations or at the
city gates, or even outside the ramparts. A few of these were
released, but twenty-six were taken to the Concièrgerie, and
from thence to Mazas.

“Of all our establishments, one alone never ceased working,
namely, that of S. Nicolas, Vaugirard, which, even when times
were at their worst, numbered its thirty Brothers and three
hundred pupils.

“The projectiles of the besieging army having reached
Longchamps, it was found necessary to remove further, into the
city the sick and wounded with which the ambulance was crowded.
It was then that, on an order of the Committee of Public
Health, our house was requisitioned by the Administration of
the Press, who required there a hundred beds. It was arranged
that the Brothers should undertake the attendance on the
sick, but scarcely had they begun to organize the work before
a new order arrived from the committee, forbidding any of
the Brothers to remain in the house under pain of arrest and
imprisonment. Our dear Brother Assistants therefore, with the
others who until then had remained at the post of danger, as
well as our sick and aged men, found themselves compelled to
quit that home which could no longer, alas! be railed the
mother, but the widowed, house, and, during five or six days,
the abode of pain and death. The ambulance was established
there under the direction of the Press, the administrators of
which testified a kindly interest towards us, and we gladly
acknowledge that to them we owe the preservation of our house,
which, but for them, would in all probability have been given
up to the flames.

“On Sunday, the 21st of May, there was no Mass in our deserted
chapel, from whence the Blessed Sacrament had been removed the
evening before. The persecution against us had reached its
height, and also its term. That same day the besieging army
forced the Gate of St. Cloud, and on the next, the 22d, took
possession of our quarter, and put an end for us to the Reign
of Terror.…

“All this week was nothing but one sanguinary conflict; our
mother-house was crowded with wounded to the number of six
hundred; a temporary building had also been erected within its
precincts, to which were brought those who were slain in the
neighborhood; as many as eighty dead would sometimes be carried
in at a time. On Wednesday, the 24th, however, the military
authorities decided that the ambulance should be transferred
back again to Longchamps, and that the Brothers should
immediately be restored to the possession of the mother-house
as well as of their other establishments. From that day a new
order of things commenced for us, and with it the reflux into
Paris of our emigrated Brothers.

“But all were not able to return; some were prisoners at
Mazas. Already, out of hatred to religion, the Commune had
shot Monseigneur the Archbishop, the _cure_ of the Madeleine,
and several other priests, secular and regular, … and they now
proposed to shoot _all_ their prisoners, and renew in 1871 the
massacre of 1792. But again time failed them.

“The liberating army, like an irresistible torrent, carried
away the barricades, and the firing soon began around Mazas,
whereupon the keepers of the prison seized the Communist
director and locked him up, opening all the doors, and
bringing down the captives--between four and five hundred in
number--into the court, from whence they made their exit three
by three. Our Brothers went out; but only to find themselves
entangled in the lines of the Federals, and forced to work
at the barricades, until night seemed to favor their escape.
It was while he was thus employed that our dearest Brother
Néomede-Justin, of Issy, was killed by the bursting of a shell.”

During three days and nights the Brothers were the objects of the most active surveillance, and had to watch their opportunity to recede from one barricade to another. In this way several managed to reach the mother-house on Friday, the 25th; others, on the two following days, but not all. To continue in the words of Brother Philip:

“On Whit-Sunday, towards one o’clock in the morning, all the
insurgents were surrounded on the heights of Belleville,
disarmed, chained five together, taken to La Roquette (the
prison of the condemned), and brought before a council of
war. Our two Brothers, who had been also chained to three
insurgents, were present at the interrogation of those who
had preceded them, and at the execution of sentence of death
upon a large number. For the space of three hours they waited
thus in the most anxious expectation. When it was their turn
to appear, they said that they were Brothers of the Christian
Schools, just out of prison, but that for three days they had
found it impossible to escape from the vigilant oppression of
the insurgents. On ascertaining the truth of their statement,
the council gave them a pass, and facilitated their return to
the mother-house.

“They came back to us worn out and broken down by fatigue, as
well as by all the terrible emotions they had undergone, and
blessing God for their wonderful preservation.”

On hearing of the restoration of order the emigrated Brothers hastened back to Paris, their venerable superior joining them at the mother-house on the evening of the 9th of June.

“It was,” writes Brother Philip, “the hour of Benediction of the Blessed Sacrament, … after which we sang the psalm, _Ecce quam bonum_, … and then I attempted to say a few words to our dearest Brothers, reunited once more, but I found it impossible, so great was my emotion.”

When, during his absence, Brother Philip had heard of the arrest of Brother Calixtus, he immediately set out from Epernay, to give himself up in the place of his friend; but learning, at St. Denis, that he had been set at liberty, he proceeded to the visitation of other houses of his institute in the provinces. We can understand with what joy these two holy friends would meet again.

After some great calamity has passed away, life, emerging from the regions of death, seems as it were to begin anew. Brother Philip, who regarded the misfortunes of France as a warning from God, invited all the members of his institute to carry on their work with increased energy and devotion. From the beginning of the year 1872, as if he had had some presentiment of his approaching end, he gave more attention than ever to the perfecting of his “children,” and completed various little works of piety which he thought might prove useful to them. An illness which he had at this time he regarded as a first warning. The Archbishop of Paris, Mgr. Guibert, who had not then long succeeded his martyred predecessor, came at this time to visit the venerable Superior.

Brother Philip presided at all the sittings of the general chapter which was assembled from the 12th of June, 1873, to the 2d of July. Towards the conclusion of the last sitting, in reply to some respectful words which had been addressed to him, he answered: “My dearest Brothers, soon, yes, soon you will again assemble together, but I shall be no longer among you. I shall have had to render to God an account of my administration.” It was with heavy hearts that the Brother Assistants heard these words, while their Superior proceeded to consecrate the Institute to the Sacred Heart of Jesus.

Our Holy Father Pius IX. had for the heart of Brother Philip an unspeakable attraction. On the 22d of October, 1873, the latter set out on his fifth journey to Rome. His first visit to the Eternal City was in 1859, when he was welcomed by the Pope with paternal affection. He was there again in 1862, for the canonization of the Martyrs of Japan, when he had an opportunity of conversing with the bishops of many distant regions in which the Brothers of the Christian Schools were established. On this second occasion, the day after his arrival in Rome, he hastened to the Vatican and mingled with the crowd in the hall of audience; but the Pope having observed his name in the long list of the persons present, immediately sought with his eye the humble Superior, and, perceiving him far off in the last rank of the assembly, his Holiness, with that clear and sweet voice so well known to the faithful, said to him, _Philip, where shall we find bread enough for all this multitude?_ (S. John vi. 5), and bade him come near. Brother Philip, confused at so great a mark of attention, approached, and, kneeling before the Holy Father, presented the filial offering of which he was the bearer on the part of his Institute. He made his third journey to Rome in 1867, to be present at the eighteenth centenary anniversary of the Martyrdom of the Apostles SS. Peter and Paul. On seeing him, the Pope said, “Here is Brother Philip, whose name is known in all the world.”

“It will soon be so at Madagascar, Most Holy Father,” answered Brother Philip, smiling, “as we are just now establishing ourselves there.”

In 1869, about the time of the opening of the Vatican Council, the Superior-General was again at Rome. True as the needle to the magnet was his loyal heart to the Vicar of Christ; and yet once more must the veteran soldier look upon the face of his chief before laying down his arms and receiving his crown. He took his fifth and last journey to the city of Peter in 1872, accompanied by Brother Firminien. Of this last visit, which especially concerned the beatification of the founder of his Institute, as well as of the preceding ones, full particulars are given in the work of M. Poujoulat. The Pope received Brother Philip to private as well as to public audiences, asking many questions and conversing with interest upon the details of the various works in which the order was engaged. On the Festival of All Saints, more than a hundred of the Brothers being assembled with their Superior-General in the throne-room at the Vatican, the Pope entered, preceded by his court, and attended by five cardinals, numerous bishops, and other ecclesiastics, for the reading of the decree referring to the beatification of the venerable De la Salle. When a few lines had been read, His Holiness said to one of the prelates, “Do not allow Brother Philip to continue kneeling; the brave old man must be fatigued.”

The reading being ended, Brother Philip was invited to approach the Holy Father, to whom he made an address of thanks for the progress of his founder’s cause, concluding with the following words: “With regard to our devotion to the Holy Church, to this ever-celebrated chair of Peter, and to the illustrious and infallible Pontiff who occupies it so gloriously, it will be the same all the days of our life; and, moreover, we shall never cease, Most Holy Father, to offer to God our most fervent prayers that he will speedily put an end to the calamities which afflict so profoundly the paternal heart of Your Blessedness, … praying Your Blessedness to be pleased to bestow your holy benediction upon him who has at this moment the exceeding happiness of kneeling at your feet, and also upon all the other children of the venerable De la Salle.”

Copies of the decree were then distributed amongst those present, the original manuscript, which was presented to the Superior, being now in the archives of the _Régime_. The Pope addressed his answer directly to his “dearest son, Brother Philip,” as if to testify his esteem not only for the Institute but for the man. Immediately after the closing of the audience, the Pope despatched messengers to the Palazzo Poli with two immense baskets full of various kinds of pastry, etc., saying, “Brother Philip must assemble the Brothers to-day for a little family feast, and I wish to regale them”; and when afterwards the Superior expressed his thanks for this paternal mark of attention, the Holy Father answered: “Some good nuns thought of the Pope, and the Pope thought of Brother Philip.”

On his return from this last journey to Rome, the Superior reached Paris at seven o’clock in the morning, was present at Mass in the mother-house at eight, and half an hour later was seated at his bureau as usual in the _Salle du Régime_, as if he had never quitted his place. The longest life is short; but what can be done by a man who never wastes a moment of his time is something prodigious. One result of this unceasing activity on the part of Brother Philip was the fact that, having found 2,300 Brothers and 143,000 pupils when he was placed at the head of the Institute, he left 10,000 of the former engaged in the education of 400,000 youths and children. He was a man of study, prayer, and action; no one could be more humble than he, nor yet more qualified to govern. He listened patiently to arguments and suggestions, but, when his resolution was once taken, he adhered to it. He spoke little, having neither taste nor time for much talking, but what he said was always to the point, the right thing at the right time, and the truth on every question. His correspondence was a reflection of himself, his letters containing just so many syllables as were sufficient to express his meaning: with him, a letter was an action. He was at the same time the most devout of religious and the most assiduous of workers; severe to himself, and never accepting the little indulgences which others would fain have mingled with the hardness of his life. The Abbé Roche mentions that on one occasion Brother Philip, arriving in a little town of Cantal after forty hours of travelling, had one hour to rest. Being shown the way to the house of the Brothers, he found them assembled in the chapel, where he remained until the prayers were over. Then, after exchanging greetings with them, and taking a morsel of bread moistened with wine and water, he resumed his journey. There are few communities of his Institute in France which he did not visit, and in all these his presence left an abiding remembrance.

The art of ruling presupposes a knowledge of men. Under his simple and modest exterior, Brother Philip had a keen penetration; he very quickly formed his judgment of what a man was and what were his capabilities, and there could be no better proof that he chose his instruments wisely than the fact that all his establishments have succeeded; not that he always allowed human prudence to have much voice in his undertakings, as he frequently preferred to leave much to Providence. His look and manner were reserved, almost cold, but in his heart were depths of real tenderness and feeling. He allowed no recreation to his fully occupied existence except indeed his one refreshment and rest, which was in attending the services at the chapel; and his great enjoyment, the beauty of the ceremonies and the grand and ancient music of the church. He never failed to bestow the most particular attention on every detail of the procession on the Feast of Corpus Christi, and took an especial delight in being present at the First Communion of the pupils. For this great act of the Christian life he recommended a long and serious preparation, and wrote a manual with this intent, entitled _The Young Communicant_.

He excelled in the art of solving difficulties, not by having recourse to human wisdom, but by imploring light and guidance from above. To overcome obstacles, he prayed; he did the same to lead his enemies to a better mind; and against their decisions, again he armed himself with prayer.

The municipal council of Châlons had, in 1863, suppressed the Christian schools in that town. Brother Philip repaired thither on the 2d of May. The mayor gave notice that the council would assemble on the following day. The Superior was suffering from acute rheumatism, but would not accept anything but the regulation supper of the Brothers, who made him a bed in the parlor. The next morning, at four o’clock, when the community had risen, they found Brother Philip kneeling on the pavement of the chapel, and it was observed that his bed had not been touched. He had passed the night in prayer before the Tabernacle. At six o’clock he attended Mass with his foot bound up in linen. On the evening of the same day the municipal council, annulling its decision of the preceding year, permitted the re-establishment of the Christian Schools in Châlons. The Superior had not prayed in vain.

One of his principal cares was always the reinforcement of his Institute, and it was with exceeding happiness that, on the 7th of December, 1873, he presided at the reception of fifty-four postulants.

It was not without apprehension that the Brothers had seen their venerated Superior, at eighty-one years of age, undertake his last journey to Rome, but after his return his activity was unabated, and he did not in any way diminish his daily amount of work. On the 30th of December, having returned to the mother-house in the evening from a visit to Passy, he was indisposed, but rose the next morning at the hour of the community. After Mass he was seized with a shivering; he repaired, however, to the _Salle du Régime_, where deputations from the three establishments of S. Nicolas were waiting to offer him their respectful greetings for the New Year. On receiving their addresses he answered, in a weak and failing voice: “My dearest children, I thank you for your kindness in coming so early to wish me a happy New Year; perhaps I shall not see its close. I am touched by the sentiments you have so well expressed, but, for my own part, there is but one thing that I desire, and that is, that you should go on increasing in virtue.” After a few more words of paternal counsel, he bade them adieu.

The exchange of good wishes between himself and the community was not without sadness. On the 1st of January he made a great effort to go to the chapel, where he heard Mass and received Holy Communion. This was the last time that he appeared amid the assembled Brothers; his weakness was extreme, and his prayers were accompanied by evident suffering. From the chapel the Superior went to his bed, from which he was to arise no more. On the 6th of January, the Feast of the Epiphany, he received the last sacraments, while the Brother Assistants were prostrate around his bed, weeping and praying. One who appeared more broken down with sorrow than the rest was Brother Calixtus, the old and most intimately beloved friend of the dying Superior. The Apostolic Benediction solicited by Brother Floride at four o’clock arrived at six, but Brother Philip, having fallen into a profound slumber, was not aware of it until past midnight. The morning prayers were being said in a low voice in his cell, it not being known whether he was unconscious or not, but the Brother who presided having, through distraction, begun the _Angelus_ instead of the _Memorare_, the dying man gave a sign to show that he was making a mistake.

There is a little versicle and response particularly dear to the dying members of the Institute: “_May Jesus live within our hearts!_” to which the answer is, “_For ever._” It is, as it were, their watchword on the threshold of eternity. On the morning of the 7th of January, Brother Irlide, assistant, bending over the Superior, pronounced the words of Jesus on the Cross: “_Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit_,” adding, “_May Jesus live within our hearts_.” Brother Philip, like a faithful soldier, ever ready with the countersign, attempted to utter the answer “_For ever_,” but in the effort his soul passed away. The community being then assembled in the chapel for the recitation of the Rosary, at once commenced the _De profundis_. The Institute had lost its father and head.

The death of Brother Philip produced a profound impression. Together with the sense of a great loss, a feeling of admiration for the great qualities of the departed, and gratitude for the immense services he had rendered to his countrymen, burst forth from all ranks of society. The working-classes more especially felt keenly how true a friend they had lost, and the announcement, “Brother Philip is dead,” plunged every heart into mourning. From the moment of his death the cell of the Superior was constantly filled by the novices, who in successive companies recited the Office of the Dead. In the evening, the body was removed into the Chamber of Relics, which had been transformed into a _chapelle ardente_, or lighted chapel, and there in the course of two days more than ten thousand persons came to pay their respects and to pray by the dead. On the Friday evening the remains were enclosed in a coffin, which was covered with garlands and bouquets which had been brought, a tall palm being placed at the top; and on Saturday morning it was transferred to the chapel, where the sorrowing community had assembled, and where a Low Mass of requiem was said by the Reverend Almoner, the Abbé Roche.

But another kind of funeral was awaiting the humble religious. The Institute, in accordance with its rules, had ordered merely a funeral of the seventh class; but France, true to herself, was about to honor her benefactor with triumphant obsequies. The coffin, taken out of the mother-house at a quarter past seven, and placed upon a bier used for the poorest of the people, was borne to the church of S. Sulpice, through silent and respectful multitudes, and placed upon trestles, surrounded by lighted tapers, in the nave. A white cross on a black ground behind the high altar composed all the funeral decoration of the church. But a splendor of its own was attached to this poverty and simplicity, contrasted as it was with the vast assemblage present, among whom were two cardinals, several bishops, and many of the most important personages of the church and state. There were the representatives of all the parishes of Paris, and of all the religious orders, as well as of the public administration. Not the smallest space remained unoccupied in the vast church; and, when it was found necessary to close the doors, more than ten thousand persons remained in the Place St. Sulpice. Cardinal Guibert, Archbishop of Paris, gave the absolution, and M. Buffet, President of the National Assembly, threw the first holy water on the coffin.

“On both sides of the streets,” writes an eye-witness, “the crowd formed a compact mass; the men uncovered, and the women crossing themselves, as the body of the venerated Superior passed by. Long lines of children conducted by the Brothers marched continuously on each side. In the course of the progress to the cemetery of Père la Chaise, ten thousand pupils of the Christian Brothers, school by school taking its turn, joined without fatigue in the procession.”

Paris, this city so wonderful in its contrasts--in the brightness of its lights and the depths of its shadows--is more Christian than men are apt to suppose. Out of this Paris no less than _forty thousand persons_ attended the remains of Brother Philip to the grave, and many were the tears of heartfelt sorrow which mingled with the last prayers at the brink of that vault where he was laid, the place of burial reserved for the Superiors of his order. On the day of the funeral itself, the memory of Brother Philip received from Cardinal Guibert, in his circular letter addressed to the venerable _curé_ of S. Sulpice, a testimony which will remain as a page in the history of the church of Paris.

And it was not Paris only, but France, which paid its homage to the memory of Brother Philip. The whole French episcopate testified its regard for him by requiem Masses on his behalf, by solemn services, funeral orations, allocutions, or circular letters. Nor was this religious mourning limited to France: it was expressed in all the lands where the Christian Schools have been founded, so that throughout the world honor has been done to him who never sought it, but who, on the contrary, shrank from celebrity, feared the praise of man, and singly and simply did all for God.

As the crown and completion of all other witness to the merits of the departed Superior, the Brothers received in answer to the letter announcing their bereavement a Brief from our Holy Father Pius IX., most honorable to the departed, and for themselves full of sympathy and consolation.

Five months after the death of Brother Philip, the venerable Brother Calixtus, who had for sixty-four years been his dearest friend, and who was chosen as Superior-General in his place, followed him to the grave.

His present successor is Brother Jean-Olympe, an excellent and devoted religious, who, at the time we write, has just returned from Rome, where with four of the Brother Assistants he has been welcomed by the Holy Father with marks of particular regard. We conclude our sketch in the words of M. Poujoulat, the admirable writer already so often quoted: “The undying remembrance of Brother Philip will remain a motive power for his Institute, an effective weapon in time of conflict, an incitement to perseverance in well-doing, to the love of God, our neighbor, and our duty.”

SUBMISSION.

When the wide earth seems cold and dim around me,
And even the sunshine is a mocking thing;
When the deep sorrow of my soul hath bound me,
As the gloom swept from a dark angel’s wing;
When faces, dearer to my soul than being,
Like shadows faint and frozen past me flee,
I turn to thee--Almighty and all-seeing
God of the universe!--I turn to thee!

When in my chamber, lone and lowly kneeling,
I pour before thee thoughts that inly burn;
I lay before thy shrine that wealth of feeling
Whose ashes sleep in my heart’s funeral urn:
I pray thee, in a mercy yet untasted,
To raise my spirit from its dark despair;
To give back prospects crushed, and genius wasted,
That have no memory save in that wild prayer.

It may not be! O Father! high and holy,
Not thus thy _chosen_ bow before thy shrine;
But with submission, beautiful and lowly,
Asking no boon save through thy will divine;
Bearing with faith the Saviour’s cross of sorrow,
Filling his bleeding wounds with tears of balm,
Seeking his cankering crown of thorns to borrow--
To make them worthy of the pilgrim’s palm.

THE ROMAN RITUAL AND ITS CHANT

_COMPARED WITH THE WORKS OF MODERN MUSIC._

II.--CONTINUED.

RESPECTIVE AUTHORITY, ECCLESIASTICAL AND MORAL.

Natural religion attaches the idea of authority to God. God is King, “Dominus Exercituum,” the Lord of Hosts, the one supreme absolute source of all power and authority. Moreover, society implies authority, in order that it may exist. In social life there cannot be discordant purposes and independent wills. Now, God called all created society into being out of nothing, and through the principle of authority and subjugation of the will maintains his work in love, happiness, and mutual concord. And in the scheme of redemption he has sent his church, a working society upon earth, to heal by her sweet and divine yoke of a lawful authority the social anarchies and disorders of a fallen race. In the church, then, as sent by him who is the absolute source of authority and order, governed by him, and in continual correspondence with him through prayer, we expect to find all her important elements and modes of acting upon, and of dealing with, mankind under the direction of the principle of authority; and since God declares of himself that he is a God of order, and the “author, not of confusion, but of peace in the churches” (1 Cor. xiv. 33), we conclude that God will contemplate sacred song in the Christian Church as subject to the principle of authority, as an instrument placed by himself at the disposal of the church for carrying out her divine work, and as such to be used, under the guidance and direction of the authority which governs her.

To put, then, what is meant by the claim about to be made that the Ritual or Gregorian Chant possesses this authority, in its true light, it would be a misconception to suppose that the notion of a _positive authority_ is identical with that of _absolute monopoly_. The positive authority of the chant of the Ritual by no means implies that the use of modern music cannot, under certain conditions, enjoy a just toleration, as will be plain from an instance. The sick man who is slowly recovering from a severe disease may be fully aware of the positive authority which his physician has for many reasons attached to a particular rule of diet, and may yet have the permission occasionally to deviate from it. But now, if it be asked, what is this authority which is claimed for the Roman Ritual chant-books? it may be replied, if a spectator, at a review of British military, were to ask what authority the infantry regiments had for wearing red coats, he, I suppose, would be answered at once, that in a disciplined army the regimental uniform could not be otherwise than authorized. In the same manner, in an organized state of society so perfect as that of the Catholic Church, the mere existence of such song-books as the Gradual and Antiphonary, and their immemorial use in connection with the Missal and Breviary, necessarily implies their authority. It would be in place here, if space permitted, to cite the various archiepiscopal and episcopal synods that have made these or similar song-books the subjects of their legislation, providing, down to the minutest details, for the different questions which might be liable to arise out of their use. But it may here suffice to refer to the fact, not perhaps sufficiently known, that the whole of the Roman Liturgy, the entire Breviary, the whole of the Missal, except the few parts which the celebrant himself recites in an undertone of voice at the altar, has its proper notation in music, which every efficient choir-singer and celebrant priest is required to know, as the necessary accompaniment of his functions.

The authority, therefore, of the Ritual chant is to a considerable extent identified with that of the Ritual itself in the character of the authorized form of its solemn celebration. No other music has been at any time published by the church. No other is co-extensive with the Ritual; and the use, therefore, of any other, however permissible it may have become through force of circumstances, can only be regarded as a deviation from perfect Ritual rule.

That such was the view of the fathers of the Council of Trent is evident from the fact, that they seriously debated whether it might not be advisable to put an end to the scandalous musical excesses that had found their way into the church through the partial abandonment of the Ritual chant, by rendering it henceforth imperative. But though this measure was vehemently urged by more than one father as the best remedy for the evil complained of, still the father of the council at length declined to pass the decree. They seemed to have judged it to be on the whole wiser to leave the Ritual chant to its claims as the acknowledged and authorized song of the Liturgy, and to have thought that the remedy required was rather to be sought for in prayer to God to give his people a better and more sober mind than in a severe and peremptory legislation, which might end in provoking the further and worse evil of a more formal and open disobedience.

But to return to the subject of the positive ecclesiastical authority of the Ritual chant-books. The truth and the reason of this authority appear at once, on reflecting how impossible it is that a kingdom directed by the Spirit of God, under the government of a divinely founded hierarchy, should employ sacred song to the extent which the Catholic Church does, without a sanctioned and authenticated form of it. That this form should be absolutely imperative, to the rigid exclusion of every other, could occur to no one to maintain. But still, without an acknowledged body and form of song, of such indisputable authority as to claim the willing confidence of those whose calling is with sacred song, its efficacy is certainly lamed and its mission impeded. Men that have work to do in God’s vineyard require to know not merely the general truth that what they are engaged with is in the main good, but they also desire to know that the blessing of God is with the manner of their work, and the means they employ. Now, such confidence nothing but an authorized body of song can supply.

For what reason do we trust the church in her definitions of faith? Because we feel our own weakness; because we feel how impossible it is for the mind to repose on its own conclusions. We know, from a voice that speaks from within the heart, that our heavenly Father could not have given a revelation without the conditions necessary to fit it to meet our wants. And because we feel the need of a positive authority in matters of faith, we believe it to have been given, and that the Catholic Church is the depository of it, as alone possessing the satisfactory credentials. Now, although it may be true that an equal need for a positive authority in matters of song cannot be asserted, yet if ecclesiastical music do really possess those many healing virtues which at once betoken its divine origin and heavenly mission, it may be asked, is it a wise, is it a self-distrusting, is it a pious course for each individual to imagine himself free from such an authority? Is it not rather true that, in proportion as his sense of the heavenly mission of the ecclesiastical chant deepens, the more vivid will become his perception of the need of an express living authority to which the individual can commit himself, in perfect confidence that that song which a divinely directed hierarchy shall put forth and acknowledge as their own work, will be sure to carry along with it the blessing of God upon its use.

I do not see how a reasonable person can refuse to admit that such is the positive authority attaching to the liturgical song-books, and that it is to the devout and skilful use of these books by her own priests, cantors, and devout people, that the church mainly looks for the fulfilment of the divine idea with respect to sacred music. How otherwise will you account for their existence? to what purpose has the wisdom of saints who contributed and collected their contents been exerted? Why has the church not let the Gregorian system of music alone, as she has the modern? why has she formed a complete system and body of song in the one, and not in the other, if her work, when complete, has no positive authority? Or will the advocate of modern art say, that this her work is defective and superannuated; and that it is time it should be locked up, out of the way, in collections of antiquities, and cease to be an offence to ears polite? Yet, if such be the case, an abrogation is not to be presumed; it must be proved. But the fact is, that the Council of Trent caused the song-books to be reissued, and directed the ecclesiastical chant to be taught in the seminaries of the clergy.[139] And when those very canonized saints, of whose conditional approbation of the use of modern art so very much is made, came to the dignity of obtaining a record in the church’s song of her warriors departed, here was surely a fit occasion, if, indeed the church had abandoned her former song, and disembarrassed herself of its defective scale and wearisome monotony, to call for the charms of modern art, that at least it might be identified with its votaries. Yet with this very natural supposition contrast the fact that the Ritual chant and its singers continue year by year to hand on the memory of the virtues of S. Philip Neri and S. Charles Borromeo; while for these, its supposed patrons, modern art has not even a little memorial. To the Ritual song it leaves what would seem to be to itself the unwelcome task of keeping up the record of their sanctity and their example.

Nor do I see to what purpose a reference can be made to the anecdote of Pope Marcellus’ approbation of Palestrina’s composition, since named _Missa Papæ Marcelli_, with the view to establish an authority for the system of modern music; for the idea of deviation from the order of the Ritual chant once admitted to toleration, nothing can be more natural than that a pontiff, equally with any other person, might come to express his very high commendation of a particular composition. And if we allow that such a commendation is not without its weight, it would surely be a violent inference, singularly betraying the absence of better argument, if an instance of such approbation of a particular work were to be claimed as an _ex cathedra_ legislative authorization of a whole system of music to which it cannot be said to belong.[140] For it should not be forgotten that Palestrina’s music is essentially different from the existing system of modern art, inasmuch as his works are either mere harmonies upon the _Canto Fermo_, or else consist of themes borrowed from it, which frequently preserve that distinct tonality of the modes of the ecclesiastical chant which modern art has quite abandoned.

It has been objected, “that an assertion that the church does not authorize the use of modern harmony, because she has not herself furnished her children with any individual compositions, is about as reasonable a conclusion as the notion that she does not authorize and sanction sermons, because their composition is left to the judgment, good or bad, of private clergymen.” But the objection fails, as there is a total want of parity between the office of singer and preacher. The preacher passes through a long course of training to the state of priesthood, before he receives a license to preach; and every person in the church who has the license to preach, is to be presumed to be duly qualified both to make known the divine law and recommend it by his words and example. This is not the case with the singer, who is not necessarily even in the minor orders, and whose duty is merely to sing what is placed before him correctly and with feeling. If the education of the priests were left to the same hazard and caprice that would seem to be desired for the choice of music for the church, it is easy to imagine the result. But very far from this, the most thoughtful care is bestowed by the church on the training of her future ministers: obliged to fixed and unalterable dogmas of the faith, versed in one sacred volume, bound to one uniform office of daily prayer and pious reading, trained in an almost uniform system of studies and external discipline, the preacher comes forth the living organ of a divine system, fitted to be the spokesman of a kingdom that is endowed with the power of drawing its manifold materials to a concordant and coherent system, and moulding multiform and varied minds to a unity of type and consistency of action. “Such was the strict subordination of the Catholic Church,” says the historian Gibbon (_Hist._, ch. XX.), “that the same concerted sounds might issue at once from a hundred pulpits of Italy or Egypt, if they were tuned by the master hand of the Roman or Alexandrian primate.” Carry the same principle of system and order into the song of the church, and it will be found impossible to stop short of the Ritual chant-books.

2. With regard to the moral authority of the chant: moral authority, in the legislation of the church, is ever a necessary companion of any act of her legislative authority. We should not, however, overlook what seems to be a distinct element of moral authority, in the historical connection of the Ritual chant with the generations now past and gone to their rest. It was their song, the song of saints long ago departed. It is the song which S. Augustine sang, and which drew forth his tears: “Quantum flevi in hymnis et canticis, suave sonantis ecclesiæ tuæ vocibus commotus acriter; voces illæ influebant auribus meis, et eliquebatur veritas tua in cor meum, et ex ea æstuabat. Inde affectus pietatis, et currebant lacrymæ, et bene mihi erat cum illis”--“How often have these sacred hymns and songs moved me to tears, as I have been carried away with the sweetly musical voices of thy church. How these sounds used to steal upon my ear, and thy truth to pour itself into my heart, which felt as if it were set on fire! Then would come tender feelings of devotion, my tears would flow, and I felt that all was then well with me” (_Confess._ lib. vi. cap. 6). It was the song of S. Augustine, the apostle of Saxon England, of S. Stephen the Cistercian, and of all the holy warriors of our Isle of Saints. Nor is it only the song which the saints sang, but it is the song that sings of the saints--the only song which cares to pour the sweet odor of their memory over the year, or to spread around them its melodious incense, as they too surround the throne of their Lord and King.

Again: a moral authority attaches to the Roman Ritual chant in the very name _Gregorian_, by which it is so generally known. S. Gregory was the first to collect it from the floating tradition in which it existed in the church, and to digest it into that body of annual song for the celebration of the Ritual which has come down to us. This work came to be called after him, _Cantus Gregorianus_, and forms at this day the substance of the Roman chant-books, enriched and added to by the new offices and Masses that have since then been incorporated in the Ritual. Nothing is known with any positive historical certainty as to the authorship of the several pieces in the song-books; but as to the main fact, that the music of the Ritual is the work of the greatest saints of the church--of the Popes Leo, Damasus, Gelasius, and S. Gregory himself--of many holy monks in the retirement of their cloisters--history leaves no doubt. This fact, then, is beyond dispute: that the Roman Ritual chant, which the present inquiry concerns, is the creation of the saints of the Roman Church, for the decorum and solemnity of the public celebration of the Liturgy.