“I must now return to London, and relate what happened after John Lilly was taken, and the gentleman imprisoned with whom I rented my London house. This house being now closed to me, I sought out another, but on a different plan. I did not now join in partnership with any one, because I was unwilling to be in the house of one known to be a Catholic. I managed that this new house should be hired by a nephew of Master Roger Lee, whom with his wife I had reconciled to the Catholic Church; and, as he was not known to be a Catholic, the house was entirely free from all suspicion. I had the use of this house for three years, and during that time it was not once searched; nor even before the Queen's death, though there were many general searches made, and the prisons were choked with Catholics, did they ever come to this house. “I had a man to keep the house who was a schismatic, but otherwise an honest and upright person. When I was in residence, this man provided me with necessaries; and when I was away, he managed any business for me according to my written directions. In all appearance he was the servant of the gentleman who owned the house, and so he was esteemed and called by the neighbours; and since, as a schismatic, he frequented their churches, they entertained no suspicion of him, nor of the house. “For myself, when I came to town, I always entered the house after dark, and in summer time scarce ever went out while I remained there. But my friends would come to visit me by ones and twos on different days, that no special attention might be drawn to the house from the number of visitors. Nor did they ever bring any servants with them, though some were of very high rank, and usually went about with a large number of attendants. By these means I provided better for them and for myself, and was able to continue longer in this way of life....” “When I was in London I did not allow every one to come to my house whose desire to converse with me I was willing to gratify; but I would sometimes, especially after dark in winter time, go myself to their houses. On one occasion I was asked [pg clix] “ ‘It would be better,’ said I, ‘to come more frequently, and then less preparation would be necessary. As it is, I should advise you to take a few days for the exact and diligent examination of your conscience, according to the method that I will show you; then you will come with greater fruit, and with greater satisfaction to yourself and to me. And for the future I would recommend a more frequent use of the holy Sacraments.’ And I brought some reasons for my advice. “He listened to me very patiently, and when I had finished he replied, ‘I will do in future what you recommend, and I would willingly follow your counsel at present, if it were possible; it is, however, impossible to put off my present confession.’ “ ‘Why is it impossible?’ I asked. “ ‘Because,’ he replied, ‘to-morrow I shall be in circumstances of danger, and I desire to prepare myself by confession to-day.’ “ ‘What danger is this,’ I asked again, ‘to which you will be exposed?’ “ ‘There is a gentleman at Court,’ he said, ‘who has grievously insulted me, so that I was compelled in defence of [pg clx] “ ‘My lord,’ I exclaimed, ‘to approach the Sacrament in such a frame of mind is not to prepare yourself for danger, nor to cleanse your soul (though I doubt not it was with a good intention you proposed it), but rather to sully your soul more than ever, to affront God still further, and render Him still more your enemy. For to come to confession with a determination of taking vengeance is to put an obstacle to the grace of the Sacrament; and, moreover, this particular action on which you are resolved is not only a sin, but is visited with excommunication. I urge you, therefore, to give up this intention; you will be able to preserve your honour by some other way. Nay, the honour you think to preserve by this is not real honour, but merely the estimation of bad men founded on bad principles: men who exalt their own worldly ideas above the law and honour of God.’ “ ‘It is impossible to withdraw now,’ he said, ‘for the thing is known to many, and has been taken even to the Queen, who has expressly forbidden us to pursue the matter any further.’ “ ‘Well then,’ said I, ‘you have the best possible reason for laying aside the quarrel, namely, obedience to the Queen's behest. Moreover, you must remember that you are known for the intimate friend of the Earl of Essex, and that, if you overcome your adversary, the Queen (if it be only to spite the Earl) will certainly visit you with some heavy punishment for having disregarded her commands; but if you should kill him, unquestionably she will take your life. On the other hand, if you should be vanquished, what becomes of the honour you wish to defend, and if you should be slain in that state of soul in which you go to the fight, you go straight to eternal fire and everlasting shame, for while you are defending your body from your adversary's sword, you forget to parry the mortal thrust that the devil is aiming at your soul.’ “But spite of all I could say, the fear of the world, which is fatally powerful with men of this rank, prevailed, and his reply was, ‘I implore you, Father, to pray for me, and to hear my confession if you possibly can.’ “ ‘Certainly I cannot hear you,’ I said, ‘for that honour [pg clxi] “He took my gift very thankfully and reverentially, and had it sewed inside his shirt over his heart, for it was arranged that they should fight in their shirts without cuirass. It happened, God so allowing it, that his adversary made a lunge at his heart and pierced his shirt, but did not touch his skin. He on his side wounded and prostrated his enemy, then gave him his life and came off victorious. He then came to me in high spirits, and told me how he had been preserved by the power of the Holy Cross; then he thanked me very earnestly, and promised to be more on his guard in future. The Queen soon after took a fancy to this young nobleman, and kept him close to her at Court for a time. But tiring soon of this sort of life, at his father's death he married the widow of the Earl of Essex. She was a heretic when he married her, but he soon made her a Catholic, and they both live now as Catholics in Ireland, as I hear. “That Knight, moreover, who introduced this young Baron to me, followed my counsel at that time, and after devoting several days to a diligent examination of conscience, made a general confession of his whole life, with a view of reforming it for the future. A little later he was desirous of returning to the Irish wars, but as I was in doubt whether this was lawful in conscience, he promised me to resign his appointment and return to England, if the Priests there, to whom I referred him [pg clxii] “After his death a remarkable incident occurred, which I will relate. His wife, pious soul, who never had the least idea of her husband's death, about that time heard every night some one knocking at her chamber door, and that so loudly as to wake her. Her maids heard it too, but on opening the door there was no one to be seen. She therefore got a Priest to stay with her and her maids till the usual time of the knocking, and when the same noise and knocking at the door were heard, the Priest himself went to the door, but found no one. This knocking went on till such time as news of her husband's death reached her, as if it had been a warning from his Angel to pray for his soul....” “Having held this house for three years, I let it to a Catholic friend, and took another house near the principal street in London, called the Strand. Since most of my friends lived in that street, they were thus able to visit me more easily, and I them. After my removal I discovered how entirely free from suspicion was the house which I had left, and in which I had dwelt for three years; for the servant who kept my house sent for a gardener with whom he had been acquainted in the other house (for the garden of the new house needed to be put in order), and the gardener remarked to him, ‘Some Papists have come to live in your old house:’ as though they who had previously dwelt there had been good Protestants. “This new house was very suitable and convenient, and had private entrances on both sides, and I had contrived in it some most excellent hiding-places; and there I should long have remained, free from all peril or even suspicion, if some friends of mine, while I was absent from London, had not availed themselves [pg clxiii] “Meantime my friends brought me another who was heir to a barony, and is himself now a peer, and by God's grace I persuaded him to take on his shoulders the yoke of the law of Christ and of the Catholic faith, and made him a member of the Church. Another whom I had previously known in the world, and had seen to be wholly devoted to every kind of vanity, fell sick. He had abounded with riches and pleasures, and passed his days in jollity, destined, however, to fall from thence in a moment, had not God patiently waited, and in a suitable time led him to penance. He then was lying sick of a grievous illness, but yet had not begun to think of death. I heard that he was sick, and obtained an entry into his chamber at eleven o'clock at night, after the departure of his friends. He recognized me, and was pleased at my visit. I explained why I had come, and warned him to think seriously of the state of his soul, and, instead of a Judge, render God a Friend and most loving Father, however much he might have wasted all his substance. So then weakness of body opened the ears of his heart, and in an acceptable time God heard us, and in the day of salvation helped us; insomuch that he offered himself as at once ready to make his confession. I, however, said I would return on the following night, and advised him meantime to procure that there should be read to him, by a friend whom I named, Father Lewis of Grenada's Explanation of the Commandments: that after each Commandment he should occupy some little time in reflection, and call to mind how, and how often, he had offended against that Commandment; that he should then make an act of sorrow regarding each, and so go on to the next. He promised that he would do so, and I promised that I would return on the following night. This I did, and heard his confession; I gave him all the assistance I could, for the time had been short, especially for a sick man, to prepare for such a confession, but he dared no longer defer it, although he still seemed tolerably strong. I advised him to use the utmost care in discharging all his debts, which were great, through the extravagant expenditure in which he had indulged; I also [pg clxiv] “I also bade him prepare for the Holy Communion and Extreme Unction against the following night, and to have some pious book read to him meantime. He not only did what I advised, but exhorted all that came to visit him on the following day, to repent at once of their former life, and not defer their amendment as he had done: ‘Do not,’ he said, ‘look for the mercy which I have found, for this is to be presumptuous and to irritate God; for I have deserved hell a thousand times on this account.’ And much more to the same effect did he speak, with so much earnestness and freedom, that all marvelled at so sudden a change. They asked him to hide the cross which he had hanging from his neck (for I had lent him my own cross full of relics to kiss, and exercise acts of reverence and love); but he answered, ‘Hide it! Nay, I would not hide it, even if the most bitter heretics were here. Too long have I refrained from profession of the Catholic faith, and now, if God gave me life, I would publicly profess myself a Catholic:’ so that all marvelled and were much edified and moved at his words. He spoke thus to all the peers and great men that visited him. His conversion thus became publicly known, and many of the courtiers afterwards spoke of it. On the third night of my visiting him according to my promise, he again made his confession with great expressions of sorrow, and begged for the Sacrament of Extreme Unction, and when he received it, himself arranged for me more conveniently to reach the different parts of his body, just as though he had been a Catholic many years. Seeing him in such good disposition, I asked him whether he did not put all his trust in the merits of Christ and in the mercy of God. ‘Surely!’ said he; ‘did I not do so, and did not that mercy give me salvation, I should have been condemned to the pit of hell; in myself I find no ground of hope, but rather of trembling. But I feel great hope in the mercy and goodness of God, Who has so long waited for me, and now has called me when I deserved, aye, and thought of, anything but this!’ Then he took my hand and said, ‘Father, I cannot express how much I am indebted to you, for you were sent by [pg clxv] “About the same time I received into the Church a lady, the wife of a certain Knight, who is at the present day a very good and useful friend of our Fathers. Her husband was at this time a heretic, but his brother had been brought by me, through the Spiritual Exercises, to despise the world and follow the counsels of Christ. He introduced me to his sister, and after one or two interviews she embraced the Catholic faith, although she was [pg clxvi] “There were many other conversions, which I cannot mention separately, for I have already carried to too great length the narrative of these events, which are truly very insignificant if they are compared with the actions of others.” |