Chapter II

After our author had completed the usual course of study, he was admitted as alumnus of Douay college, and appointed _professor of philosophy_. The Newtonian system of philosophy was about that time gaining ground in the foreign universities. He adopted it, in part, into the course of philosophy which he dictated to the students. He read and considered with great attention the metaphysical works of Woolfe and Leibnitz. He did not admire them, and thought the system of pre-established harmony laid down in them irreconcilable with the received belief or opinions of the Roman Catholic church on the soul; and that much of their language, though susceptible of a fair interpretation, conveyed improper notions, or, at least, sounded offensively to Catholic ears. The late Mr. John Dunn, his contemporary at the college, frequently mentioned to the editor the extreme caution which our author used in inserting any thing new in his dictates, particularly on any subject connected with any tenet of religion. After teaching a course of philosophy, he was appointed _professor of divinity_. On this part of his life the editor has been favored by a gentleman deservedly damed for his erudition and piety, the reverend Robert Bannister, with a long letter, of which the reader is presented with an extract.

"I was contemporary with Mr. Alban Butler in Douay college eight years; viz. from October, 1741 to October, 1749. But as I was but a boy the greater part of that time, I had not any intimacy with him, nor was I capable of knowing any thing concerning his interior, the manner of his prayer, or the degrees to which he ascended in it, or any extraordinary communications or elevations to which the Holy Ghost, the great master and teacher of contemplation, might raise him. All that I can say is, that he opened Douay college great door to me and a gentleman whom I knew not, but who was so good as to bring me from Lisle in his coach, on Sunday between ten and eleven, the 15th of October, 1741; and the first sight of him appeared to me then so meek and so amiable, that I thought I would choose him for my ghostly father; but another, I suppose in rotation, adopted me. Mr. Alban was my sole master in my first year of divinity in 1749, and dictated the two treatises _De Decalogo et De Incarnatione_; he also presided over my defensions upon those two treatises, and over Mr. James Talbot's (the late bishop of London) upon universal divinity. As to heroic acts of virtue, which strike with admiration all that see or hear of them, I cannot recollect more than a uniform, constant observance of all the duties of a priest, professor, and confessarius. He was always at morning meditations, seldom omitted the celebration of the holy sacrifice of the mass, which he said with a heavenly composure, sweetness, and recollection; studying and teaching assiduously, dictating with an unwearied patience so equally and leisurely, that every one could, if he wished to do it, write his dictates in a clear and legible hand; nor do I remember that he ever sent a substitute to dictate for him; so exact and punctual he was in his duty as a professor. I never knew one more ready to go to the confession-seat, at the first intimation of any, even the least or youngest boy. He heard his penitents with wonderful meekness; and his penetration, learning, judgment, and piety, were such as to move them to place in him a singular confidence. He frequently visited the military hospital, to instruct, exhort, and hear the confessions of Irish soldiers. He sometimes assembled a number of them (when they happened to be quartered in Douay) in the college-church of St. Thomas of Canterbury, and preached to them. In one of his sermons I remember he told them, for their example and encouragement, that there are more soldiers saints than of any other vocation, or state, or condition. As poor, and often distressed, Irish men and women frequently came to Douay, he was always ready to relieve them, and administer both corporal and spiritual succors. It can never be forgotten what attention, solicitude, and care he had, in the year 1745, of our English soldiers, wounded and maimed, who were brought prisoners to Douay, and quartered in the barracks, in great numbers, after the battle of Fontenoy. He animated both by words and example all the young priests, and all in holy orders at the college, to visit them, to instruct and instil into them serious thoughts of saving their souls by embracing the only saving faith, and by true repentance.{018} He also procured for them temporal succor and relief so beneficently, that the duke of Cumberland, then generalissimo of the British and allied armies, being informed of it, promised him a special protection whensoever he came over into England. Scarce any thing affords one a better proof of Mr. Alban's eminent spirit of piety and great understanding, discretion, and light in spiritual matters, than his familiarity and friendship with M. Jean Baptiste de Villers, president of the seminary des Eveques in the university of Douay, who died October the 7th, 1746, the death of a saint, after having lived the life of one for seventy-eight years. This M. de Villers was eminent in all supernatural and moral virtues, but he concealed them under an amiable simplicity, and a plain unaffected behavior or exterior, unless charity and zeal for the glory of God and salvation of souls required their open and full exertion; and, notwithstanding his great learning, (which he had acquired by an excellent genius and diligent application to sacred studies,) and his great and solid fund of piety, he was as docile as an infant; so timorous and diffident of his own judgment, that he would neither do nor decide any thing without counsel. With this sentiment of diffidence and humility, he often visited (says M. Leroy, the faithful imitator and writer of the history of his life) a young professor, a foreigner, (that is, Alban Butler,) and passed an hour or two in his company in the afternoon, once every week, and sometimes twice, several years, until his edifying death. Their conversation together was solely about various points of morality; about the direction of souls, and the method of arriving at perfection in every action and intention; how to teach devout persons a habit of making continual aspirations to God, by acts of love, oblation, entire sacrifice of their hearts, of humility, &c. M. de Villers would not suffer more than half a small fagot to be kindled for him in the severest weather, saying to Mr. Alban, 'the other part may serve some poor person.' As to wine, or any other liquor, he never drank any but at meal-time. I remember to have heard an instance of Mr. Alban's meekness, for I am not a witness of it. When he was presiding over one of his students in divinity in the public hall of Douay college, a disputant, who was probably much offended at some proposition in the thesis, as being opposite to some favorite opinion of his school or religious family, said to him with intolerable rudeness, _habes mel in ore, sed fel in corde_: to which he made no reply, nor showed the least resentment. Mr. Alban Butler was totally averse to the system of probabilism, and to all assertions that favor laxity in morale. This is evident from the dictates which he delivered to us, from his treatise _De Decalogo, de actibus humanis_, in his _Epitome moralis sacramentorum_, &c. It is still more evident from his _Epitome de sex prioribus conciliis [oe]cumenicis in calce tractanus de Incarnatione_, that he had the highest veneration for the holy see, and for him who sits in the chair of St. Peter; that he constantly held and maintained the rights and singular prerogatives of St. Peter and his successors, in calling, presiding over, and confirming general or [oe]cumenical councils; the pope's superiority over the whole church, and over the whole college of bishops, and over a general council; the irreformability of his doctrinal decisions in points of faith and morale; his supreme power to dispense (when there is cause) in the canons of general councils; in short, the plenitude of his authority over the whole chorus, without exception or limitation, _Nihil excipitur ubi distinguitur nihil_."