Chapter XVII: The End (18)

Yet, numerous as had been the accessions to the priesthood in those years, the duties and responsibilities of the clerical order increased in greater proportion. The millions of strangers who had sought homes among us, while they preserved their faith and brought with them the grand moral lessons learned in the Old World, could not bring their churches, schools, and asylums. These had to be provided here, and the American priest thus became from necessity a builder and a financier, as well as a teacher and instructor of his people. When the abnormal Irish immigration began in 1847, we had but 812 churches, several of which were small frame buildings, hastily constructed and totally inadequate to the wants even of those who erected them. Many of those have since been pulled down, reconstructed, or rebuilt, and replaced by substantial brick or stone edifices. This in itself was a work of considerable merit; but when we reflect that since then no less than four thousand three hundred new churches have been added to this number, we are lost in astonishment at the magnitude of the work performed in so short a space of time. Nor are those modern buildings generally of that rude and fragile class which were so common fifty years ago, but, on the contrary, most of them are excellent specimens of solid masonry and architectural skill. The noble cathedrals especially which adorn Baltimore, Albany, Buffalo, Philadelphia, Pittsburg, Cincinnati, Boston, and other sees, are models of design, durability, and grandeur of which any country or age might be proud. The same may be said, but with greater emphasis, of the Cathedral of St. Patrick now nearly completed in New York—that grand epic in marble, from the tall spire of which the glittering emblem of our salvation is destined at no far distant day to shine down upon a million faithful followers of the cross.

Thus it may be well said that the past quarter of a century was the era of church-building as well as of increase. But the vast energy so displayed was not employed solely in one direction. While thousands of temples have arisen to the honor and glory of God, his afflicted creatures, the sick, unfortunate, and helpless; the foundling infant and decrepit grandsire; the orphan bereft of its natural protectors, and the worse than orphaned—the pariah of her sex—all have been cared for, fed, clothed, consoled, and housed. Eighty-seven hospitals and two hundred and twenty asylums of various kinds attest the practical charity and active benevolence of the Catholics of America.

It was formerly said that the Catholic Church could not prosper under a free government; that it needed the help of kingcraft and despotic laws to enforce its decrees and sustain its authority. We have proved the fallacy of this calumny pretty thoroughly—so conclusively, indeed, as to excite real or pretended alarm among bigots of all sects and of no sect at all. No people are more at home and thrive better in all respects in this land of liberty than Catholics.

It has also been asserted that we are the enemies of enlightenment. Our hundreds of convents and academies, and thousands of parochial schools, might be considered a sufficient answer to this falsehood. But, in the providence of God, the time has come when we are called upon to take a further step and demonstrate that in the domain of the highest intellectual studies we are a match for the best of our opponents.

We have no means of ascertaining the exact number of schoolhouses which have been built during this period; probably one thousand would not be too high an estimate, and we are inclined to think that there are even more. In the large cities most of the churches have a building for educational purposes attached; in the rural districts the basement is generally used. There are also a number of what are called charity schools, generally under the charge of some of the teaching orders, of which New York alone boasts twenty-four, erected at a cost of four million dollars. There are six hundred and forty academies and select schools for females, with an average attendance of sixty thousand pupils, for whose accommodation, as well as for the nuns and sisters who watch over them, an equal number of buildings, some very extensive and costly, have been provided.

Though our seminaries and colleges do not show a proportionate ratio of increase, either in numbers or attendance, the result, if taken by itself, is highly satisfactory. In the last century only two of them existed in the United States; up to 1850 ten more were added; in 1874 we had eighteen theological seminaries, attended by 1,375 students, and sixty-eight colleges with over ten thousand pupils and about six hundred professors and teachers.

With all this it must be confessed that, as far as human knowledge is concerned, the Catholics of the United States are as a body behind their non-Catholic fellow-citizens. We acknowledge this inferiority, and can satisfactorily account for it. Under the peculiar difficulties of our position it became a matter of primary necessity that our co-religionists should first have churches wherein to worship God, asylums and hospitals to shelter and succor the weak and afflicted, and free schools for the training of the children of the poor, whose faith and morals were endangered by the plan of instruction pursued in the schools of the state. But now that all these wants have been supplied as far as practicable, and that we may safely confide to posterity the task of completing the work already so far advanced, our next duty plainly is to provide for the generation growing up around us facilities for a higher and more thorough system of education than has yet been attempted in our colleges and academies, equal in all respects, if not superior, to that so liberally afforded by the sectarian and secular seats of learning which so plentifully besprinkle the land.

Remembering what has been already wrought by the zeal and unswerving perseverance of the Catholic body in other directions in the past, we should look forward with undiminished courage and confidence to the future. If with a disorganized, unsettled people like ours, generally poor in the world’s goods, and with never-ending personal demands on their limited resources, we have been able to build and maintain so many churches, institutions, convents, and schools in so short a time, what may not be expected from the same class, now that they are regularly domiciled, and a portion, at least, of the wealth that ever rewards industry and application is fast becoming theirs?

What is wanted in the first instance, in order to give tone and direction to the young Catholic mind, is a Catholic national university, one on a scale comprehensive enough to include the study of all branches of secular knowledge—law, physics, medicine, languages, art, science, literature, and political economy. Such an institution, properly founded and conducted, would find no lack of public patronage. We are satisfied that American parents, whether the descendants of the old Catholic settlers or those who have embraced the faith in later years, instead of sending their sons to Yale or Harvard, to France or Germany, would much prefer to have them educated at home in a university where their religion would be neither a scoff nor an obstacle in the way of their preferment, and where they would grow up American citizens, in fact as well as in name. The German element, also, which constitutes so large a portion of the Catholics of the West, would find in it an adequate substitute for those celebrated homes of learning they left behind in Fatherland, and, under its fostering care, would continue to develop that spirit of profound thought and critical investigation so characteristic of the Teutonic genius.

But the Irish and their descendants, who will long continue to form the majority of the Catholic population of this republic, would derive most benefit from such an establishment. That subtle Celtic intellect, so acute yet so versatile; fully capable of grappling with the most difficult problems of human existence and social responsibility, yet so replete with poetry, romance, and enthusiasm; so long repressed, yet never dimmed, would, we feel assured, spring into life and activity beyond the conception of most men, were such an opportunity presented. In the three centuries following the conversion of the Irish their schools were unsurpassed throughout Christendom in extent, numbers, and attendance. The whole island, in fact, seemed to be turned into one vast reservoir of learning, from which flowed perennial streams of Christian knowledge over the then sterile wastes of semi-civilized Europe. The number of missionaries and teachers which Ireland produced in that most brilliant epoch of her history is almost incredible, and her zeal and energy in the dissemination of Catholic doctrine, even in the most remote parts of the Continent, became proverbial.

Civil wars, long, bloody, and desolating, destroyed her institutions and scattered her libraries, while penal laws of preternatural ingenuity and cruelty completed the work of desolation by denying her even the commonest rudiments of instruction. But as she kept the faith pure and undefiled throughout the long night of slavery, so she has preserved the moral tone and vigor of thought which ever follow a strict observance of the divine code. One generation alone, removed from the barriers and devices of the oppressor, has been enough to show that, in mind as well as in body, the Irish race is at least the equal of even the most favored nations of the globe. In the strength of pure religious conviction lies the greatness of a people.

Perhaps now is the most fitting time for the beginning of a work such as we have endeavored briefly to intimate. From all appearances the flood of immigration which, for twenty or thirty years, has flowed so steadily yet strongly, is fast receding into its former narrow channels. We shall have still, we trust, many foreign Catholics coming among us each year to help to develop the resources of our immense country, and to find peace and freedom under our Constitution; but we need not expect, during this century at least, such an influx as was precipitated upon us by the dreadful Irish famine. The Catholic population henceforth will present a more stable and homogeneous character, and will have more leisure to devote a portion of its wealth and energy to purposes other than erecting buildings and providing for the necessities of homeless and churchless millions. Churches and charitable institutions will, of course, continue to be built to meet the wants of our ever-increasing numbers, but their augmentation, being the result of a normal growth, will be more gradual and natural. We will, in other words, have more time to devote to education and the cultivation of the refinements and accomplishments of life, without in any wise neglecting the primary duties of Christians.

We have had our epochs of immigration and church-building, of extraordinary growth in popular education and incredible effort to supply the wants of the poor and friendless. We are now entering upon an era of mental culture, higher, more elaborate, and more general in its application than it was possible, or even desirable, to initiate amid the distractions and occupations of the busy past. But, ardent as is our desire to see such an important step taken in a direction which we feel would lead to certain success, we only look on it as a means to definite and ennobling ends, and not as the end itself. Mere mental training, dissociated from moral tuition and habits of manly thought and action, would be worse than useless; it would be dangerous alike to the student, to society, and to the cause of morality and religion. To develop the intellect merely at the expense of those greater attributes of the soul in the proper cultivation of which consists the real ostensible difference between man and the brute creation, would be to multiply infinitely the number of educated imbeciles of which the world has already too many.

It cannot be denied that the object of all education ought to be truth, a knowledge of God and of his works, that in the study of them we may learn to love and worship his holy name. Though the custodians of the divine gift of Pentecost are few, as children of the church we may all become sharers in the ineffable benefaction conferred on the apostles. Truth is one and indivisible, It is found not only in the doctrines and discipline of the church, but in every department of life—in every pursuit, study, and calling incidental to the existence of accountable beings. The nearer we come to the apprehension of this truth, the more we are disposed to seek and treasure it when found, no matter in what sphere of life our lot may be cast.

Unfortunately for religion and civilization, the last three centuries have been remarkable more for confusion of ideas on this important subject, and utter perversion of the natural laws, than any other period in the whole Christian era. The war engendered by the Protestant Reformation, the atheistic philosophy of the Encyclopedists, the destructive dogmas of the secret societies, and, in our own day, the gross materialism of the new school of scientists, have so clouded and bewildered, so perverted and debased, the human understanding that the world has come to look upon mere brilliancy of diction, novelty of opinion, and audacity of assertion as the highest evidences of intellectual superiority. Modern Europe, from end to end, is the victim of this lamentable delusion, and our own otherwise favored country is rapidly falling under its malign influence. Shall this foul plague be allowed to enshroud us all, and blight with its deadly breath the future of our young republic?

If such is to be the case, we may read our fate in the past decadence of the most enlightened nations of the Old World. From the outbreak of the Protestant Reformation they have gone steadily, almost blindly downwards, until, as to-day we see, they have ended in blank infidelity. The favored intellectual lights of the last three centuries in Protestant Europe have been men without faith and without conscience, who, with the help of Protestant governments, have sapped and undermined and utterly destroyed even the remnants of the faith in Christianity and a divine Creator of this world that still lingered here and there about the old homes of Christian learning; and literature may be said to have been given over to the service of the enemies of Christ and of his church.

If we contemplate the condition of modern art, we witness degeneracy almost as lamentable. Men wonder that no great sculptors and painters have arisen since the Italian, Spanish, and Flemish schools of the middle ages ceased to exist. Since then we have had artists who draw as well as, and who understood anatomy better than, the best of the old masters; but the inspiration, the spirit that made the figure on the canvas seem to live, is wanting.

The best of our modern painters are but copyists of nature, of landscape, man, or animals. They display no creative power; they are incapable of producing anything original, anything like the least of those historic pieces, those almost superhuman groups, which illustrate in a thousand varieties the incidents in the earthly career of our Redeemer and his holy Mother. Why? Because the mind must first be able to conceive in all its integrity and beauty what the hand is designed to execute. No matter how exact the eye or how deft the touch, if the imagination be not purified by religion and guided by truth, it is vain to attempt to represent on canvas or in marble pure, exalted types of excellence of which we are incapable of forming within ourselves more than an indefinite conception.

It is thus that the Reformers in England, Germany, and the north of Europe, and the Revolutionists in France and the southern part of the Continent, conspired to paralyze, what they could not wholly annihilate, that splendid fabric of Christian thought and genius reared by the church after many centuries of toil and anxiety. In this hemisphere we have suffered from the same malign causes, but our affection is more accidental and sympathetic than chronic. There is nothing in the mental condition of this new and cosmopolitan people to discourage or repel the efforts of those who would earnestly strive after a higher, purer, and more Christian mental development. But such efforts, to be successful, must be made within the bosom of the church. The Protestant sects are incapable of any combined movement in that direction; for they have neither unity of action or thought, nor a common standard by which to measure mental excellence and moral soundness. Clearly the change must originate in the Catholic body.

When we assert this we are well aware of the magnitude of the work to be accomplished and the apparent paucity of the laborers to execute it. But our confidence in the future is sustained by experience. Whoever would have said at the beginning of this century that this hundredth year of our independence would find the Catholics of the United States counted by millions, and their priests, churches, and schools by thousands, would have been looked upon as a dreamer or a rash enthusiast. Who shall say what the beginning of the next century may not be destined to usher in?

As the church is the divinely-commissioned teacher of the world, we desire to see our young Catholic men, the flower of her children, whether they be destined for the liberal professions or otherwise, sent forth into society armed at all points, prepared not only to sustain and defend the faith that is in them, but to demonstrate in their own persons and by their individual conduct how infinitely superior is secular knowledge even when based on eternal truth, to the vague theories and absurd speculations of those who foolishly seek to fathom the designs and comprehend the laws of God while denying the very existence of the Creator of all things.

Any system of education which falls short of this would be worse than none at all. To confer a degree on a student, and allow him to enter the world with the _éclat_ of a university course to give his opinions a certain intellectual character, without qualifying him to uphold the honor of his _Alma Mater_ and the integrity of his creed, would of course be an act of egregious folly. As well might we uniform a soldier and send him into action without arms, or entrust our lives and liberties to the keeping of a statesman of whose loyalty and fidelity we were not fully assured.

Years ago it was confidently asserted by a prominent dissenting minister of this city that the United States would eventually become the battle-field upon which the contest for permanent supremacy between Protestantism and Catholicity would be waged. We agreed with his views then, and everything that has happened in the religious world since confirms the sagacity of the remark. We desire nothing better than that this struggle, if it have to come, shall take place here, where both parties are equally free and well matched, though each has peculiar advantages not enjoyed by the other. The sects, on their side, have numbers, wealth, social position, political influence, and possession not only of the public schools and institutions of the state, but of all the old colleges and universities. On the other hand, the church in America has all the energy, hopefulness, and enthusiasm of youth united to the mature judgment of advanced years; thorough unanimity; and, above and beyond all, a creed and a doctrine founded on eternal truth, fortified by tradition, upheld by divine assistance, and guarded by an infallible authority. The impending conflict will not be one of arms nor of words, but of works and brains; and as the superiority of our opponents is material, not spiritual, it is not difficult to foresee to which side victory would incline.

Since rebellion against God’s law first raised its crest at Worms in 1521, the church has never had so favorable an opportunity of exposing the hollowness, rottenness, and insincerity of the leaders of dissent in all its forms as that presented in this country and generation. In older nations where Protestantism still flourishes it is as the mere tool of the state, the plaything of royalty, without the support of which it could not subsist. Supposing the British Parliament, in the plenitude of its power, should disestablish the Anglican Church, confiscate its property, and imprison its prelates, as Bismarck has done to the Catholics of Germany; how long would that luxurious Establishment remain in existence? The same may be said of Lutheranism in Prussia and Calvinism in other parts of Europe. They are of the earth, earthy, and require the aid of the temporal arm to protect them against their more logical though more destructive offshoots, the free-thinkers and revolutionists. Here, on the contrary, though the sects have through their politico-religious combinations an undue influence in public affairs, they have no appreciable direct state patronage, and must stand or fall by their own merits.

Now, it is well known and pretty generally acknowledged that sooner or later the Catholic Church has always suffered from its connection with the state, even when the alliance seemed to be more than favorable to her. From the very nature of her organization she cannot long be made an instrument of despotism or of selfish ambition. In non-Catholic countries she has generally been persecuted and proscribed: in others she has been as often the victim of impertinent interference and injudicious patronage on the part of temporal rulers. In none has she been free to carry out her divine mission; and, sad to relate but true nevertheless, on all the broad and fair earth the only spot where the church of Christ may be said to be unshackled and disenthralled is this young republic of the West.

This fact is in itself a great gain for us in view of the opposition we may expect in the time to come; but there are others which, though less apparent, are well worthy of consideration. Few persons who have not devoted special attention to the matter can form an estimate of the radical change which has been taking place, gradually but surely, in the American mind regarding Catholicity. Fifty years ago there were hundreds of towns and villages where the professors of our faith, few and obscure, were looked upon with downright contempt, while a Catholic priest, because unknown, was regarded as little less than a monster of iniquity. This gross prejudice, the result more of ignorance than badness of heart, was stimulated and fostered by local ministers and itinerant preachers, who, having neither fixed principles in religion nor definite notions of right and wrong upon which to descant, have been too much in the habit of entertaining their hearers with denunciations of the church and her priesthood. In nearly all those places where formerly so little was known about our faith are now to be found substantial churches, large and respectable congregations, zealous and respected priests, and perhaps one or more educational and charitable institutions.

The rural American, who, with all his deficiencies, is usually a fair-minded and reflective man, being thus brought face to face with the things he had been taught to loath, begins to feel the mists of prejudice lifted from his judgment, and ends by respecting the devotion and unaffected piety of those he lately contemned. Many other causes have likewise contributed to this desirable revolution in popular feeling, such as the annual visit of so many of our wealthy and influential citizens to Europe, where the ancient splendor of the church may be seen in all its perfection; while the conduct of the dissenting ministers, their perpetual quarrels among themselves, and the open disregard shown by them in so many instances for public decency, have disgusted many of their most attached followers, and set them groping after truth and spiritual rest in the direction of the church.

It may now be justly said that bigotry of the former malignant type which affected all classes can at present only be found among the lowest and most ignorant, and that Protestants of a higher grade in society, convinced of their errors, have gracefully abandoned them. So far have they advanced in charity that they are now willing to admit that Catholics may be good citizens, agreeable neighbors, and honest dealers; but still they cannot be persuaded but that mentally, if not morally, they are inferior in natural capacity and acquired information to their own co-religionists. There only remains one thing more to be done to make persons who think thus sincere friends and possible allies, and that is to demonstrate to their satisfaction that there is nothing in the teachings or practices of our religion tending to dwarf the intellect or weaken the understanding; but, on the contrary, that the more closely we assimilate human knowledge to the revealed law of God as expounded by the church, and the more we are governed by the rules which she has laid down for our mental conduct, the better qualified we become to stand in the front rank of the highest social and intellectual movements of the age. This accomplished, as we fondly hope it soon will be, the future destiny of our half-converted brethren lies in the hands of a power superior to that of man.

Every indication of the popular desire for such an educational establishment as we have foreshadowed points out the present as the most propitious time for its foundation. By and by it may be too late. The national character of our people, though not yet definitely formed, is fast crystallizing, and whatever impress is made on it now will be defined and permanent. We do not aim to distort or subdue the intellect of our young men, but to captivate and to cultivate it by holding up for its ambition the noblest of careers—the pursuit of virtue and the study of the great truths of religion and of nature. We would make, if we could, the Catholic laymen of the next generation, each in his own sphere, leaders in a new crusade against error, not through the use of force or legal compulsion, but by the greater purity of their lives and the superiority of their genius.

Herein lies the great future of the Catholic layman. Never before did such a career open before him. His sires of past ages met the infidel with sword and spear and the weapons of the flesh, and beat him back from the then hallowed soil of Christendom. To-day he faces a subtler, fiercer, and more resolute infidel than the Turk. As the flower of the Turkish hordes was composed of the janissaries, the perverted children of Christian parents, so to-day the standard-bearers of infidelity are the lost children of the cross. The weapons with which this new crusade is to be fought out are the moral and intellectual forces. Every portion of the civilized world is a battle-field. All must not be left to the pulpit, the confessional, the priest. The layman moves where the priest never penetrates, where the confessional is unknown, the pulpit mocked. Let him bear his faith with him, and its influence will tell. Let his wit be keener, his temper cooler, his knowledge wider and deeper than that of his foe, and infidelity, that brawls to-day with braggart tongue, will soon learn, if not to repent, at least to dread an encounter where there can be no doubt as to the issue.

We cannot have a healthy Catholic literature and a correct standard of public taste without lay aid any more than we can fill our colleges, schools of art and science, conservatories and gymnasiums, without such cordial assistance. Catholic laymen have to a great extent the destiny of their children and of the church in America in their keeping; and as their responsibility is heavy, so will be their reward or condemnation signal, according as they use or abuse the trust reposed in them by an all-wise Providence.

So far they have shown every indication of a willingness to make all possible sacrifices for the education of their children, and a reasonable desire to encourage Catholic literature, much more so than those can appreciate who do not know our country and the peculiar difficulties we have had to overcome. Some of our foreign contemporaries, in England especially, are in the habit once in a while of drawing pleasing distinctions between the state of Catholic literature abroad and in this country. In this comparison we naturally appear to no very great advantage. We are frequently reminded of the lamentable condition of things that compels us to draw on foreign sources for our literary stores, while it is hinted that it is almost time we looked to ourselves for intellectual support. All this, of course, we take placidly enough, while thoroughly understanding the spirit that gives rise to it. We are proud to concede the superiority of the great body of English and other Catholic writers who have done such service to the church and conferred such honor on the Catholic name. Still, we do not feel so utterly hopeless of future success in this line, nor even despondent as to the degree of success to which we have already attained. And considering the means at our disposal, glancing back at the century behind us and its fruits, the 25,000 swelled to 7,000,000, the solitary bishop to a great hierarchy, the few scattered priests to a valiant army, the little out-of-the-way chapels to a multitude of massive churches and towering cathedrals, the communities of religious of both sexes, the asylums for the waifs and strays, the deserted and sorrowing, the maimed, the halt, and the blind of the world—glancing at all this, we are in a fair position to say to literary critics: Gentlemen, thus far our hands have been pretty full. We grant you all the culture you please; may it increase a hundred-fold! We have not had much time to sit down and study. From the beginning we have been in the thick of a fierce fight. Peace is at last coming; the smoke of battle is clearing away; the heavens are opening and smiling above us. Our dead are buried; our wounded are gathered in; the prisoners taken from us are being sullenly but surely returned; our frontier is guarded and respected. Now we turn to the arts of peace. All that has been accomplished thus far has been done without any abundance of fine writing. This has been mainly the work of our faithful Catholic laity under the guidance of a loyal clergy and episcopacy. To that same laity we look for greater triumphs to come.

As a people we have no long line of princes and statesmen to defend, no schism to apologize for, no national outrages against God’s church to explain away or palliate. We have every confidence in the Catholics of this country to accomplish, under Providence, whatever they undertake for the benefit of religion and the spread of Christian enlightenment. The future of America is for us. While the professors of the sectarian creeds, in their efforts to force on the public and on each other their peculiar views, have reached their climax and are descending into the depths of nihilism and refined paganism, the church in this republic enjoys the pristine vigor of youth and an unexampled unanimity both in spirit and in action. In her organization there is a vast amount of latent force yet undeveloped, a mine of intellectual wealth that awaits but the master hand of the explorer to bring it to the surface. Great indeed will be the reward, high the fame, of him who will help us to utilize this unsuspected and unused treasure.

[159] The figures showing the gross immigration are taken
from official returns, mainly from the _Reports of the
Bureau of Statistics on the Commerce and Navigation of
the U.S._; the _Reports of the Commissioners of
Emigration_, New York; and _Thom’s Irish Almanac and
Official Directory_, Dublin. The approximate number of
Catholics is our own calculation. Though the
population of Germany is more than one-third Catholic,
we consider it safer to set down the proportion of
Catholic emigrants from that country at one-fourth of
the whole. When the famine began in Ireland,
ninety-two per cent. of the population was Catholic;
and as it was from this portion that our immigration
has since been principally drawn, ninety per cent. is
not considered too much to credit to Catholicity.

THE LIFE AND WORK OF MADAME BARAT.[160]

Madeleine-Louise-Sophie Barat was born on the 12th of December, 1779, in the little village of Joigny, in Burgundy. Her father was a cooper and the owner of a small vineyard, a very worthy and sensible man and an excellent Christian. Her mother was remarkably intelligent and quite well educated, far superior in personal character to her humble station, very religious, and endowed with an exquisite sensibility of temperament, controlled by a solid virtue which made her worthy to be the mother of two such children as her son Louis and her daughter Sophie. The birth of Sophie, who was the youngest of her three children, was hastened, and her own life endangered, by the fright which she suffered from a fire very near her house during the night of the 12th of December. The little Sophie was so frail and feeble at her birth that her baptism was hurried as much as possible, and the tenure of her life was very fragile during infancy. As a child she was diminutive and delicate, but precocious, quick-witted, and very playful. The parish priest used to put her upon a stool at catechism, that the little fairy might be better seen and heard; and at her first communion she was rejected by the vicar as too small to know what she was about to do, but triumphantly vindicated in a thorough examination by _M. le Curé_, and allowed to receive the most Holy Sacrament. She was then ten years old, and it was the dreadful year 1789. Until this time she had been her mother’s constant companion in the vineyard, occupied with light work and play, and learning by intuition, without much effort of study. At this time her brother Louis, an ecclesiastical student eleven years older than herself, was obliged to remain at home for a time, and, being very much struck with the noble and charming qualities which he discerned in his little sister, he devoted himself with singular veneration, assiduity, and tenderness to the work of her education. This episode in the history of two great servants of God, one of whom was an apostle, the other the St. Teresa of her century, is unique in its beauty.

The vocation of the sister dated from her infancy, and was announced in prophetic dreams, which she related with childish _naïveté_ like the little Joseph, foretelling that she was destined to be a great queen. When Sophie was eight years old, Suzanne Geoffroy—who was then twenty-six, and who entered the Society of the Sacred Heart twenty-one years afterwards, in which she held the offices of superior at Niort and Lyons, and of assistant general—was seeking her vocation. Her director told her to wait for the institution of a new order whose future foundress was still occupied in taking care of her dolls.

Louis Barat divined obscurely the extraordinary designs of Almighty God in regard to his little sister, and, faithful to the divine impulse, he made the education and formation of her mind and character the principal work of the next ten years of his life—a work certainly the best and most advantageous to the church of all the good works of a career full of apostolic labors. He was a poet, a mathematician, well versed in several languages and in natural science, very kind and loving to his little sister, but inflexibly strict in his discipline, and in some things too severe, especially in his spiritual direction. In a small attic chamber of his father’s cottage he established the novitiate and school composed of little Sophie Barat as novice and scholar, with brother Louis as the master. The preparatory studies were soon absolved by his apt pupil, and succeeded by a course of higher instruction, embracing Latin, Greek, Italian, and Spanish. Sophie was particularly enchanted with Virgil, and even able to translate and appreciate Homer. The mother grumbled at this seemingly useless education, but the uneducated father was delighted, and the will of Louis made the law for the household. During seventeen months he was in the prisons of Paris, saved from the guillotine only by the connivance of his former schoolmaster, who was a clerk in the prison department, and released by the fall of Robespierre. Sophie went on bravely by herself during this time, and continued her life of study and prayer in the attic, consoling her father and mother, who idolized her, during those dreadful days, and persevered in the same course after her brother’s release and ordination, under his direction, until she was sixteen. At this period her brother, who had taken up his abode in Paris, determined to take his sister to live with himself and complete her education. Father, mother, and daughter alike resisted this determination, until the stronger will of the young priest overcame, with some delay and difficulty, their opposition, and the weeping little Sophie was carried off in the coach to Paris, to live in the humble house of Father Louis, and, in conjunction with her domestic labors, to study the sciences, the Holy Scriptures in the Latin Vulgate, and the fathers and doctors of the church. She had several companions, and the little group was thus formed and trained, not only in knowledge but in the most austere religious virtues and practices, under the hand of their kind but stern master, for more than four years. During the vintage Sophie was allowed to take a short vacation at home, of which she availed herself gladly; for she was still a gay and playful girl, submitting with cheerful courage to her brother’s severe discipline, yet not without a conflict or without some secret tears. She was a timid little creature, and the injudicious severity of her brother’s direction made her scrupulous. Often she was afraid to receive communion; but she was obedient, and when her brother would call her from the altar of their little chapel, saying, “Come here, Sophie, and receive communion,” she would go up trembling and do as she was bidden. Her great desire was to become a lay sister among the Carmelites, and her companions were also waiting the opportunity to enter some religious order. Father Barat did not doubt her religious vocation, but he wanted to find out more precisely how it could be fulfilled. Her divine Spouse was himself preparing her for the exalted destination of a foundress and spiritual mother in his church; and when she had attained her twentieth year, this vocation was made known to her and accepted with a docility like that of the Blessed Virgin Mary to the angel’s message.

The history of the origin of the Society of the Sacred Heart of Jesus requires us to go back some years and relate some events which prepared the way for it. Four young priests, Léonor and Xavier de Tournély, Pierre Charles Leblanc, and Charles de Broglie, had formed a society under the name of the Sacred Heart, intended as a nucleus for the re-establishment of the Society of Jesus. The superior was Father Léonor de Tournély, a young man of angelic sanctity, and a favorite pupil of the saintly Sulpician, M. l’Abbé Emery. This young priest received an inspiration to form a congregation of women specially devoted to the propagation of the devotion of the Sacred Heart and the higher education of girls. The first woman selected by him as the foundress of the new society was the Princess de Condé, under whom a small community was formed at Vienna, but soon dispersed by the departure of the princess to join the Trappistines. Soon after Father de Tournély died, having scarcely attained his thirtieth year, leaving in his last moments the care of carrying out his project to Father Varin. Joseph Varin d’Ainville was a young man of good family, who, after passing some time in a seminary, had left it to join the army of the Prince de Condé, with whom he made several campaigns. He had been won back to his first vocation through the prayers of his mother, offered for this purpose on the eve of ascending the scaffold at Paris, and the influence of his former companions, the four young fathers of the Sacred Heart above named. On the very day of the prayer offered by his heroic mother he was determined to return back to the ecclesiastical life on receiving communion at Vanloo, in Belgium, when he had met his four saintly friends, whose society he immediately joined. Having been elected superior of the society after the death of Father de Tournély in 1797, Father Varin was persuaded to merge it in another society formed by a certain Father Passanari under the title of the Fathers of the Holy Faith, which was also intended as a nucleus for the revival of the Order of Jesuits. The Archduchess Maria Anna, sister of the Emperor of Germany, was selected to form in Rome, under the direction of Father Passanari, a society of religious women according to the plan of De Tournély, and she went there for that purpose, accompanied by two of her maids of honor, Leopoldina and Louisa Naudet. Early in the year 1800 Father Varin returned to Paris with some companions, and Father Barat was received into his society. In this way he became acquainted with Sophie, and her direction was confided to him, to her great spiritual solace and advantage; for he guided her with suavity and prudence in a way which gave her heart liberty to expand, and infused into it that generosity and confidence which became the characteristic traits of her piety, and were transmitted as a precious legacy by her to her daughters in religion. As soon as Father Varin had learned the secrets of the interior life of his precious disciple, and had determined her vocation to the same work which had been already begun in Rome by the three ladies above mentioned, three others were admitted to share with her in the formation of the little Society of the Sacred Heart. One of these was Mlle. Octavie Bailly, another was Mlle. Loquet, the third was a pious servant-girl named Marguérite, who became the first lay sister of the society. On the 21st of November, the Feast of Our Lady’s Presentation, the little chapel was decorated in a modest and simple way. Father Varin said Mass. After the Elevation the four aspirants pronounced the act of consecration to the Sacred Heart of Jesus, and afterwards they received communion.

This was the true inauguration of the Society of the Ladies of the Sacred Heart, for the attempt made at Rome by the archduchess proved a failure; the intriguing, ambitious character of Father Passanari was detected, and Father Varin renounced all connection with him and his projects. These events occurred, however, at a later period, and for some time yet to come the little community in France remained affiliated to the mother-house in Rome.

The first house of the Ladies of the Sacred Heart, the one which has always been called the cradle of the society, was founded at Amiens one year after the consecration of the postulants in the little chapel of the Rue Touraine. A college was established in that city by the Fathers of the Holy Faith, and a visit which Father Varin made there early in the year 1801, for the purpose of giving a mission and preparing for the opening of the college, led to an arrangement with some zealous priests and pious ladies of Amiens for transferring a small school of young ladies to the care of Sophie Barat and her companions. Two of these ladies of Amiens, Mlle. Geneviève Deshayes and Mlle. Henriette Grosier, joined the community, of which Mlle. Loquet was appointed the superior. This lady proved to be entirely unfit for her position, and after some months returned to her former useful and pious life in Paris. Mlle. Bailly, after waiting for a considerable time to test her vocation, at length followed her first attraction and left her dear friend Sophie for the Carmelites. Sophie Barat, with the consent of her companions, was appointed by Father Varin to the office of superior, much to her own surprise and terror, for she was the youngest and the most humble of her sisters; and from this moment until her death, in the year 1865, she continued to be the Reverend Mother of the Society of the Ladies of the Sacred Heart, through all its periods of successive development and extension. It was on the 21st of December, 1802, soon after her twenty-third birthday, that she was definitively placed in this her true position, for which divine Providence had so wonderfully prepared her. She had been admitted to make the simple vows of religion on the 7th of June preceding, in company with Madame Deshayes. The community and school increased and prospered, and on the Feast of St. Michael the Archangel, Sept. 29, 1804, they were installed in their permanent residence, one of the former houses of the Oratory of Cardinal de Berulle. The community at this date comprised twelve members, including postulants. Their names were Madeleine-Sophie Barat, Geneviève Deshayes, Henriette Grosier, Rosalie-Marguérite Debrosse, Marie du Terrail, Catharine-Emilie de Charbonnel, Adèle Bardot, Felicité Desmarquest, Henriette Ducis, Thérèse Duchâtel, Madame Baudemont, and Madame Coppina. The two last-mentioned ladies afterwards brought the society into a crisis of the gravest peril, and finally withdrew from it, as we shall see later. Of the others, Mesdames Deshayes, Grosier, de Charbonnel, Desmarquest, and Ducis were among the most eminent and efficient of the first set of co-workers with the holy foundress herself in the formation and government of the society and its great schools and novitiates. The final rupture with Father Passanari had already been effected, and Madame Barat was therefore the sole head of the society, under the direction of Father Varin. Twelve years elapsed before the constitutions of the society were drawn up and adopted, and during this period the first foundations were made, a most dangerous and well-nigh fatal crisis was safely passed, the spirit and methods of the new institute were definitely formed; thus laying the basis for the subsequent increase and perfection of the vast edifice of religion and instruction whose corner-stone was laid by the humble and gracious little maiden of Joigny in the depths of her own pure and capacious heart. St. John of the Cross says that “God bestows on the founder such gifts and graces as shall be proportionate to the succession of the order, as the first fruits of the Spirit.” The whole subsequent history of the Society of the Sacred Heart shows that this was fulfilled in the person of Sophie Barat. After the second foundation had been made in an old convent of the Visitation at Grenoble, Madame Baudemont was made superior at Amiens, and the first council was held for the election of a superior-general. Madame Barat was elected by a bare majority of one; for a party had already been formed under sinister influences which was working against her and in opposition to Father Varin, and seeking to change altogether the spirit of the new institute. From this time until the year 1816 Madame Barat was merely a superior in name and by courtesy at Amiens, and she was chiefly employed in founding new houses, forming the young communities, and acquiring sanctity by the exercise of patience and humility. The new foundations were at Poitiers, Cuignières, Niort, and Dooresele near Ghent; and of course the society received a great number of new subjects, some of whom became its most distinguished members—as, for instance, Madame Duchesne, the pioneer of the mission to America, Madame de Gramont d’Aster and her two daughters, Madame Thérèse Maillucheau, Madame Bigeu, Madame Prévost, Madame Giraud, and the angelic counterpart of St. Aloysius, Madame Aloysia Jouve. We must not pass over in silence the benediction given on two occasions by the august pontiff Pius VII. to Madame Barat and her daughters. At Lyons she had a long conversation with him, in which she explained to his great satisfaction the nature and objects of her holy work, and she also received from his hands Holy Communion. At Grenoble all the community and pupils received his benediction, and of these pupils eleven, upon whose heads his trembling hands were observed to rest with a certain special insistance, received the grace of a religious vocation. Another incident which deserves mention is the last visit of Madame Barat to her father. The strict rules of a later period not having been as yet enacted, she never failed, when passing near Joigny on her visitations, to stay for a short time with her parents, often taking with her some of the ladies of her society who were of noble or wealthy families, that she might testify before them how much she honored and loved the father and mother to whom she owed so great a debt of gratitude. On her annual _fête_ she used to send them the bouquets which were presented to her. During her father’s last illness she came expressly to see and assist him in preparing for death, and, though obliged to bid him adieu before he had departed this life, she left him consoled and fortified by her last acts of filial affection, and he peacefully expired soon after her departure from Joigny, on the 25th of June 1809.

At the first council the spirit of disunion already alluded to prevented Father Varin and Madame Barat from undertaking the work of preparing constitutions for the society. A brief and simple programme of a rule was drawn up and approved by the bishops under whose jurisdiction the houses were placed, and Madame Barat became herself the living rule and model, on which her subjects and novices were formed. Father Varin had resigned his office of superior when Madame Barat was formally elected by the council of professed members their superior-general. Another ecclesiastic of very different spirit, who was the confessor of the community and the school at Amiens, M. l’Abbé de St. Estéve, was ambitious of the honor and influence which justly belonged to Father Varin. He obtained a complete dominion at Amiens by means of Madame de Baudemont, a former Clarissine, who was gained over by his adroit flattery and artful encouragement of the love of sway and pre-eminence which her commanding talents, her former conventual experience, and her mature age, together with the advantage of her position as local superior, entrusted to her against Father Varin’s advice, gave a too favorable opportunity of development. M. de St. Estéve arrogated to himself the title of founder of the society, and planned an entire reconstitution of the same under the bizarre title of _Apostolines_, and with a set of rules which would have made an essential alteration of the institute established by Father Varin. All the other houses besides Amiens were in dismay and alarm. Madame Penaranda, a lady of Spanish extraction, descended from the family of St. Francis Borgia, who was superior at Ghent, separated her house from the society by the authority of the bishop of the diocese. She returned, however, some years later, with seventeen of her companions, to the Society of the Sacred Heart.