A CLERICAL SYMPOSIUM There is no law, supernatural or natural, forbidding us (who, if we have not many of the crosses, neither have we many of the pleasures of this life) from meeting sometimes, and carrying out St. Paul's prescriptions in the matter of hospitality. I believe, indeed, his words—and he was a wise, kind saint—apply principally to bishops; but why should not we imitate our superiors afar off, and practise the kindly virtue? It is good to meet sometimes and exchange opinions; it softens the asperities of daily life, makes the young think reverently of the old, and the old charitably of the young. At least, these are my views, and acting upon them there is always an open door and a Cead MilÉ FailtÉ for a brother; and a few times in the year I try to gather around me my dear friends, and thus to cement those bonds of friendship that make life a little more pleasant, and, perhaps, may keep our memories green. Sometimes, indeed, my dear old friends object to face a drive of eight or ten miles on a cold night in winter; but the young fellows always come. Nothing but extreme urgency would keep them away I have been now in touch with three generations of Irish priests, each as distinct from the other, and marked by as distinctive characteristics, as those which differentiate an Anglican parson from a mediÆval monk. My early education was colored by contact with the polished, studious, timid priests, who, educated in Continental seminaries, introduced into Ireland all the grace and dignity and holiness, and all the dread of secular authority with the slight tendency to compromise, that seemed to have marked the French clergy, at least in the years immediately succeeding the revolutions and the Napoleonic wars. These were the good men who fraternized with landlords, and lent their congregations to a neighboring parson on the occasion of some governmental visitation; who were slightly tinged with Gallican ideas, and hated progress and the troubles that always accompany it. They were holy, good, kindly men, but they could hardly be called officers of the Church Militant. Then came Maynooth, which, founded on governmental subsidies, poured from its gates the strongest, fiercest, most fearless army of priests that ever fought for the spiritual and temporal interests of the people,—men of large physique and iron constitutions, who spent ten hours a day on horseback, despised French claret, loved their people and chastised them like fathers, "Ah, but, Father Dan, they were giants in those days." And the tags and shreds of poor human nature wave in the wind of flattery; and I feel grateful for the modest appreciation of a generation that has no sympathy with our own. Then, down there, below the water-line of gray heads is the coming generation of Irish priests, who, like the λαμπαδηφοροι of old in the Athenian games, will take the torch of faith from our hands and carry it to the Acropolis of Heaven,—clean-cut, small of stature, keen-faced, bicycle-riding, coffee-drinking, encyclopÆdic young fellows, who will give a good account of themselves, I think, in the battles of the near future. It is highly amusing to a disinterested spectator, like myself, to watch the tolerant contempt with which the older generation regards the younger. They have as much contempt for coffee as for ceremonies, and I think their mistakes in the latter would form a handsome volume of errata, or add another ap This evening, as usual, the conversation was discursive. It ranged over the whole area of human knowledge and experience, from the price of a horse to Lehmkuhl's Latinity, and from the last political speech to the everlasting question, ever discussed and never decided, What is meant by the month's residence as a condition for the acquisition of a domicile? That horrible drug was irritating the nerves of the younger men, until I heard, as in a dream, a Babel of voices:—"The two Ballerini,"—"They'll never arrest him,"—"He'll certainly fire on the people,"—"Daniel never wrote that book, I tell you,"—"'T is only a ringbone,"—"Fifty times worse than a sprain,"—"He got it in the Gregorian University,"—"Paddy Murray, George Crolly,"—"I admire At last, the conversation simmered down into an academic debate, whether the centripetal system, which concentrates all Irish students in Maynooth, or the centrifugal, which sends them scampering over the Continent to the ancient universities, was the better. This was a calm, judicious tournament, except now and again, when I had to touch the gong, and say: "Gentlemen, only three at a time, if you please." It was a curious thing to notice that those who had studied in Maynooth were very much in favor of a Continental education; and those who had been in foreign universities were rather inclined to give the verdict for Maynooth. "You see," said one, "it is an education in itself to go abroad. It means expansion, and expansion is education. Then you have the immense advantage of being able to learn and master the foreign languages and literature, and nowadays a man that can't speak French at least is a very helpless creature." "You take it for granted," replied another, "that residence abroad insures a knowledge of French. I spent six years in the seminary at N——, and except cela va sans dire, tant pis, and a few other colloquialisms, which you will find on the last page of an English dictionary, I might as well have been in Timbuctoo." "Well," said my curate,—and though he is not very popular, somehow or other his words appear to carry great weight,—"I must confess that the regret of my life is that I had not an opportunity of studying in Rome, just as the hope of my life is that I shall see Rome before I die. I consider that the greatest Irish college in the world, in numbers and in the influence that arises from intellectual superiority, should be somewhere within the shadows of the Seven Hills." "Why not transfer the Dunboyne, with all its endowments and emoluments, to Rome?" asked a young, eager fellow, who says he can read the Office, going ten miles an hour on the bicycle. "'T wouldn't ever do," said a Roman student; "you must be brought up in Rome to understand its spirit. Transplanted shoots never thrive there." "Psha!" said an old Maynooth man, who had been listening impatiently to these suggestions; "we forgot more theology in Maynooth than you ever learned." "I don't want to disparage your knowledge of theology, Father," said my curate, sweetly, "but you know there are other elements in priestly education besides the mere propositions, and the solvuntur objecta of theology. And it is in Rome these subtle and almost intangible accomplishments are acquired." Now, this was getting a little warm; so I winked at a young fellow down along the table, and he took the hint promptly, and cried out: "Look here, Father Dan, this is tiresome. Tell us how you managed the Irish Brigade in France in the fifties. Weren't they going to throw Marseilles into the sea?" "Now, now," said I, "that won't do. I'm not going to be trotting out that old chestnut at every dinner party. Let us have a song!" And we had, and a good many of them,—dear, Dear me! what a mercurial race we are; and how the mercury runs up and down in the barometer of our human hearts! I could see the young priests' faces whitening at the words: "God prosper old Ireland! You'd think them afraid, So pale grew the chiefs of the Irish Brigade!" and softening out in lines of tenderness when the end came: "For, on far foreign fields, from Dunkirk to Belgrade, Lie the soldiers and chiefs of the Irish Brigade." Then we had "The West's Awake," and "Dear Land," and then we all arose and sang together, "God bless the Pope, the great, the good." I was going to say "sang in unison," but I am afraid I should be trespassing on the sacred precincts of truth; yet if that grand old man in Rome, that electric spark in the vase of alabaster, sitting in that lonely chamber, behind the long, Then came the "Good nights." I pulled aside an old friend, a great theologian, who has all kinds of musty, dusty, leather-bound, water-stained volumes on his shelves. "Did you ever hear," I whispered, "of a mysterious thing, called the Kampaner Thal?" "Never," he said, emphatically. "You couldn't conjecture what it is?" "No," he said, with deliberation; "but I can aver it is neither Greek, Latin, nor Irish." "Would you mind looking up your cyclopÆdias," I pleaded, "and letting me know immediately that you find it?" "Of course," he replied. Then, jerking his thumb over his shoulder: "I suppose it is this chap?" "It is," I said. "He reads a good deal—" "Look here, Father Dan, I don't know what we're coming to. Did you ever see such a sight as that table to-night?" "Never," I replied, resignedly. "Would any one believe, when we came on the mission, that we'd live to see such things? Why, these fellows talk up to us as if we were their "Of course," I replied, demurely. "And it is only now I am beginning to discover the vagaries of this chap of mine. Do you know what he wants? A shrine, if you please,—some kind of picture, with candles lighting before it all day. 'Can't you say your Rosary,' I said, 'like your betters?' No, he should have the shrine. And now he wants to force on Benediction every Sunday,—not every first Sunday of the month, but every Sunday, if you please. And he has a big red lamp, burning in what he calls his oratory. You can see it miles away. I say to the boys, 'Don't be afraid to put to sea at night now, boys. Begor, ye 've got a lighthouse at last.' Well, good by! What's this thing you want?" And he jotted down the name, I presume phonetically, in his note-book. Now, mind, that man has not had a scandal in his parish for fourteen years; and he is up to his neck in securities for half the farmers of the district. All this time, shrinking into an obscure corner of the hall, was my CurÉ d'Ars, as I call him. He now came forward to say good night, his thin face wreathed in smiles, and his two hands stretched out in thankfulness. "Good night, Father Dan, and a thousand thanks. I never spent a pleasanter evening. What fine His curate was waiting respectfully. He now got the little man into his great-coat, and buttoned it from collar to boot, the latter murmuring his thanks all the time:— "Dear me! dear me! what a trouble I am! Many thanks! Many thanks! There, now I am all right!" Then his muffler was wrapped carefully around his neck by this big grenadier, and his gloves were drawn over his hands. "Dear me! dear me! how good! how kind! I'm a regular mummy! a real Egyptian mummy, Father Dan! Good night! good night! Dear me, what a pleasant gathering!" And the stalwart curate lifted him on his car, as if he were an infant. A few days later we had a long chat over many things, I and my curate. When he was going he said:— "That was a real jolly evening, Father Dan! I never enjoyed anything so much!" "Yes," I said, "and you had a splendid audience for that noble song!" "Yes, indeed; they were very kind." "Oh, I don't mean in foro interno," I said, "but "My God!" he cried, quite shocked. "What a scandal!" "Not a bit of it," I said; "you've gone up a hundred per cent in the estimation of the villagers. There was a real fight for the window-sill. But your friend, Jem Deady, captured it." He looked dreadfully annoyed. "Jem says that he kept awake all night trying to remember the notes; and if you'd give him the words of the song and whistle it—" "What!" said Father Letheby, like a pistol-shot. "And if you'd give him two or three audiences—I suppose he means rehearsals on the piano—he is quite sure—" Dear me! how some people despise popularity! |