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BERNARD VAUGHAN, S.J.

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Nihil obstat :

INNOCENTIUS APAP., O.P.,

Censor depufatus.

Imprimatur :

EDM. CAN. SURMONT,

Vic. Gen.

Westmonasterii,

die I AuGUSTi, 1923.

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Father Bernard Vaughan

1

BERNARD VAUGHAN, S.J.

BY

( MARTINDALE, S.J.

of Tlu Life of Robert Hugh Benson, Thi Life of C. D. Plater. S.J., The Goddess of Ghosts, eti.

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y means of the preachin

that i.'hI has thought well to save them

that believe. "

/ Corittthians. i, 21 \^\V aiminstir ^ ersion,

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BERNARD VAUGHAN, S.J

BY

C. C. MARTINDALE, S.J

Author of The Life of Robert Hin^h Benson,

The Life of C. D. Plater, S.J.,

The Goddess of Ghosts, etc.

It is by means of the preaching of ' folly '

that C'.od has thought well to save them

that beheve."

/ Corinthians, i, 21 (Westminster Version]

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Willi I LLl SI RATIOS'

LONGMANS. GREEN AND CO

39 PATERNOSTER ROW. LONDON, E.C. 4

NEW YORK. TORONTO ^ "

BOMBAY. CALCUTTA AND MADR.\S /

1923 /^ f

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SAINT MARY'S AND SAINT MICHAEL'S,

COMMERCIAL ROAD, EAST.

Made in Great Britain.

FOREWORD

My Dear Canon Ring,

As, I think, you know, I accepted to write this Memoir with a good deal of reluctance and yet witli a certain pleasure.

First, I felt quite incapable of doing it properly. I am not sure that anyone could do it properly. For after all a memoir ought to be able to make a reader know what the man, about whom it is, was like. But how could anyone convey what Fr. Vaughan was like ? It was very seldom what he did, or even what he said, that so " got h(jld of " people, but his special way of saying tilings and doing them. \\'hy, the very tone of his voice, its extraordinary changes, ought to be " conveyed " to anyone who wants to know what he was " like " — and how can that be done in print ? And his deluge of vitality, in which you were either swept forward or swept under, which delighted you or drowned you — how can a book show that ?

Then I have to own that, like many other people, I was not nuuh in love with the special methods and mannerisms which made, not for his force, but for his fame. That is no criticism on him. but a warning against myself ; let no one, in this matter of mere taste judge him, but me. and discount my opinions accordingly. I used to chaff him

vi FOREWORD

quite frankly about it. I used to tell him that while I would put up with hearing him lecture, if I had to, yet I would walk miles not to hear him preach. It was part of his immense goodness that one could say that sort of thing to him, and rely on his understanding. In fact, he used to retort in kind.

Again, when I had begun to try to write the Memoir, I felt often in despair when whole tracts of his life seemed to afford no evidence at all. Prac- tically no documents were available for any of his earlier years in the Society of Jesus. But how can one study a man's development if one knows nothing of his youth ? And when, later on, hundreds of sermon-notebooks began to descend upon one, and thousands of newspaper-cuttings to beat about one's head, how disconcerting to find that there was very little use to be made of any of them.

The character of the evidence, then, satisfied me that the book must anyhow be a short one.

As for mannerisms, well, what were they compared to what I called, and shall go on calling, his immense goodness ? For I believed thoroughly in Fr. Vaughan. I believed him to be good, and greatly good. He had a real humility, a most generous heart, a most long-suffering charity ; and he was, really, the most simple of men. Unless this sim- plicity be recognised along with, and in, all his performances, he is being misunderstood from A to Z. But how, in a written sketch, can one " con- vey " simplicity ? It is the one thing that cannot be illustrated by elaboration.

FOREWORD vii

Well, 1 have thought that by means of a Memoir I might at least connect the thought of him with the thought of you and of your Mission. For a lumdred who knew about his Society Sermons, not more than one or two know about his work among the poor and the desolate, or, if they do, have not been slow to quote it as one more piece of play-acting. No. Even before I went into those East End homes along with }ou, I felt sure that I should hnd there an unforgetting gratitude. There, he was happy. He knew that there he would not be criticised for shallowness, nor asked for contro- versy, nor praised for being a " man of the world," " broad-mind«^d." despite his priesthood and his Catholicism. Not but what there were many, even in that Far West, who had eyes to see, and were not taken in by journalists — or his own journalism. But in the chapels of poor convents, and at \-our street corners, he could in all simplicit}', and well at ease, speak of the Love of God, the Name of Jesus, the Motherhood of Mary, the joys of heaven, and none would doubt him.

Therefore may these pages be of service at least to you.

I am. Dear Canon,

Yours very sincerely in Clirist,

C. C. MARTINDALE. S.J.

Mount Street.

Those who have helped me are too numerous to thank by name. I ought, however, to mention in particular the members of Fr. Vaughan's family, especially Major C. J. Vaughan, of Courtfield ; and Fr, E. King, S.J., who so kindly arranged many of Fr. Vaughan's papers before I had time enough to plunge into what would else have been their chaos. May I say at the outset that I do not propose to quote much verbatim from his sermons ? They were sermons, and not essays, and scarcely bear quotation. Even his lectures, in which I think the real man revealed himself rather than in his sermons, were hardly meant to be fixed in print. His books are still accessible ; but even these were " occasional " rather than intended as permanent contributions to Catholic literature. It will be seen how far from valueless I think them : all the same, I doubt whether quotation is the best way of conveying their worth to those who never knew the writer.

CONTENTS

PART I— THE PREPARATION'

I. AT HOME

II. AT SCHOOL

III. FIRST YEARS AS A JESUIT

15

27

PART II— THE DAY'S WORK

I. AT MANCHESTER

II. IX MAYFAIR

III. IN THE EAST END

IV. ABROAD

V. THE LAST YEARS

39

75

121

147 iSi

PART III— ADVESPERASCIT

I. SOUTH AFRICA

II. THE NURSERY

III. EPILOGUE

210

220

230

ILLUSTRATIONS

To face page FATHER BERNARD VAUGHAN - - Frontispiece

From a Photograph by Pirie MacDonald, New York.

FATHER BERNARD VAUGHAN AND THE CHIEF OF THE

IROQUOIS TRIBE - - - - 156

From a Photogiaph.

FATHER BERNARD VAUGHAN IN CHINA - I78

From a Photograph.

PORTRAIT, WITH AUTOGRAPH, I915 - - 182

From a Photograph by Dinham & Sons, Torquay.

PART I.

THE PREPARATION

This good Religious livde like a Bee in ye spirituall hive of holy Religion, still gathering hony and improving in vertu by all occasions . . for being borne and bred in pyety, by soe worthy Catholick parents, she expresst great sentiments of devotion in thos her younger years, but not ye least inclination to a Religious life ; but Allmighty God who certaynly had desighned her for on of his cheefe magazines of spirituall ritches, toucht her hart, with soe efficacious a call, yt notwithstanding all thos naturall oppositions well were many in her, fomented by ye craft and malice of our inuisible enemy, yet she firmly resolued upon a Reli- gious life ; and with such vigor and courage undertooke yt cource, and continued it, with soe much constancy and zeale as was of great example and edification to all.*

AT HOME

IT seems odd that the first difficulty encountered in \\Titing a memoir of Bernard Vaughan, should have been the discovery of his birth-place. Having alwa3^s been under the impression that he was born at Courtfield, his family's old home, we were not indeed disconcerted on finding that the room of his birth was being shown, at a shilling a head, in an Irish village. Few are the beds in which Queen Elizabeth did not sleep. But it was puzzling to find that in the Jesuit register the record that he

*From the Memoir of Dame Clare VaiiKban, O.S.B., who eutered, in 1056, the Benedictine Monastery four.ded at Boulogne in 1O52. The Lady Abbess was her aunt, and tlic Bishop of Boulogne who professed her was a friend and disciple of St. Vincent de Paul and cousin to M. Olier. She died November loUi, 16S3. Uae Community having moved to Pontoise. Dame Clare was daughter of Richard Vaughan and Bridget Wigmore. The Memoir was written by the Lady Abbess, Anne Ne\-iUe, daughter of Henry Lord Abergaveany, at the age of eighty-three.

2 LIFE OF FATHER BERNARD VAUGHAN

was born at Courtfield is carefully erased, and in insula Jersey substituted for it. No enquiry could discover that Bernard's parents so much as visited the Channel Islands, though a surmise that they might have done so during one of his father's re- current spells of economising was advanced. The handwriting in which the correction was made is recognisable, but the writer has passed beyond the reach of enquiry, and why he made it is not likely to become known. Anyhow, the Courtfield chapel register makes it clear that he was born there on September 20th, 1847, and was baptised on the 22nd by the Rev. Augustin Neary, the parish priest and chaplain, his godparents being " John Steinmetz and Elizabeth de la Pasture." He was named Bernard John.

It is not necessary to relate in detail the history of the Vaughans or even of their house. That has been done by more than one, and most accessibly and adequately by Mr J. G. Snead-Cox in his bio- graphy of Cardinal Herbert Vaughan, Bernard's eldest brother. Bernard grew up with a great devotion to his family, it is true ; but it was not his descent from contemporaries of King Arthur that preoccupied him. It was the fidelity of his ancestors to the Catholic Faith of which he was proud ; and indeed it was not till the early days of Elizabeth that the Vaughans settled at Court Field — as Bernard, when a boy, still used to write the name-i- in the south-west corner of Herefordshire, six miles from Ross.

Their record of fine, imprisonment, and double

AT HOME 3

land-tax was superb. Of the 50,000 acres that they once possessed, only a fragment was saved for them. The house saw Jesuit-hunts, and in William of Orange's time, Richard Vaughan was tied to his bed-post while his chaplain, Father James Richard- son, was hiding in the lime-kiln. . . . The \'aughans had always been Royahsts ; and the time came when they refused to take the oath of Hanoverian alle- giance, and in the '45 two of them rode off to Scot- land. After Culloden, they had to make for Spain, and I cannot but think that the strain of southern blood, infused b}' their marriages into the family, somehow worked itself out in the passion, if not in the effusiveness, of their descendent, Bernard, who, for these characteristics, seemed to many, who did not really know him, somewhat un-Englisli. The son of the elder of these two brothers, Richard, the great-grandfather of Bernard, returned to England, and found the estate still his ov/n : but he could not live there, and it was his son wlio rebuilt the present house.

WTiether or no any of the old house could have been saved — it is said that the stens alone of its lovely terraced gardens would have sufficed to build the modern house — cannot be now judged. At any rate, it was in this solid homo of stone and plaster that Bernard was born. It still lacked the Gothic chapel that now astonislies the Georgian cubism of the main building, and Mass was said in the room that has now been reconstructed to form the librar}'. But the Grecian pedimented front, with its flat Ionic pilasters, is unchanged, though the semi-

4 LIFE OF FATHER BERNARD VAUGHAN

circular porch, with its frieze of wreathed ox-skulls, may have been put up in his life-time.

Courtfield looks south and west from a shelf in a spur of hill long enough to merit almost the name of a peninsula, so does the Wye sweep round it. The hill has forced the water, first, to turn back upon itself and to run north-east, and then, twisted once more back round the steep promontory, to hurry south and west. No wonder the swift cur- rent, flung thus violently to and fro, plays all but the tricks of the stream of the Dardanelles, and makes the river dangerous to any save the strongest swimmers.

To left and front of the house, the deer-park drops quickly down to the water, and many-folded hills rise steep once more on the further side. Even in Bernard's boyhood these valleys were beginning to recognise their modern values, and a viaduct was built to serve the Lydbrook tin works, the smoke of whose chimneys can tell you, now, by its direc- tion, whether the day will rain, or, by its cessation, that the miners over in Wales are on strike ; and their copper coloured trickle makes an edge of poisonous slime along the stream. At least the southward valley did not then present the red- brick buildings of some cable-works which only the summer trees suffice to screen.

But you can get high enough to forget these sores on the country's face ; and through fields with gnarled hawthorn hedges, and woods misted with April larches or a pageant of beechen red and tawny in the autumn, you can climb to see five counties

AT HOME 5

spread before you, with spires and farms hardly different, from that height, from their ancient selves.

John Francis Vaughan, grandson of the Richard who returned from Spain, married, first, in 1830, Eliza, daughter of John Rolls, of The Hendre, a convert, and the aunt of the first Lord Llangattock. These were the parents of no less than fourteen children, of whom Bernard was the eleventh. Six of his eight brothers became priests, and all his sisters became nuns.

Colonel Vaughan was a man whom his children loved deeply, but whose own affection, though pro- found, was undemonstrative, and his quality of strength was not without its sternness. The Life of his eldest son, Herbert, offers a good picture of that home, to which, in days when everything was shut to Catholic gentlemen save the army and the land, he devoted himself, at first, altogether. His children were brought up with that austerity which our liimsy age derides or scientihcally disapproves. He would never allow them down to dessert, nor to receive dainties that might be sent up to the nursery from the dining-room. They dined at their parents' lunch, but even then were given no great libertv. Bernard once refused a dish, saying he didn't fancv it. " I do not wish my boys." said his father, "to indulge in fancies about food. Fancies are the privilege of your sisters." And once, when on the contrary the boy displayed too great a liking for some dish, his father told him that it was a poor thing to be a slave to any appetite or practice. A flash of the future audacity on Bernard's part — he

B

6 LIFE OF FATHER BERNARD VAUGHAN

reminded his father that at the end of dinner a large snuff-box was always brought to him, and that he took from it a " big pinch." Colonel Vaughan remained silent for a moment, then sent for the box, and threw it into the fire. " There goes the box," he said. " And that is the end of that bit of slavery." And I am assured that once, when Bernard was accused by a gardener of having stolen fruit, he innocently informed his father that it must have been the birds. The Colonel was betrayed into a rash allusion to " two-legged birds," and his son was not slow with the suitable retort. The Colonel controlled himself. . In fact, he was always a man of deliberate self-control. Once, when they were out partridge shooting, Herbert's gun some- how suddenly went off just as the party were collect- ing for lunch, and the whole charge " whizzed past his father's head." The Colonel, after one quick glance around, said : " Well, now let us unpack the basket." No wonder, then, that he insisted on practices which should lay the foundations of character. His boys, even when quite small, had to stand on chairs in the presence of guests, and relate where they had been and what they had seen and done. Shyness ranked as vanity, and vanity in a boy was shameful. Bernard, on one of these occasions, displaying early symptoms of true dramatic sense, and totally possessed, I may say, by the reality of what he was saying, had to relate that he had fallen off his pony. In his excitement he now fell off the chair — but he saved himself from too much chaff by crying : "I fell just like that ! "

AT HOME 7

These children, too, had to sit, during catechism lessons, among the villagers, and the chaplain was told to be especially severe with them ; and, in their gifts to the " poor," their father wished that they should show real generosity, and offer not their second-best or worn-out toys alone, but what they valued.

As for his mother, Lady Lovat, now of the Visita- tion, Harrow, tells me that almost her earliest recollection of Bernard, then but a little boy, is his absolute adoration for her memor\'. She was to him the very incarnation of motherliness, of holiness, indeed of all perfection.

Not that the training she gave was empt}' of austerity. " Sickness," she said, when someone rebuked her for taking the children to a cottage where there was fear of infection, " would be a small price to pay for the exercise of this Christ-like privi- lege ; but God will take care of my children where my love fails." Yet this was in her rather an effect of her amazing love for God and trust in Him, than of any severity of disposition. While she tolerated nothing that could " spoil " her children, her gentleness could be doubted by none. When she entered the nursery, each child raced to be the first to kiss her hand. She would sit on the floor among them, gi\ing them her crucitix or medals to touch, or would put her watch by their ears and tell them that life, like the watch, was ticking itself out. Someday God would refrain from winding up the little beating hearts, because He wanted His children to come home. Thev knelt around

8 LIFE OF FATHER BERNARD VAUGHAN

her at their prayers, and then were carried in her arms, two together, into the chapel ; on feast-days they could kiss the altar-cloth, or the altar itself. The best flowers must be for the chapel, not for her own room ; and the nursery shrines were always a-flower. Often during the day, even in lesson- time, she would come into their room and remind them of God's love and how Our Lord had suffered for them and must not be grieved ; later in the day they had her example among the poor, whose floors she swept, and whose beds she made. In the even- ing she played her harp, or sang hymns or her own songs, or recited ; and she reminded her children that this was but discord compared to the harmonies of heaven. And by every trick they tried to keep themselves awake till she should have passed from cot to cot, crossing the children's hands and praying them to sleep.

Her own prayers followed, and they must have been such that their power, surely, is not and never will be spent. While she prayed in the chapel, her daughter Gwladys used to follow her, and was amazed at the transformation of her mother's face. She thought, at first, that her mother must be asleep, so calmly her eyes stayed closed. Then one day she asked her why, when she was praying, she always became so much prettier. Mrs. Vaughan just laughed, and said, looking to the Tabernacle, "My darling, Jesus is there." Gwladys kept goi^g back, after that, to the chapel, repeating to herself, with her eyes on the little door, " Jesus is there." No wonder her life grew into what it did. Mrs.

AT HOME 9

Vaughan, it is said, recited the whole divine office daily, and always refused to ask for any temporal favour for her children. Once, when Herbert begged her to ask that the day might be fine for their shooting, she smiled, and said that she would pray that every one of her children might serve God as priest or nun. The Cardinal, in his austere old age, never forgot that ; and even those two of her boys who were never, in fact, ordained, tested their vocation in seminaries, though the}' found it was God's will that they should practise and proclaim their faith as laymen.

Will it be thought, perhaps, that such a house- hold must have been sicklied with a pallid cast of piety ? No one who has an}^ knowledge of a Catholic home, or a Catholic noviciate, should dream it. Nor was it so at all. No home more happy ; more full of good merriment. The house must have been, half its time, in uproar. The ** Vaughan spirits " were famous. In hare and hounds, in blind-man's buff, above all, in theatricals, they found their outlet. Not but what, on due occasions, the very theatricals were sanctified. On the feast of the Holy Innocents, the children used to dress up in the habits of different religious orders, and " preach each other down," sa\s Father Bernard \'auc:han. " till the result was a sort of pandemonium, ending in clouds of incense and a blaze of candles round the school-room statue, where we made peace."

The human tragedy- came in 1S53, when Mrs. Vaughan died. Soon after this. Colonel \'aughan went to the Crimea, and the famih- was settled at

10 LIFE OF FATHER BERNARD VAUGHAN

Boulogne. It was here that Lady Lovat first saw the children. Her mother, Mrs. Weld-Blundell, a sister of Colonel Vaughan's, spent some time there to act as mother, so far as might be possible, to the forlorn children. After two years, Colonel Vaughan returned, and finally married as his second wife Mary, daughter of Joseph Weld, of Lulworth. But not at once could be bring himself to go back to Courtfield, and part of the time at least he lived in London.*

Bernard grew up to boyhood in the atmosphere of vocation. Unnecessary to repeat the story of his eldest brother's abdication. But Herbert, who for the magnificence of his manners, used to be known at his school at Brugelette as Milord Rosbif, even then was finding himself drawn up to the level of the spirit and tone of the place, which were *' extraordinarily high " ; and the qualities of the future Cardinal, who took for his motto, Amare et Servire, and even at Stonyhurst had held himself to be the " servus perpetuus " of Our Lady, and was to be glad to be called ** St. Joseph's little slave," cannot have failed to be, even imperceptibly, an influence. The ecclesiastical career of the other brothers is known ; but I think that Bernard's affinities were with his sisters by preference. Mary, who was by two years his elder, was especially devoted to him, and it is sad that later on he destroyed all her letters. In 1866 she entered St. Augustine's Priory, Newton Abbot, taking the names

*It was during this time that Bernard made friends with Father F. Faber, and often served his Mass.

AT HOMK II

of Clare Magdalene ; she died in 1884, having been sub-prioress and prioress, despite grave illnesses. Bernard, who was to wurk so much exteriorly, and was ever to remind himself that the external things that were his vocation had their high value " in God," but else were idle, could have sympathised with her cry when they congratulated her on having put her " heart " into a piece of work — " My heart in a bit of work ? No ! my heart is with Jesus." " But after all," she recalled to herself, " this work was for Him." But the sojourn at Boulogne had a more direct effect in the eldest sister, Gwladys, for, desirous of joining the Visitation, she shrank from entering the convent at Westbury, where three of her aunts had already entered, lest the family connection, so to say, might win her priN-ileges, and in 1856 returned to the Visitation convent she already knew and loved on the heights above Bou- logne. " God is worth more than all this," she cried at the heart-breaking moment of farewell. Not at once could she learn to become " the Lily of Christ," as they ended by calling her. She had a brilliant gift of satire — inherited — who would have guessed it ? — from her mother, herself an expert caricaturist till she renounced this dangerous amuse- ment. And she used to laugh at the novices who loved the minuti^ of piety. " I wanted something grander." She died a few years before her sister Mary. But I suppose that the sister who has caused the fragrance of uncanonised holiness to float widest through the Church was Clare, born in 1843. This child, with her southern mingling of passion and

12 LIFE OF FATHER BERNARD VAUGHAN

indolence, who had hated the middle-class proprieties of Boulogne, entered the convent of Poor Clares at Amiens in April, 1861. The action seemed insane. How should a girl, so weak that even in that rigorous home she had been dispensed from the Friday abstinence, support the Franciscan fasts ? It remains that she did so ; the Poor Clares ate no food till mid-day, and then only vegetables, and nothing else save bread and beer at 6 p.m. They rose for Matins at 11-30 p.m., and their worship lasted till 3 a.m., and their second rising was at 5-30 a.m. Insufficient was all this to allay the child's thirst for suffering — she entered when not yet twenty — and she went from holiness to holiness till her exquisite and most peaceful death.

By a happy chance, a little note, by Bernard himself, survives to throw a flash of light upon the family life led by the brothers and sisters in London during this time. I quote it almost in full :

My remaining sisters felt the loss of Gwladys most terribly. She was so clever, so amusing and so sympathetic that the wrench seemed almost more than they could bear. About this time, Herbert used to ride up to London from Old Hall and exhort and encourage us to undertake works of piety and charity such as our Mother practised. He stimulated our desire of doing good among the poor, but alas ! all effort to carry into execution any scheme was frustrated by a governess who practically ruled the house with a rod of iron. She was as good as she was rigid. Her name was Pole, and of course she went by the name of the North Pole. She thawed partly under a talk frorrf Herbert, who protested that, at any rate, we ought to be allowed to visit some poor school, and he made arrange- ments with Father Zanetti, S.J., who had been his master

AT HOME 13

at Stonyhurst, to let us visit and give clothes and enter- tainments to the Jesuit poor school children at Westminster.

In those dehghtful visits I remember how my sisters always selected the poorest and least favoured children to be the recipients of their special attention. I remember, too, what their answer was to the teachers who suggested that there were nicer children on whom to lavish their gifts and affection. Herbert told us their reply was that it was far better always to make the most of the poorest and dirtiest children for then it would be easier to discover whether we were working for ourselves or for Our Lord.

Encouraged by their successes in Westminster, my three sisters, Teresa, Clare and Mar>-, who one after the other became a Sister of Charity, a Poor Clare, and a Canoness of St. Augustine, conceived a plan of gratifying their desire still further to help the poor, while eluding the vigilance of our keen-e\-ed governess. About eleven o'clock at night, when all the house was quiet, they would get up and dressing themselves in poof^ clothes would stalk their way to the front door, sallying forth heavily laden with food-stuff and other things for the sick and needy. These expeditions took place once or t\nce a week during a long winter, and with good reason do I still bear them in mind, because the part allotted to me was deadly dull. It was my business to keep awake b}' walking up and down the cold hall, with half a dozen socks for foot-wear so as to soften my tread, till it was their pleasure to return home. I had to listen for their gentle tap at the door, and often enough it was nearly one in the morning before they put in an appearance. They could not always get back just when they wanted, for the movements of the policeman on his beat had to be watched and the passers-by had to be eluded. While they were away I was supposed to say the rosarj' for a blessing on their work and to encourage me to keep to my post. Herbert was quoted as saying we might take it as a general rule that work was blessed in the measure in which it was disagreeable ; and they reminded me of Father's saying that it was not when sitting his charger at a review but in standing in the trenches under fire that a soldier proved his worth. It was hard enough ha\'ing

14 LIFE OF FATHER BERNARD VAUGHAN

to get up in the middle of the night and pace a dark hall for two hours, but it was harder still having to get up again in the morning and be at the Oratory for seven o'clock Mass. But there was no shirking duty : it had to be done. To meet the expenses which these expeditions entailed, nearly everything my sisters possessed worth having was pawned or sold through the good services of a footman who had been with us for a long tim.e, and had become a devout convert. Of course my sisters were often imposed upon, but they only laughed when taken in, exclaiming, " Anyhow, our Blessed Lord never told us to give to what is called the deserving poor only." They abhorred the qualifying adjective deserving.

II

AT SCHOOL

AS for Bernard himself, he went to school at Stonyhiirst, arriving there on the curious date, June 2ist, 1859. Why any boy should time his arrival for the middle of the summer term, remains a problem.

Many traditions bound him to the place. He was a great-grandson of the Thomas Weld who gave Stonyhurst to the " Gentlemen from Liege " as the Jesuit exiles and their students were then called, for Teresa Weld, his daughter, married William Vaughan in 1803. Both Bernard's grandfather and father had been at Stonyhurst, and Herbert had spent the years from 1841 to 1847 there. The late Fr. Charnley, then a master at Stonyhurst, related that on meeting the new boy for the first time, he asked his name. " My name is Bernard Vaughan," was the answer ; " and I am going to be a Jesuit." Some of the following details arc taken from the Stonyhurst Magazine.

Bernard, who was not quite twelve yet, went for a short time to the preparatory school, Hodder House, but in September, i860, began in the class of " Figures " at the College itself, under the rector- ship of Fr. Clough. This class, a large one of some forty boys, was held in what is now called the Bayley Room : his master then and for the next few years

i6 LIFE OF FATHER BERNARD VAUGHAN

(for masters in those days took their classes up

almost through the entire school) was Fr. (then

Mr.) John Kartell. Fr. Joseph Johnson soon

succeeded Fr. Clough as rector, and on April 25th,

1862, wrote to Colonel Vaughan that :

Bernard is a very good child. He is very desirous of advancing in his studies. His Superiors without exception speak very creditably of him. He seems to take great pleasure in doing any little work about the altar, and I need not say that he is very neat in all that he undertakes.

The reports remained good, but the boy had a sufficiency of liveliness and was popular. He cer- tainly did not shine in studies, but while on the one hand we find no evidence to endorse the verdict of a friend of his, that he was the " dunce of the school," we feel it hard, too, to believe in the adjective " plodding," that has been applied to him. At least, it is agreed that he showed no symptom of future notoriety unless it were a notable aplomb, of which the boyhood of Fr. Plater reminds us.

" He was often out of bounds," a contemporary has written, " and generally without unpleasant consequences. Once the Provincial, coming from the infirmary for dinner, met Bernard carrying away a roast hare, secured outside the Community refectory. The Provincial, deceived by the boldness of the marauder, passed on ; the hare did not return.

Protests have been entered against a statement that he " plagued his masters to distraction." It is true that another contemporary writes that *' for one thing he was notorious — always talking, andl' more or less, apparently, in communication with all parts of the house, with items to match." And

AT SCHOOL 17

Fr. Thurston has also said that " he was a centre of mischief wherever he went, mimicking with an air of supreme innocence the most august authorities to their faces, but yet somehow, inoffensively, and without a particle of malice."

I take it that there was a geniality about Bernard Vaughan which enabled his superiors to give him plenty of rope. One thing has never been said of him — that he sulked ; and another will never be suggested — that in his words he tried to hurt his fellow. Much can be allowed to such characters. Besides, it seems certain that in those more spacious and unexamined days, a school like Stonyhurst had at times the air less of a barracks than of a country house. Even, it could assume the appearance of a family party. It was full of boys who were some sort of cousin to one another — Maxwells, Vavasours, Welds, W'eld-Blundells, Cliffords, Tempests, Vau- ghans, Stourtons, de Traffords, and on Sundays it was the custom for relatives to walk together. On these occasions he made one of a great clan, which patrolled the playground in a mass.

What is perhaps unexpected is that he showed no sign of oratorical eminence — or indeed of eminence of any sort. It is true that his school-fellow, Fr. Herman Walmesley, recalls that quite early in his Stonyhurst career Bernard competed lor the Speak- ing Prize, and standing " bolt upright with that firm expression of mouth and Vip so well known later on," recited " Casablanca in a loud and musical voice." But we are not told that he succeeded in winniner the prize. In fact, another school-fellow of his has

i8 LIFE OF FATHER BERNARD VAUGHAN

written that while " he spoke prologues pretty well (that is, presumably, on the " Academy Days," or Class Speech-days), he was a failure on the stage " ; and another : " Not merely was he inconspicuous in studies, but not even in elocution, nor in the Christmas acting did he appear ; perhaps in Syntax (the top class but two) he did not compete to get a place in that coveted body of Christmas actors. It was only in Rhetoric (the top form) that a usual compliment was paid to him, that of admitting into the actors' company some venerable Rhetorician who had never got in yet."

None the less, it is recorded that he took part in several of the plays that were more frequent at Stonyhurst in those days than they are now. In 1864, at Christmas, he played " Daubenton," the magistrate, in The Lyons Mail, and " Malcolm " in Macbeth, and also a prominent part in a farce. The next year, he acted in Speed the Plough as " Sir Abel Handy," took the part of " Box " in Box and Cox, and of " The Prince of Wales " in Henry IV, Part I. In this he is said to have scored a triumph, and again at the " Grand Academies " of 1864, when he recited Satan's soliloquy from Paradise Lost. He also acted in the holidays in little plays composed by Cardinal Wiseman, at the London home of his friends, the Zulueta's. Fr. F. de Zulueta tells me that his sister, Mme. Merry del Val, recalls how, many years later, Bernard, then a priest, entered the room elocuting lines from his old part, never forgotten. Cardinal Wiseman was very fond of Bernard, and once, on arriving at Ross, cried to Herbert Vaughan, who was

AT SCHOOL 19

meeting him : "1 have a present for you ! " and revealed from beneath his great Roman cloak the tinv Bernard, whom he had brought unexpectedly from Stonylmrst.

As for games, he attained no great proficiency in them, though he played cricket creditably.

His piety was genuine and had, even in church, something uf the largeness that he loved — when he swung the thurible he always gave it the full length of its chain, a feat that demands some skill, especially when the thurifer is kneeling down. His devotion to Our Lady was marked, and he com- mented on the identity of his initials with those of her best title.

None the less, some of the qualities which are fostered by games were certainly his. It is regret- table that I cannot make sure of the date of the following little incident, but Fr. Herman W'almesley, who relates it, thinks that it quite likely happened when Bernard was at school. A fire broke out in one of the rooms over the front entrance to the College. The alarm was at once given, but ap- pliances in those days were poor. Bernard ran off at once to the back yard of the College — no short distance — mobilised the entire staff of laundry maids, arranged them in single file, and had buckets of water passed along till the hre was put out. Another incident — the following seems its true version — showed not so much his presence of mind, as the aplomb I have already mentioned. In July, 1S66, Cardinal Manning and Cardinal Reisach, then Cardi- nal-Prefect of Propaganda, visited Stonylmrst.

20 LIFE OF FATHER BERNARD VAUGHAN

Bernard Vaughan, who had left Stonyhurst scarcely a month before (June 20th, 1866) astounded the College by rolling up to it in the Cardinalitial retinue, and resumed for the occasion his office of thurifer.* Possibly his character, with its lights and shades, stands out best in a letter to his father written on March 19th, 1866. I quote it almost in full :

My Dearest Father — There has been so much work to be done of late in preparing for examinations, that I have not been able to answer your last till now.

The examinations on the whole have been successful, but there is so much matter to be mastered in Rhetoric that there is not sufficient time to bestow on the different branches of study, so that those in which I find most difficulty are not thoroughly learnt. However, I make use of every available moment for study, and generally remain up till ten, which gives me a couple of extra hours for application.

I am certain of taking one prize this year, and rather expect two or three. [Did he win even one ? I doubt it.]

There is a prize given for Religious Essays, and examina- tions in the same, and so far, it is rather a stiff contest between me and G. Clifford, a school-fellow of mine, the son of Sir Charles, a very clever fellow always heading the class and has each year carried off all the litterary [sic] prizes, as success always attends him in that line

I was sorry to learn by your letter, that you had been troubled with small bills incurred by my prodigality. I fear that I must plead guilty to some of them, but certainly not to Warner's if he sent in his bill for unpaid photographs taken of me, for it was three years since I was taken by him, and what is more I have the most distinct and vivid recollection of handing over to him damages to the extent of 7s. I think or thereabouts. The expenses incurred from other vendors I should have paid, had they forwarded me their accounts as I enjoined them — I am very sorry ±0 have put you to so much inconvenience on my account,

*It is by error that Bernard is stated, in a printed notice, to have left in 1865.

AT SCHOOL 21

and it shall be f)ositively the last time such a thing shall happen.

You kindly promised to send me a £i some time or other, but it would be a greater satisfaction to me, if you desist from your purpose, in order that by that means I may be conscious of having in some way defrayed my own expenses.

It is a great pleasure to me to find that you take so acceptable and favourable view of my future prospects.

I am fully aware of the many obstacles I shall have to surmount before being consigned to my new home, as also the prodigious trial of abdicating my free will, and leaving my best and most beloved Father, of bidding adieu to Mary and all my belongings to whom I feel unmitigated attachment, but I feel so certain that I am called to em- brace this great state of life, that nothing can debar me from entering upon it with generosity and great zeal.

Even as I write these lines I can scarce help giving way to my feelings when I picture myself having to leave you perhaps for good and all, but with the help of God's grace one can achieve wonders, and on it are based all my hopes.

[He then begs his father to come to Stonyhurst for a visit, and promises him that if he should choose to make a retreat there it should be given him by Fr. Clare, his own confessor, whom he describes as a " grand spiritualist " and the " first Mission and retreat giver they have." I should not be surprised if this rhetorical preacher exercised a consider- able influence upon Bernard's development.]

He concludes — Uncle Richard [a Jesuit at Stonyhurst] is flourishing. He far prefers having no seat in the Ministr\* in fact he is waxing quite robust and corpulent at his new- post. I am delighted to hear that Frank is doing so well at Pau and making progress in all the requisites of man- hood. I expect that he will appear with a formidable pair of whiskers — not a Newgate frill hke Uncle Richard's.

In his holidays he had not shown the tastes of his brothers. The only sur\'ivor of these, the present Bishop of Sebastopolis, wxites to me that Bernard

c

22 LIFE OF FATHER BERNARD VAUGHAN

took very little interest in country sports and pas- times, and seldom if ever joined him and his brother Reginald in the fishing, shooting, ferreting, riding, boating and bathing which made their delight. He preferred to visit his cousins at The Hendre, or going to Llanarth where the Herberts lived, or to Ross or Monmouth, where he called on the priests of those parishes. On the other hand, he loved to appear at the concerts and theatricals which were got up to entertain the servants or tenants, and in the country houses round. Bishop John Vaughan went straight from Downside to Monte Cassino, and never saw Bernard again till the young Jesuit served his brother's First Mass in 1876. Whether or no this distaste for the outdoor sports in which his brothers so markedly took pleasure, was what earned him the nickname of his youth, " Betty Vaughan," I cannot now judge. However, I learn from the Tuam Herald that Bernard went often with his father to Achill in the west of Ireland and used thoroughly to enjoy the peaceful country life there. The Vaughans owned property in County Mayo, and were on the happiest of terms with their people, and to the Mulleranny Hotel there Fr. Bernard Vaughan returned long afterwards when he went to preach at the opening of a new church at Castlebar, and found that he was not forgotten. At least in Ireland a taste for sport seems to have been aroused in him. From an undated letter addressed " Kyle- more," I can quote : '

.... I never was in such a lovely place before this It is to my mind quite perfect. The house situate on the

AT SCHOOL 23

side of a great mountain which is covered with timber, and the lake is stretched in front of the house, so that one can get a salmon at any time. ... I am out the whole live long day sometimes on the Bay kilhng great number of wild fowl. I killed five golden plover with a single cartridge one day. I shall not be able to have any shooting in England so I think it wise to have a little here where all manner of game are to be found.

When he left Stonyhurst, he put in some months of deliberate enjoyment before entering the novi- ciate according to his plan. The Duke of Beaufort, who lived not far off, at Troy House, was so pleased with Bernard's enchanting manners, that he offered Colonel Vaughan to get the boy into a really good regiment, should he choose to enter the army. But Bernard was later on to say that he had definitely ]iut his money on the noiy and not on the rouge. Hunting, as well as the theatricals, was made possible for him by his kinsfolk, the Rolls, and the young man was everywhere feted, I think from the convic- tion that he ought to see a little more of the world before eclipsing himself for so many years. It is strange to reflect that Bernard, having danced one night till four at Troy House, never returned there until, as a London priest, he went down to welcome some French exiled nuns who had bought it. And it was at a dance that he suddenly told his partner he was going to be a priest. *' You ? " she ex- claimed. " You, who love the world and dancing so much ? " "It is because I love it so much," he is said to have replied, " that I am leaving it." The answer made a deep and enduring impression.

As the autumn advanced, he made a sort of tour

24 LIFE OF FATHER BERNARD VAUGHAN

in order to bid good-bye to those of his sisters who had entered convents. Just before starting for this tour, he wrote to his step-mother : *' How about my gun ? I must sell it, because I must have a watch at Manresa, Now I can't get this watch without the wherewithal."

Curious sidelight on this extravagant young man. He had no watch . . . and no one was prepared to give him one. Had he always done without one ? Had he so often lost his that a parental gift was no more to be hoped for ? Had he — ^well — pawned it, so that the preliminary explanations dared not be offered ? Insoluble mystery. It remains that this youth who danced till four with duchesses had to sell his gun to get the watch which, I may add, he would not have been allowed to keep, or at anyrate to use, in his noviciate.

He went first to Newton Abbot, where his sister Mary was an Augustinian Canoness, and found her, he writes, "happiness itself, as gentle and pretty as ever — she seems the life and soul of the Com- munity and the Nuns are devoted to her. She has no headaches or pains in the back, which formerly used so to worry her." He added that he proposed to leave for Boulogne on the next day or the day after, as " I have heard from Fr. Weld who says I may enter my Noviceship any time next month [this was November 27th, 1866], now that he is satisfied Our Lord has given me the offer of th Religious life, etc. What a happiness when I shal be firmly settled down at Manresa. I look forward with great longings."

.1

AT SCHOOL 25

He shared his sister's vigil before the Blessed Sacrament that night from nine to eleven o'clock, and thus bade her farewell in the inseparable Presence. He postponed his crossing for a day or two, as we learn from a letter written " from the mouth of the Thames " on December 5th, when he was returning. He had visited the Jesuit Provincial and Fr. Clare at Hill Street, where they had, at that time, their London head-quarters, and then sailed for Boulogne where he stayed with the Cliffords and saw his sister Gwladys for several hours, he says, each day. Thence he went to Paris where he " saw everything and many friends." He only spent twenty-four hours there, however, and the " every- thing " seems to. have consisted mainl}- of churches, from one of which to the other he " rushed." He also met and somehow " spent some hours " with the " celebrated Fr. Marie Ratisbonne who was converted by a vision from Our Lady. He is a remarkably clever kind man. — Yesterday, \\'ednes- day, I spent with the Bishop of Amiens who nearly cried when he saw me, so strong is his affection for Clare." The Bishop took him to see Fr. Felix, a very famous Jesuit preacher of the time, with whom he spent an hour or two, and then visited the French Jesuit Provincial, " a most sanctified mortified man."

Of course we went to the Poor Clares who are so wonder- fully poor and yet so rich. The Poor Clares kept the grating open the whole time so that I saw the whole Community and the place where Clare prayed so fer\TntIy. The Mother Abbess told me that Clare used to stand on a chair so as to be nearer Heaven. . . . To-day or to-morrow I go to Roehampton — I am d\-ing to be there.

26 LIFE OF FATHER BERNARD VAUGHAN

On December 9th he does in fact write from Manresa House :

You will be glad to hear that I arrived here in due time to keep the festa of the Immaculate Conception, and though somewhat depressed in spirits yet am quite thoroughly happy. Certainly it is very hard to give up one's relatives and friends and bid adieu to the world and its pleasures, and yet considering for whom it is done, how very little it is !

Now that I am about to become a Religious, I am deter- mined to fight tooth and nail, hand and foot, to crush every trial and surmount every difficulty for the love of the Sacred Heart of our great and noble Master, Christ Jesus. And what example have I before me in my eight brothers and sisters who have devoted their lives to religion to urge and cheer me on. Now beloved Father pray that I may have great generosity, a large big heart and that all its love may tend to one aim, a greater love of Our Lord and His holy will. As yet I am but a postulant but in a day or so I commence my retreat and a few days after I hope to take the habit and keep it for ever. I am so fearful they wiU turn me away ; unless I am ordered away, I shall never leave but will fight to the last. . . . Love to darling Mary and believe me my own darling Father your beloved and ever devoted affectionate son, Bernard J. Vaughan, in a few days, S.J.

Ill

FIRST YEARS AS A JESUIT

WITH Bernard Vaughan's entry into the novi- ciate a period of eclipse begins, in which the darkness is but the more complete because of the few starry ghmmcrs we discern.

As for the noviciate itself, we are told that he was cheerful and observed the rules : that is all. A ver^- few letters, colourless on the whole, survive ; I quote from one of them, written to his step-mother, whom he called by her Christian name, Mary, and who, at the advice of Fr. Clare, had refrained from visiting him at Manrcsa :

Though I did not accept the dispensation without a certain pang, yet when you continued to say Fr. Clare was the cause of your not coming on here I took it for granted that it was the best thing for both parties and no doubt it would have done me no good and our meeting would have been all over by this. I doubt not but your Angel Guardian or some other blessed inhabitant of Heaven prompted you to go and see Fr. Clare and thus it has turned out — a little cross for us both, a fine pill for one to swallow for which I was prepared by my most glorious Retreat. . . . This life is most happy most blessed and rendered more so by the continual little trials we are called uf>on to make for the love of the Sacred Heart. Though repugnant at times to flesh and blood, yd most sweet and savour\' to the spirit. The Novices are all most perfect, so exem- plary, while as you know full well the reverse is depicted in grand relief in me — always wild, never with that recollec- tion which I should have. Pray then, fond Mar\', for me that I mav be more assiduous in this noble work.

28 LIFE OF FATHER BERNARD VAUGHAN

Later on he says that he is " flourishing, too great a flow of spirits, though even now I feel rather like flat porter, and am very sober for a Vaughan — ^in fact, I feel marvellously subdued and often wonder within myself how such soberness could have been brought about."

After the due two years, during which his high spirits are said to have helped " many " to perse- vere, he took his own vows and went straight to St. Mary's Hall at Stonyhurst, to study philosophy. He did this for three years, 1868 to 1871, under Fr. E. I. Purbrick as Superior. Thence he passed back to the College, where he was made Assistant-Prefect of Philosophers, again under Fr. Purbrick as Rector, and with Fr. William Eyre for immediate superior. Lest it should be supposed that Bernard Vaughan, during this time, was engaged in teaching abstract thought, I will recall that the name " philosophers " was given to such young men as desired to get some sort of after-school education but were still precluded from entering Oxford or Cambridge. It is true that a certain dose of scholastic philosophy was adminis- tered to them, far from uselessly. But it cannot be maintained that their chief occupations were any- thing so transcendent. It was, in fact, more impor- tant that those in charge of them should have a sufiiciency of those graces which might assist young men to behave properly in ordinary social life, than that they should be deep or subtle thinkers. Ber- nard Vaughan suited his post well. Nor was he ax all lacking in qualities which should add to the hilarity of his associates. Now for the first time he

FIRST YEARS AS A JESUIT 29

reveals his remarkable powers of mimicry. Fr. Tickell, the parish priest, was a man to whom such tricks were disagreeable. " You will not, sir," he severely said to Mr. Vaughan, " take in me." The challenge was accepted. In a few days a distin- guished-looking youth, of sporting and fashionable air,* appeared at the door and enquired for Fr. Tickell. The young man asked, as a great favour, to be shown round the college. For two hours, Fr. Tickell acted as most courteous and informative of cicerones. The time for farewell came ; Fr. Tickell, put on the track by some suspicious remarks of his guest, exclaimed : " It's you, Mr. Vaughan. I knew you all along." But the old man was so angry that he ordered his horse and rode for two hours to collect himself. It is said that much later, at St. Beuno's, he threw consternation into that sedate establishment by dressing up as a nun, and pene- trating into regions forbidden to the female foot. But there are a number of stories of this sort, none of them able to be brought, so far as I can see, to the point of proof.

One other incident is related of his stay at Stony hurst.

Bernard \'aughan added to his philosophical duties that of being Master of Ceremonies in the church. The altar staff had the pri\-ilege of an

♦It is also alleged that he came <lisfruised as a Noiiconfonuist Minister, and that Father Tickell was glad to be kind to so promising a neophyte. Tliis is quite luilikely. Mr. John Myer.<cough, coachman at Stonyhiirst. remembers that Bernard \'aughan brought a " letter of introduction " from Miss Winstanley of Ch;ughley Manor, a lady interested in the poor of the parish ; and, that he borrowed riding-breeches from a Philosopher. As Bernard was then also Green-room manager, " fashionable " clothes vroiild have been easier come by than a parson's.

30 LIFE OF FATHER BERNARD VAUGHAN

annual walk and tea, instead of afternoon schools, in return for their labours. This was called the " good four o'clock." To a small boy who had some light task of reading aloud at Sodality meetings, he suggested that he too had better ask the Rector for a " good four o'clock." The boy timidly de- murred. " I will tell you what he'll say," answered the prefect, wise in men. " You will make your request, and he will say : ' Don't you think that such a duty brings its own reward ? Is it not a reward in itself ? ' Then you will reply : ' Yes, Father. God rewards the soul ; it is for you to reward the body.' Go and ask him." The boy went ; all turned out exactly as had been foretold. " Father Purbrick, his back to the fire, gown gathered up, delivered himself of those identical words, and, upon the pert solution, capitulated."

In 1873, he was sent to Beaumont College, Old Windsor, and remained there four years. He is said to have been popular, and an efficient stage- manager : else, I know nothing of him during this time ; and from all this period one epigram survives. " Do you still ride ? " he was asked. " No. A Jesuit has only one horse, and he keeps his towel on it." Thence he passed to St. Beuno's, where he did theology for four years. I am told that he most carefully drew up all his theological theses in a form such that he should be able to use them for sermons. Indeed, a little attention will nearly always detect a strong skeleton of theology even in the mo^t rhetorical of his discourses. He was ordained after the third year on Sept. 20th, 1880, his thirty-third

FIRST YEARS AS A JESUIT 31

birthday. On this occasion, Cardinal Manning wrote to him the following letter :

Archbishop's House, Westminster, S.W.

September 14//;, 18S0. My Dear Bernard,

Thank you for writing to me of your ordination. I will not forget you in the Holy Mass, and ask for you that you may have health, strength, grace and many years to serve our Good Master — you will find how Good He is the longer you live

May God keep you, my dear Bernard, always affectionately yours in Jesus Christ, H. E., Card. : Archbp.

Many thanks for the " Memorial," of which however I had no need for I never say Mass without an express memento of your dear Father and of Mrs, Vaughan. . , . always yours affectionately.

WTien he left St. Eeuno's, he returned to Beaumont as "Sub-Minister," that is, to assist the priest whose charge it chiefly was to look after the material side of the College. It is recalled that he used to super- vise the bojs' behaviour in the refectory, standing in a sort of niche in front of the fireplace. He poured forth torrents of denunciation upon the ill-mannered which a servant used admirably to imitate. He was, however, also given the charge of coaching the boys for their plays, and also the actors of the Beau- mont Union, who yearly gave a play there. It is exasperating that this period consists chiefly of lacuuc-e, from the point of view of a memoir, for one would wish to know how Fr. Vaughan's acquain- tanceship began to develop as it forth\dth did, and how he came to know so intimately Mr. Richard Holt Hutton. then editor of the Spectator, and liN-ing

32 LIFE OF FATHER BERNARD VAUGHAN

not far off at Englefield Green. Certain it is that Mr. Hutton constantly welcomed Fr. Vaughan as a guest to dinners at which the young priest met all sorts of most interesting persons, including, I think. Lord (the Mr. Arthur) Balfour, and many others, the manner, and what is more, the point of whose conversation he managed at once to make his own ; and though he was not, and never was to be, an expert in the departments of any one of them, he would return to Beaumont and be able to relate with the most sensitive accuracy what had been talked about. Mr. Hutton had unbounded admira- tion for Fr. Vaughan's histrionic talent ; and in an account of Macbeth, v/hich the Beaumont Union had acted under Fr. Vaughan's management, he wrote that when Fr. Vaughan made choice of the ecclesiastical career, " a great impresario had been lost to Europe."

The only other incident in which he played a discernable part was consequent on the attempt to assassinate Queen Victoria in 1882. The news that she had been fired at excited the greatest emotion at Beaumont College, and preliminary Te Deums were sung in thanksgiving for her escape, that of the younger boys, we are told, " fading off into five Our Fathers and five Hail Marys," since the long hymn rather bafHed them. However, the loyal College wanted to send up an address of congratula- tion, but was ignorant of the etiquette governing such matters. The Rector therefore asked a neigh- bour. Lady Bulkeley, to write to Lady Biddulph at the Castle, to see if a deputation of boys might go

FIRST YEARS AS A JESUIT 33

there to present their liumage as the Eton boys had done. No answer. After a day or two, the Rector conceived the plan of actually sending to the Castle to enquire if a reply was to be fortli- coming. Lady Bulkeley lent her carriage, and Fr. Vaughan was put into it and sent to Windsor, where, having invaded Lady Biddulph, he borrowed one of her servants and attacked Sir Henry Ponsonby. He, after a pessimistic moment, listened to Fr. Vaughan who was explaining that he was after all " an Englishman, a Priest, and a Jesuit," so that there could be no doubt about his loyalty or of that of his confreres, while the seal set by Her Majesty's visit, for which he was petitioning, on that of the boys of Beaumont would be a most impressive one. Moved by these declarations, Sir H. Ponsonby set the necessary machinery in motion, and in a day or two the Queen appeared at the gates of Beaumont, and received the due address and spoke with much graciousness to the Rector and the boys. The visit had echoes far and wide. Congratulations poured in upon the College in its turn, and it was felt that by her kind act the Queen had indeed made it quite clear that the Jesuits and their charges were recog- nised by her as loyal subjects and trust wort h\- Englishmen, especial!}' as she spontaneously sent to enquire whether an extension of the hohdays would be objected to by the Jesuit staff. It was not. All ended happily. The extension was given : the red drugget and the hydrangeas were put away ; and Fr. Bernard \'aughan went off to Manresa for his Tertianship and for a \ear no more is heard of him.

34 LIFE OF FATHER BERNARD VAUGHAN

It is quite certain that he had long ago resolved to make a name by preaching. Some considerable time before this he had indeed preached, presumably for practice, so flamboyant a sermon, that his Jesuit hearers had been dissolved in laughter.* He demanded lessons in elocution. The professor told him to recite Mark Antony's famous speech. Bernard Vaughan said he had come to learn ; would not the professor show him how ? The professor did so, and his pupil then imitated him so exactly that the poor man was angry. "Do it your own way," he said, " Don't imitate me." Bernard did it his own way, and the professor is said to have owned that it was better done. At anjnrate, from this time forward, Fr. Vaughan took his own path in preaching, with- out attending much to advice and not at all to criticism. In fact, when he was " professed of the four vows " on February 2nd, 1897, after being assigned a humbler position, that of Spiritual Co- adjutor, in 1884, and when everybody assumed that this was due to his powers of preaching, he did not indeed deny this, but asserted with some vehemence, at the dinner given in honour of the occasion, that he had never received any help in his special vocation, but rather hindrance, and that anything he had achieved was due to his own laborious years of practice.

The fact remains that so abruptly does he, in the next part of his life, blossom out as a remarkable a|id much sought-after preacher, he must have been

♦However, in 1883 he preached with success at Farm Street, and even earlier at Biarritz.

FIRST YEARS AS A JESUIT 35

very hard at \vork thithertu no less in exercising himself in elocution, than in collecting all manner of material. I am nt)t sure how early notes were started. In Fr. \'aughan's room at Mount Street were two vast receptacles, each over six feet long, and a coup)le of feet deep and wide. One of these held a score of immense volumes, containing, so far as one can guess, every newspaper report or comment that he could collect or that agencies might send, from 1896 onwards, and also, thousands of loose clippings. The tragic duty of coping with these pulpy masses of thrice-chewed print — for a huge quantity of it was composed of reports of reports, and pro- vincial extracts from larger London papers — was facilitated for me by the good offices of one of Father Bernard's friends, who had stuck a ver\' great number of cuttings into the volumes I mentioned. But in the other chest, was correspondence, note- books, t\^ed copies of addresses, and loose sheets of all sorts, and innumerable little packets of post- cards or of half-sheets tied together with tape, con- taining, now a mere line, now the scheme of a whole sermon. I cannot believe that he ever looked at them, for the dust of just twenty years has settled on them ; and while even on the topmost layers the London grime has descended in a thick hhn, below, it has seemed to work into the very texture of the paper. But even after the expenditure of a fortune in soap and water I have not been able to ascertain when the earliest notes are to be dated. I cannot be sure that I have found his own theological notes ; if what survives is indeed liis own, it is what

36 LIFE OF FATHER BERNARD VAUGHAN

anyone might have envied, such minute synopses of certain theses are preserved, in exquisite hand- writing and elaborately underlined in red ink. But though he might, I suppose, in his hours of scien- tific endeavour, so depersonalise his script, yet you would expect to find in germ some at least of his later characteristics, like his very noticeable " g." Three very heavy volumes exist, however, which seem to be in the same handwriting, and these con- tain plans of sermons, and not only are they totally devoid of rhetoric, from which Fr. Vaughan could not keep away even in quite short notes, but they in their turn seem to be in the same handwriting as some pages at the head of which is written " Kenelm Vaughan Vaughan," so that I am inclined to think that all these were notes of Fr. Kenelm Vaughan's which he handed over to his brother. My belief was rather shaken by the discovery of one very old sermon on Our Lady which reads just like one of the sermons which novices preach in the refectory during the month of May, and it is written on the same blue paper as is used for the notes headed " Kenelm Vaughan." But this very sermon has a marginal note in one place which is in a hand defi- nitely like what Bernard's afterwards became, so after all I do not think that any of these early notes and sermons can be his. But whatever his method of work, his amount of work must all through his life have been enormous.

Such then was the obscure preface to the much advertised life into which the young man was being called.

PART II.

THE DAY'S WORK

D

In (the meditation) on retyrement I discovered yt I did not govern my going out or in of solitude by obedience or charity, but by my ovme inchnation lyke ye crow ; doing my exterior action wth clamor and bussell, to be minded by creatures wch hath rendered ym ungrateful to God unprofitable to my soule, odious and ridiculous to others ; wch I must indeavor to reforme.

I SEE . . . yt I am very unfit to serve God in ye nature of a spowse, but my way must be as a poore unworthy hand- mayde, yt must serve him with great respect, and loving reverence in ye spirit of pennance and contrition like ye poore publican, and never seeke or give way to sensible devotion for feare yt natur and ye Divcll may disceave me by it.*

AT MANCHESTER, 1883-1901

FATHER Bernard Vaughan was sent in 1SS3 to Manchester in no official position, but as a priest on a staff which had not even its Rector in the house. In those days the Church and resi- dence of the Holy Name was in a group whose chief superior resided at St. Helens. The immediate superior was the late Fr. W. Lawson.

None the less, the work of the house was impor- tant, not alone because it was in Manchester, but because of the position of tlie buildings. At that time the neighbourhood was residential. Fields lay behind the presbytery, now buiJt over. It then took twice as long to get into the cit}' as now from t^\'ice

*From the Journal of Dame Clare Vaughaa.

40 LIFE OF FATHER BERNARD VAUGHAN

that distance. Even when Fr. Vaughan left Man- chester, there were but horse-trams plying up and down the Oxford Road, drawn by those hard and seasoned animals on whose help, you may say, half the Boer War depended. Then Manchester grew out along that road, and the property depreciated. Big houses became lodging houses or business pre- mises ; families occupied single rooms ; the stucco flaked itself off the despondent architecture, and the people of the Holy Name, which had numbered but 1,500, with forty children in the schools, increased by leaps and bounds. The congregations now are greater than those of the days of Bernard Vaughan, and the parish has been multiplied just five-fold.

And the work may be greater still. For the pulsa- tions of the city's life are forcing it even now still outward. The mean houses are coming down. The Oxford Road presents, to-day, a strange mixture of magnificence and squalor. Vast empty patches and great screens of placarded boards, alternate with palatial infirmaries, splendid picture-galleries, and noble cinemas. Buildings are rising of reinforced concrete whose opulent adornment will soon abash out of existence the modest Georgian porticos, the graceful little fanlights, and the plaster pilasters. And the railroad alterations may shift the whole centre of gravity of the stations.

Almost opposite the red-brick University buildings, the Church of the Holy Name, built in 1871 and not added to since then, heaves its height up like a liner among skiffs. It is an ornate yet substantial GothicJ' and still lacks the spire which Fr. Vaughan was

IN MANCHESTER 41

intermittently to think of building. But of his work for this edifice I speak below.

He arrived then in 1883, and fur three years 1 lind no record at all of his activities, save one rather naive newspaper remark, that he used the Holy Name as his head-quarters, and went about the country preaching. It is said, however, that his work so fatigued him that in 1885 he was sent, in May, to Rome to recuperate and stayed there two months. But of all these years no details at all survive. How- ever, in i\Iarch, 1886, he is being reported at full length, and is beginning, at the Holy Name, a really fine course of sermons on the " Christian Constitu- tion of States." It is quite likely that, as often later, he had got someone to " devil " for him ; but he certainly showed power in his setting forth of Leo X Ill's famous encyclicals, and the remaining three sermons of the course, on Christianity, the Friend of Freedom : Christianity, the Patron of Learning ; and, so far as I can judge, Christianity, the Inspira- tion of Art, were discourses that merited the over- flowiing congregations of which, it was already noticed, a large number were non-Catholics. Other courses of sermons followed in cpiick succession, of which one in the autumn of that year was far more of the kind which most people have come to asso- ciate with Fr. Vaughan's name- - on " Men of Mark," of whom he chose couples : Feli.x and Paul ; Herod and John ; the Pharisee and the Publican.

The two changes in Fr. Vaughan's position at Manchester were due to his being made first superior of the Holy Name, in 18S8, and then Rector (1893),

42 LIFE OF FATHER BERNARD VAUGHAN

the last post involving the care of several outlying missions, some of them small. He did not approve of these small missions, and considered them dead- and-alive places and wrote to Rome (when he remem- bered his rectorial duty of writing at all) to advise their suppression or at least that they be handed over to other care. I cannot pretend that he knew forth- with how to command. We can make all allowances for clashing temperaments ; but we need not pretend that they do not clash. There is a singular demo- cracy if not republicanism within the Jesuit system, and the office of Superior does not include the right to claim any personal pre-eminence, perhaps least of all when in manner as in personality a superior is, like Fr. Vaughan, pre-eminent. I think, that in the story of Fr. Vaughan, where there is so little evidence for change, growth and the like, we can in this matter at least detect development. For we shall have the chance of saying that the methods and manners which actually earned him a Roman rebuke for harshness, did not survive. The man who gave old priests severe and public snubs or " penances " became known throughout the province for his delicate kindnesses to those who, like lay-brothers and young students, never could repay them. And if, as some say, he advertised his own sermons, not those of his confreres, and even, kept the " live " topics to himself, I expect that he was quite genuinely convinced that it was he who could treat them best, and that since they could not be preached twice he had better appropriate them; and he at least thought that he was generous in inviting preachers

IN MANXHESTEK 43

to como from outside on notable occasions, even though, as he lamented, the hnancial loss was no less notable. And 1 like to sa}^ at once that an aged jiriest has written to me that he personally found Father Bernard a most kind and considerate su- perior ; that he chose for himself a small room in the upper part of the house and gave up the superior's room to one of his mon who needed comfort ; took sick calls at night to save trouble to his weary fellow- workers, and was noticeably kind on occasions where forget fulness or carelessness might have called for sharp rebuke. But just as it takes time to learn to be severe without hurting, so does it to acquire the grace of kindness without condescension, and when Fr. Vaughan first came on as superior, he was, well, still at the beginning of his time.

I remember that when Fr. Vaughan had only just left Manchester, and I was duly at work on Aristotle's Ethics, I used to amuse myself with visualising the Magnificent Man described by that philosopher, in terms of Fr. Vaughan. The Magnificent Man, when- ever expense was called for, was lavish, though, while clearl}' never mean, he would yet contine his lavishness to noble occasions, and not squander money over trivialities. But he would, without incurring rebuke for that vulgarity, spend freely what and when and as he should, and derive great pleasure from doing so, attending not to the amount, but ihc manner. The Magnificent Man perceived that works in honour of gods or of the State made a special demand on his Magnificence, and if he was personally a man of family, his performances could be

44 LIFE OF FATHER BERNARD VAUGHAN

T

yet more magnificent ; even if he built himself fine houses, he was a sort of civic asset, and what made for the enduring splendour of his clan, glorified, too, his city. And, while he never idly displayed his wealth, so never would he spoil the perfection of a work merely by refusing to spend upon it so mean a thing as money. . . . Even, one could ask one's self if Fr. Vaughan at all realised in himself the qualities of Aristotle's Properly Proud Man — for whom no translator yet has discovered the one right word. This was the Grand Seigneur who claims the great things he deserves. . . . He is no gaping grabber for what exceeds his worth, nor yet the prudent medio- crity who asks but the mediocre things that fit him ; nor, of course, the timorous and slinking nonentity who dares not claim at all. He wants, as a prize, what we give to the gods as a right — Honour ; he is virtuous, else simply he were not Great at all ; but he knows that virtue should be crowned. He scorns dishonour while never meriting it, and even, the honours which he knows he ought to get, and gets. Hence he is often considered supercilious. He takes, but he repays with more than he took, and in effect keeps his own arrogance only for the arrogant. He never shows off at the expense of the weak, and none more affable than he towards the " middle class." He fares forth, slow in gait ; he speaks in deep tones, but does not shout, for nothing hurries or excites him, seeing that he holds few things to be important.

Aristotle was, in reality, quite capable of distin- guishing between a personality and a personage, '' but it is possible that he might have taken some time

IX MANXHKSTl-R 45

before deciding which of the two he was contemplat- ing in Fr. Vaughan, as he strode magnificently through Manchester, tall, with frock-coat tightly buttoned, hat swept superbly right off, as to cotton- magnate, so to crossing-sweeper — for they all of them recognised him, and they regarded him without any doubt as a " civic asset." Doubtless he started with advantages. Brother of the active and scarcely less splendid bishop ; of noteworthy ancestry ; ver^' handsome in the large and massive manner ; having a voice still flexible and "golden" when he willed; and with that quality about the whole of him — which his fellow-citizens were the ver}^ men to observe and to appreciate — of being certain to "get there" what- ever walk in life he chose, he was certain to impose himself.

Let me speak first of what is easiest — the church he had charge of. There is no doubt but that the invisible mortgage of £15,000 upon the property failed to interest him. Perhaps he made no effort to pay it off. He thought it could wait. The first thing was to make the church worthy as a church. Suitably enough, the first adornment with which I find him concerned, was a pulpit of marble and mosaic that should be adequate to the edifice. Little by little tlio na\e became populated with white statues which should minister to devotion without riveting unduly the artistic ej'e. A side-chapel, hitherto unused, shone out in gold and blue and was dedicated to Our Lad\' della Strada. whose picture St. Ignatius had venerated and is still thronged with homage and splendid witli lights and flashing votive

46 LIFE OF FATHER BERNARD VAUGHAN

hearts in the Gesu at Rome. Later on, the picture was crowned, with magnificent ceremonial, with crowns that Fr. Vaughan had personally presented to the Sovereign Pontiff for his benediction. On this occasion, said the city press, " to describe the interior of the church would be impossible." It had indeed been much improved by the installation of electric light, an event which Fr. Vaughan signalised by a sermon having for text : Fiat Lux. A tradition insists that at a certain moment of the discourse, the preacher cried these words aloud with special vehemence, whereupon the electric arcs, as they then were, leapt into radiance. Tall stained glass win- dows were put in the sanctuary and a reredos rose in pinnacles to the height of forty feet. Within the pinnacles, coloured electric bulbs were disposed, a method of illumination which was afterwards quite forbidden. Impossible further to catalogue the adornments lavished by Fr. Vaughan upon his church. What is worth insisting on is, that these decorations were never allowed to remain what I may call idle. With a truly medieval sense of symbolism, Fr. Vaughan kept talking to his folk about what their church contained, and it was emphatically their church, and the statues and the windows were made to tell to them each its story, till the stained glass by no means merely kept out light, and till no Town Hall rows of civic effigies ever stood for half so much to the passer-by as did the white statues placed by Fr. Vaughan for the worshippers to watch.

Father Vaughan's idea of his church's work was by no means, need I say, confined to its interior.

IN MANXHESTER 47

Singularly enough, perhaps, the Holy Name lacked anv large Hall that might be used for secular or semi-secular purposes. Fr. Vaughan was one day to affirm that such a Hall was as necessary- as the church itself. He resolved to build one. For this purpose he accordingly decided to have a bazaar, but such a bazaar as even Manchester had not yet seen. I may interpolate that he had to defend him- self publicly on the whole question of the moraUty of bazaars, seeing that the Anglican Bishop Ryle of Liverpool had been vigorously attacked for opening anv such thing as a bazaar, and most of Fr. Vaughan's own methods, including this one, were the object of periodical onslaughts b}' the Manchester Noncon- formist clerg^^ Having decided that bazaars were not sinful, he proceeded to prepare one. It was held October I4th-i8th, 1890, in the St. James's Hall, which was turned into nothing less than the Piazza of St Peter's, Rome, complete with obelisk and fountains. At the back rose the facade of the basi- lica, with the perspective adapted so as to enable you to see the Dome. Under the colonnades, stalls were symmetrically disposed. An imposing list of Patrons was compiled, beginning with the Pope and the Mayor of Manchester, and as for peeresses, it was impossible to keep pace with them. The costumes were Italian, modelled with a certain freedom on those of the cities to one of which each stall was dedicated : touches of Spanish, Alsatian, and Eliza- bethan dress prevented any accusation of pedantr\', and the colour heliotrope, which was just then fashionable, thous^h seldom, we understand, to be

48 LIFE OF FATHER BERNARD VAUGHAN

seen in Italy, cooled down the general flamboyance of the scene. Minnehaha Minstrels, Mr. Murphy's Banjo Band, the Tussaud Amateurs, and an exhi- bition of British Engineering and Telegraphy proved that Italian sympathies need not be exclusive, and even the clergy could attend the plays in the marion- nette theatre. The Lancashire and Yorkshire Rail- way ran special trains ; more than 8,000 people entered the hall on the Saturday night alone, and the " gate " by itself paid aD expenses.

It was, I think, at this bazaar that Fr. Vaughan exhibited an Egret. Near its shrine, a placard announced duly, " To the Egret, 3d." A placard hard by further announced : "To the Egress, 3d." Those who, anxious presumably to visit what they took to be the Egret's bride, found themselves in the street, were sometimes rather ruffled by this mis- adventure. Yet had they but known, Fr. Vaughan, as by a singular chance of desultory reading I have discovered, must himself have been taking lessons from the autobiography of Mr. Phineas F. Barnum, who, in his earliest days of showmanship, finding that people tried to get out by the turnstile through which they entered, put up this very indication — " To the Egress." To his astonishment, and not by calculation, he found that people took this for a side-show, and were ready with their coin. . . . However, the happy accidents of one man become the wise choices of his successors, and even the evicted were glad to pay another 3d. to get back into Fr. Vaughan's bazaar. But, I am told, the Nonconformist conscience took the matter seriously.

IN MANCHESTER 49

Fr. Vaughan was roundl}' called a cheat. The ^d. had rankled. His retort was characteristic. " I didn't wafii them to use that egress," he plaintively affirmed : "I even made a charge on them for using it ! " This genial showman felt at home when Buffalo Bill came to Manchester. Fr. Vaughan took Bishop Clifford, Bishop Hedley, and Mr. Isherwood of Marple Hall round the show and into all the tents (most of the Indians were Catholics), made them drive in the Deadwood Coach and presented them to Buffalo Bill himself, a great friend of his. A stream of jokes flowed from Fr. Vaughan's lips, punctuated by Bishop Clifford's chuckle and the Johnsonian criticisms of Bishop Hedley. Could but some New Lucian retail for us that conversation !

I have no intention of cataloguing the other bazaars that Fr. Vaughan inaugurated or opened or attended, in Manchester or elsewhere. None, not even Naples in Manchester, came near the glory of the Roman one. And its performance was better even than its promise. The Holy Name Hall was built and solemnly opened in 1893 on the occasion of the church's silver jubilee. The day was rendered exceptionally auspicious owing to the presence of Cardinal Vaughan who had just returned to Man- chester for the first time since his elevation, though I am free to own that, with the sense of rigid justice that characterised him, he somewhat dashed his brother's feelings by an announcement made from the Holy Name pulpit just before his sermon. He recalled the decree of the Westminster Synod which forbade any publicity, as by means of adyertisement,

V

50 LIFE OF FATHER BERNARD VAUGHAN

being given to the music which was to be sung at religious services, a decree which had been violated wholesale on the present occasion. He said, after- wards, that he had felt all the more bound to do this because Father Bernard was his brother, lest the least favouritism should be surmised. However, he preached a magnificent sermon, and in the evening, together with the Bishop of Salford and the late Duke of Norfolk, and others, opened the Hall. It had been designed by Mr. Kirby, of Liverpool, and consisted of a gymnasium, billiard rooms, reference library, reading-room, reception and recreation rooms, committee rooms and offices, and the Hall itself which measured 40-feet by 90-feet. The bazaar, with its 45,000 visitors, had realised a sum of £7,350, and Sir Humphrey de Trafford presented Fr. Vaughan, during the ceremony, with a cheque for another £1,000 " from his affectionate flock and friends far and near." But Fr. Vaughan gave good measure for his takings. " Pat," he would say, or ** Mat — you see the money pouring in ? Well, look, at it pouring out ! Let 'em see we know how to give !

In this building Fr. Vaughan proposed to house a number of good works. In the July of that year, 1893, he wrote to the late Duchess of Newcastle :

Here am I back again in the shafts, very full of vigour for any amount of collar work if they will give me the reins. I have been in penal servitude for a couple of months doing nothing but looking after my health. I broke down for a bit but am up again and in good condition. . . . You wiU be pleased to hear my club, servants' home, registry office, and night refuge are doing well. Before autumn sets in

IN MAM HESTER 51

I hope to have arranged a programme for bi-weekly enter- tainments for the people — and lectures in cooking, book- keeping, etc., for all young men and women needing such helps. It is a great comfort to have a big building right against one's house wherein all that may be carried on.

The ¥rvc KntL-rtainrntTits ^vere, perhaps, the most novel of these enterp>rises* and certainly a very generous and civic-minded one. There was always a concert or a little play, and there were refreshments, though for these a small price was charged. At half time Fr. Vaughan made a short speech, on some neutral topic like Work or Friendship, or Thorough- ness, though ever}' now and then he explained a subject like Darwinism, or preached an honest little sermon, and certainly he never left out the spiritual element from the discourse. I do not know how long these free entertainments went on for ; but Fr. Vaughan came to be recognised by all as one of the most public-spirited men of the city. Few were the luncheons on civic occasions to which he was not invited : he sat on every platform : he was able to ask down to Manchester distinguished persons whose names were of great assistance to the officials. If he " abolished " people by his sweeping methods, he also loyally produced and exhibited them. On one such occasion, the ice became tliin, for the Protestant Bishop of Manchester, Dr. Moorhouse, had had a controversy' with him, and had refused to propose some vote of thanks to a well-known princess when he heard that Fr. X'aughan was to

•I should say that Sjimcthiiit: very like them had Kui.c been civen in Livcrpciol. The laic Fr. Dubberley used to have Free Concerts, which were packed with cavjer listeners. A collection was made at them for meals he olTcrcd to the very poor.

52 LIFE OF FATHER BERNARD VAUGHAN

second it. The result was that Fr. Vaughan was asked to propose it, and began to come forward from his seat at the back of the platform to do so. "I think you can speak quite well from where you are," said the distinguished chairman, rather anxious lest the ice should altogether crack. " I could not dream," answered Fr. Vaughan, " of saying things about Her Highness behind her back." As usual, the whole hall cheered.

In the long run, it was clear that though opinions might differ as to the value of Fr. Vaughan's views on social subjects, there could be no doubt about his interest in them. He had his eye on the detailed application of the principles as well as on the theory, and would not only speak on socialism in the ab- stract, but pounced right on to scandals of the most concrete sort and sometimes, as we shall see, got into trouble for it. But he was no cleric of the sacristy ; and ended by being on such good terms with the city at large that he could permit himself jests at which men of average nerves might have shied. Thus, he once entered a butcher's shop and announced, very loud : " There is not a piece of meat in this shop fit to eat." The butcher dis- played signs of imminent apoplexy, but before disaster could occur, Fr. Vaughan proceeded : "I never could manage raw meat." A variant of this tale says that Father Bernard made his joke at a bazaar, about game that people had been buying. Whatever the occasion, the Protestant press took it seriously. " These jests must cease," it urgea! " Such Jesuit equivocation will not do."

IN MANXHESTER 53

As a matter of fact, there was so much felluwship in his jests as in his beneficence, that it was very seldom indeed he stepped over into Aristotle's cha])ter of the Properl\- Pr(jiid Man. The feast of his profession was marked, the present Archbishop of Bombay recalls to me, by his inviting over from Stonyhurst all the younger members of the teaching stafi there, and giving them a day and a dinner fit for the Prince of Wales. " He made us feel what he always wanted young scholastics to feel, that whatever else happened he was always the friend of young men." The man who " abolished " people was quite capable of visiting sick old women, sending their exhausted nurses to take rest, and sitting up a whole night at their bedside ; and, though a good deal later on. I know that he remembered, at four in tiie morning, that he had promised to go to see a very sick person, and had forgotten the promise. At once he rose, and walked 1 know not how far through a most stormy night to call then and there at the nursing home, lest the patient might be tossing in feverish expectation of his \4sit. There is a strange story, which he related with profound con- viction, about a convert from Judaism who, after his change, was harrassed by what he believed to be the personal presence of the devil. Crucifix and holy water were useless to drive the obsession away. Fr. Vaughan went so far as to sleep in the man's room, and despite the alnn)St cynical hard-headedness of which he was capable, was couNinced of the presence there of evil. " Wliatever it was." said the priest, " it did come. I was so terrified that I could not

54 LIFE OF FATHER BERNARD VAUGHAN

move. If you had set my bed on fire, I could not have moved." It is said to have been far from the only case of such experiences. He insisted that the stench of evil made itself perceptible to the very nostrils, and he would explain what he meant by that, leaving little enough to the imagination.

During this period, he spoke on the following social or civic subjects — the Hst is far from exhaustive:— ''The Christian Constitution of the State": "The Arrival of Democracy " (in the Victoria Hall, Hind- ley) ; another series on " The Potent Factor on Social Evolution " ; and yet another on " Wealth." His address in the Free Trade Hall, on behalf of the National Lifeboat Institution, became famous at the time through his justification of his own presence there, he being one who belonged to the " oldest life-boat institution in the world, with Blessed Peter, the fisherman, looking after it." (Long afterwards, he was to adapt this quip when, in America, he was the guest of honour at a dinner of Insurance mag- nates. He said that there, too, his presence was appropriate, as he was more heavily insured against fire than any of them, and because he was a member of the oldest insurance agency in the world.) He spoke, too, under the auspices of the Wigan Co- operative Society in the Drill Hall, Wigan, on " Labour and Competition," and I will say here that he loved, and was loved in, Wigan, though he re- morselessly used its name for purposes of chaff. He was waiting there one day for a train, just under the name of the station displayed in vast letters for' all to see. " What," said he to a porter, " is the

liN MANCHESTER 55

name of this station ? " " Wigan, sir," said the porter. After a few minutes he pursued the porter to the other end of the platform. " What," said he once more, " did you say the name of this station was?" " Wigan," repeated the man. Then the train came in, and Fr. Vaughan, together with several citizens of that place, boarded it. " Surly folks, the Wiganites," said he to the indignation of his fellow- travellers. " I'll show you." He put his head out of the window, and hailed the same porter. " Por- ter," said he, " What did you say this station was called ? " " Oh, go to blazes ! " replied, this time, the porter. ** There ! \Miat did I tell you ? " asked Fr. \'aughan triumphantly of the carriageful. And he loved to relate how a Mayor of \\'igan, ha\'ing led him round the region committed to him, and having at last come to its frontier, turned to him and said : " There, Father Vaughan. Where I've taken you, I'm king. Set but your foot across that line, and I'm nobbut an ordinary duffer Hke your- self." I confess I have adapted, slightly, the ver- nacular of these two tales, but I do so the less anxiously because I have to own that I am never quite sure whether the stories Fr. \'aughan appro- priated to himself, were genuinely his. He was quite unblushing over that. Hut nobody minded. He would begin a speech with the words — " As I was entering this Hall, a citizen of your magnificent city said to me, ' Father Wiughan, . . . ' and he would then retail some story of the stone age. But so admirably would he relate it, that though one's grandfather in his cradle might have deemed it

56 LIFE OF FATHER BERNARD VAUGHAN

already old, it came from Fr. Vaughan as new, and the Hall rocked with delighted laughter. He spoke again on " Co-operation " both in Manchester and in North London, and for the Catholic Boys' and Girls' Free Trading Homes in Liverpool ; and a speech on the condition of the destitute spoken at West Didsbury in the Public Hall, is the first sign I see of his having gone deeply into a subject which was so much to preoccupy him later on. And he de- lighted the one thousand " cabbies " of Manchester and Salford, by addressing the Hackney Carriage Owners and Drivers' Society, recently inaugurated. As for his sermons at the opening of new churches, they chiefly bring home to one the vast number of new churches that were then being opened, and as for his sporadic sermons, lectures and addresses, they need no tabulating. From Eastbourne to Glasgow, and from Clongowes to Norwich, his voice became familiar.

But there were two crises, as it were, in his Man- chester period that really did win him notoriety. One was a sermon on ** Gambling." I have said that Fr. Vaughan chose for his sermons topics which were of vital interest to his hearers, and precisely because he insisted so much on the supernatural, he was practically forced to talk in detail on the natural elements of life, both in order to contrast them with the eternal and absolute, and, lest a false conscience should arise about them and lest, sin being surmised where no sin was, weaker souls might abandon altogether the Christian effort. Hence, in Man- chester, he willingly used trade expressions — he

IN MANXHESTER 57

liked to say that he belonged " to the firm that defied all comjietitiun," and was for ever talking about " delivering the goods "^and I really think that he acquired and never quite lost the " Manchester accent." It is certain tliat he ncwr did acquire the special brand of Cockney that does duty in Park Lane. And he was fond of taking his illustrations from cards. " Life," said he, " is a game of whist. Some play for riches, and diamonds are the trumps : some for power, and clubs are trumps ; some, for love, and hearts are. But the fourth hand is always held by Death, who takes all the tricks with spades." In February, igoo, then, he preached a sermon on " Gambling " which was, I judge, the true beginning of his fame outside Manchester and in the secular press. For the sermon was heard of b}* the Rev. Dr. Horton, a Nonconformist minister, who fell into such paroxysms of rage that, did not Fr. Vaughan in his rej^ly to him quote long paragraphs from the Doctor's statement, it would be impossible to believe that it had ever been made. When the Doctor accused Fr. Vaughan of encouraging betting, it was easy to re-quote the incriminated sermon which most vigorously deprecated it ; when he said that such criminal indulgence was part of a campaign organised by the Jesuits for the enslavement of English youth, and that one could not wonder tliat " the Roman Church is sweeping on to the conquest of England," seeing that a Church " that says ' Do it and wel- come ' is bound to win the day," a Cliristian could wonder what had become of the minister's faith in Christ ; but when the Doctor defined all betting as

58 LIFE OF FATHER BERNARD VAUGHAN

" stealing by mutual arrangement," just as duelling was to be deemed " murder by mutual arrangement," it was impossible, after a due use of logic, to keep away from jest, and Fr. Vaughan concluded his rebuke to the fanaticism which made all betting sinful by the remark :

I must confess that I have little sympathy with the young divine who leapt for joy because he had discovered that it was a sin against the eighth commandment to steal a run at cricket, and one against the sixth to bowl a maiden over.

But the reverberations of the press were heard in all parts of England, and interviews and articles began to be asked for.

Earlier than this, however, Fr. Vaughan had had a public controversy with Dr. Moorhouse, then Anglican Bishop of Manchester. It is clearly not my business to outline here Fr. Vaughan's method of managing the most tedious, surely, of our con- troversies, especially as the actual substance of the lectures was prepared for him at St. Mary's Hall, Stonyhurst, by the Revs. E. Hull and J. Besant, S.J. But as usual he mastered the material, and dealt with it most effectively. Frankly, the Bishop must have been rather unpopular, or Fr. Vaughan's popularity must have been even greater than I con- ceive it, to have accounted for the absolute furore excited not only by a course of sermons preached on the Bishop's attack on Catholicism, but by another course of lectures in the Free Trade Hall. The series began on April 24th, 1895, and ended on December 22nd, and in that Hall anything up to 6,000 people listened to those long and very closely reasoned and

I

IX MAN'CHESTER 59

learnedly illustrated discourses. The enthusiasm rose to fever-])itch, and once at least, the horses were taken from Fr. Vaughan's carriage and he was dragged triumphantly back to the Holy Name. Nor was it a packed house in the partisan sense, for non- Catholics made up a very large part of the audience. I think that the robust common-sense of Manchester was quite frankly intolerant of the Bishop's very old- fashioned onslaughts on the Roman Catholicism of which the concrete examples belied altogether the bogey set up for execration, and it is quite clear that Fr. Vaughan, in the destructive part of his speeches, had a very easy task. The line of argument, in the constructive part, is that familiar to all who know the ordinary Catholic apologetic. What was special, was the forcefulness of the exposition, and the quick- ness of the repartee. In the middle of one lecture, a man in the audience rose and began to shout. " You are. Sir, the Bishop of Manchester ? " asked the orator. " No, Fm not." " Ah, I can only deal with one man at a time, and at present 1 am dealing with the Bishop of Manchester."

Perhaps I had better say at once what I think was Fr. Vaughan's feeling about Anglicanism.

No one who remembers even a little about Fr. Vaughan's career will forget that his friends were to be found within an\' and every denomination, or again, outside of any. 1 need not explain that he had full sympathy with, and showed all kindness to, any of his fellow-men who were at least sincere. In Manchester itself he gave a lecture, by request, to a crowd of enthusiastic Nonconformist ministers on

6o LIFE OF FATHER BERNARD VAUGHAN

** Why I am a Jesuit." But for non-Catholic denominations as such, as versions of Christianity, as claimants to be Christ-founded churches, he had no patience whatsoever. After all, it was in his blood to feel himself a son of the immemorial Church of the land ; he could not but regard the Establish- ment as a parvenu. It was the intruder who had done nothing but damage, and he derided and denounced its pretensions ruthlessly. And again, as a citizen of the world-Church of Rome, he could spare no time to consider an institution which at its widest belonged to a British Empire. Therefore, by temperament he did not want to think of the Establishment at all. However, it forced itself on his notice, and usually by way of claiming to be a part of the Church of which he was himself a son. This seemed to him a blasphemy if you took it seri- ously, and intrinsically so absurd that the theories by which it should be defended deserved no polite- ness. So when occasion demanded it, he attacked, and his attack was not polite. He did not, like Newman, see any more, in Anglicanism, a bulwark against infidelity. In his Manchester days, " Anglo- Catholicism " was not the much-advertised pheno- menon it has since become ; but modernism was ; and on seeing the Anglican church honey-combed with modernism, he diagnosed a new apostacy indeed, but one that was sure to come, and the sooner it revealed itself, the better. And he remorselessly drew attention to the jettison of Christ made by the protestant pilots. But what he really possessed, though he may scarcely have been explicitly aware

IX MANXHESTKR 6i

of it, was a clear perception that the \vhc)Ie mental attitude of Anghcans towards the notion " Church " was aUi'n from his own. It is indeed customary to find that members of the " cathohcising " party, though great propagandists, are, while vague in reality about all tlogmas, vaguest and least well instructed about the fundamental notion of what the Church really is. Not only the Anglican perspective is quite different from the Catholic, but two different things are, in realit}', being looked at. Hence I do not think that he would have allowed that any real rapprochement was being brought about even by the " highest " of the high. He looked rapidly at each theory that was presented to him, saw it in perspec- tive, and had done with it. " It is not the Church of England," he -was told, " that has broken away from Rome, but Rome from England." " I gravely fear," he would answer, " that in the next equinoc- tial gale, Lambeth Palace may blow away from one of its tiles." This is not a sympathetic way of treating the matter, I know ; still, it is a quite intelligible way, and perhaps one that appeals to all those who, like him, are desperate to see that the Anglican problem is after all a side-issue ; that England is simpl\- not Anglican at all. whatever else it is ; that the tragedy is, the national apostacy from Christ. Hence it altogether irked liim to be drawn aside into quarrels : he wanted to preach Christ and the Cross, and did so as loud as ])ossible.

During this period, lie four times left England for the continent : once, as I have said, in 1SS5 ; again,

62 LIFE OF FATHER BERNARD VAUGHAN

after the great bazaar, when he spent January and February of 1891 on the Mediterranean coast : in 1897 he preached the Lent at San Silvestro in Rome, and in 1898 was once more on the Riviera for Lent. No doubt it was during his first visit to Rome that he made sufficient acquaintance with Leo XIII to be able to get from him the portrait specially painted for the Rome bazaar when the time came to ask for it ; but it was on the second that he must have taken the crowns for the della Strada picture to be blessed by him. Then, too, it must have been that his eloquence caused somebody to say that he must surely be no Englishman. " He is not," Leo is said to have retorted. " He was born on Vesuvius and sent over to England to cool." So, too, after a sermon at the Gesii, " It can't be an Englishman," they said, " He gesticulates too much and is never at a loss for a word." Still, once he was all too English. He had come with some friends to Siena, and there found, in an empty church, the tongue of St. Bernardine of Siena, a popular preacher on just those topics that delighted Fr. Vaughan, exposed among candles on an altar. " I will give it to you to kiss," said he, and mounted the steps to take the reliquary. But it was tied to the altar with some string, and as he was wrestling with this, the parish priest came in. Fr. Vaughan, who, " like Parson Adams," had " scarcely any cassock," or rather none, was taken for a Protestant tourist behaving according to schedule in a church, and a scene ensued. He found it quite difficult to get leave, next day, to say Mass.

IX MANCHESTER 63

During; these Roman visits, too, he made ac- quaintance with the General of the Society of Jesus, then Fr. Martin, with, whom he came into closer contact however, when the General himself came throui^^li Manchester during his visit to England, after which he changed the place of the rectorate from St. Helen's to the Holy Name.

As for the visit in 1898, it had its interest owing to his meeting at Cannes, with King Edward \'II, then Prince of Wales, and with many members of other royal houses, those especially of Bourbon and Braganza. Myths have grown up around this topic for which I have no desire to go guarantee. Nor have I thought it desirable to use permission to quote from the great number of letters which Fr. \'aughan continued to receive, henceforward, from members of the Royal Famil}' of England. It may be suitably said, perhaps, that after a sermon at Cannes an equerry came to ask Fr. Vaughan if he would object to the presence of the Prince at the next Sunday's sermon, which was to be upon the Magdalen. Fr. Vaughan asked how he could object, and was answered that it was feared he might be nervous to have so many royalties at his sermon. He said : " I am accustomed to preach as in the presence of the King of kings, and shall nt)t be made nervous by the presence of anyone else whomsoever." The Prince asked for the notes of the sermon ; none had been made. Tlie Prince asked for it to be written out, and that is how this particular sermon came to be printed. After this, the Prince came not seldom to hear Fr. \'''audian, and invitations to

64 LIFE OF FATHER BERNARD VAUGHAN

Marlborough House, and, later, to Buckingham Palace were frequent. It is, however, a special pleasure to be permitted to say Fr. Vaughan became well known later on to King Manuel of Portugal and to the Queen-Mother ; the King was not only an admirer of the priest, but also a friend when exile made friendship doubly valuable. Fr. Vaughan several times said the midnight Christmas Mass at Fulwell Park, and generally was the guest of Their Majesties for two days. The last time he said Mass there was in 1920. I need only add that, in matters other than purely personal, Fr. Vaughan's knowledge of many North-of-England towns, enabled him to be of real use on the occasion of royal visits there, by ex- plaining to those who made the visits and to those who received them, the conditions of the towns in question, and the good will and hopes of the visitors. I will here quote, as being hitherto, I understand, unpublished, two letters received from the Arch- bishop of Westminster by his brother about this time :

St. Joseph's Foreign Missionary College, Mill Hill, London, N.W. March 10th.

My Dearest B. — I shaU be glad to hear of what success you had on the Riviera in the way of audience, and especially in the way of conversions.

Do not overdo your strength, or you may (though younger) break down as I have. Not more than five courses a week — and not quite the whole line of the Riviera at once. Remember I hope you will enrol as many as possible in the Archconfratemity of Our Lady of Compassion. Ycu probably have the right and the diplomas — of which I send you one. I could also send you a few copies of my Manual for the Confraternity, if it would be of any use.

IX MANCHESTER 65

You should get as many prayers for conversions as possible. I am spending four or five days (or) a week at M. H. — I have plenty of time for desk work and am engaged in the matter of Ecclesiastical Education the day being spent at the table or the tabernacle. I think I am decidedly better — better than when on the Riviera. Much walking or any physical exertion are still impossible. . . . God bless you.

Archbishop's House, Westminster, S.W.

April 26th.

Dearest Bernard, — I should hke to know how you are after the six weeks of work and excitement which must have been an unusual tax even on you.

I hope you will have some converts as a result. Moral subjects draw Protestants as much as doctrinal ones, when they are far off.

We have had over 1,200 conversions in this diocese during the year 1897. I think the Bishop of S(alford) was to have given the Salford Synod his number — but I have not heard what it amounted to.

As to health, I am decidedly better than when I left the Riviera, and I am now undergoing a diet to reduce weight and add to stamina. Yours affectionately, H. C. V.

I managed three hours of Synod of which three-fourths was Allocution without much effort.

What, then, were Fr. Vaughan's feelings when he heard that the time was nearing when he must go from Manchester ? He was sorry, for, the simple fact is, that he had enjoyed it all immensely And he had developed a real and most warm love for the great city. If it had suited him to perfection, he. too, had suited it ; and 1 imagine that when Man- chester has decided, after the considerable tests that it is likely to impose, that a man thoroughly suits it, there will be no limit to the genial goodwill that it will show him. No doubt Manchester is in manv

66 LIFE OF FATHER BERNARD VAUGHAN

ways quite different from other great cities of the North, but it is a northern city, and no one has ever said that any part of Lancashire is finnicky. There was then an open-hearted, bluff, massive, even at times uproarious goodwill shown by Manchester to Fr. Vaughan, which he liked, being himself most open-hearted and built all through on a fine and large scale, and being by no means altogether averse, on due occasion, to uproar. He had — not basked : that is too lazy — but revelled and exulted in the publicity, in the popularity, and yet, as everybody knew, and knew with admiration, he had not made, and could not make, one penny off it for himself. Well, he had enjoyed himself, and liked Manchester, ^ and Manchester liked, was proud of, and enjoyed him. He meant what he said, when he announced that his address henceforward would be in London, but his home, Manchester ; that he had many perches, but only one nest. And it was now that Fr. Vaughan had, with the help of his superiors in Eng- land and in Rome, to begin not only to reject the rumours but the persistent offers of a bishopric. To Wales, to Salford, and to Bombay he was, in talk at least, despatched ; and even, his amused eye caught, on his grey horizon, the flicker of the Hat. In this chapter, I have perhaps tried, and later I shall try- — speaking with that simplicity which I think Fr. Vaughan would have approved — ^to take the wind out of the sails of many a critic. If he is accused — and many accused him thus — of hunting t, publicity, of preaching sensationally, of clerical shop-window dressing, I should like to be the first

IN MANCHESTER 67

to insist upon just all that, and to go on to say that he was quite right in doing so. Take publicity. He took care that his sermons should be reported, and provided reporters with typed copies — verbatim, full, and condensed — of what ho meant to say. If he judged a thing worth saying, he judged it worth listening to. But not all possible listeners could get into his church, packed as it always was, and though he had to call to the stifling crowds at the bottom of the building, or clinging precariously to pedestals or railings, " Come up here ; come inside these altar-rails ; make yourselves comfortable. Isn't this God's House ? God is your good Father." So, he was glad that through the press his words should reach the folks who had stopped outside. But, it must reach them right. Reporters find it hard to take a man down exactly if he speaks as fast as Fr. Vaughan sometimes spoke. And they are human ; they want copv, and " good " copy. So they alter, or colour up what they hear. And they will omit the duU parts ; but to them, the dull parts are the theological ones, the teaching parts. And theology is so exact that even to alter its formulas at all, is likely to produce a false theology. But a Catholic priest cannot risk false theology going out under his sanction. He can never be irresponsible in the pulpit, nor even on the platform. His doctrine is not his, but the Church's, that is, Christ's. In other groups, unorthodoxy may be the very bait which catches congregations : and anyhow, where there is no touchstone of orthodoxy, it matters little what is said. But to a Catholic, it matters all in all. And

68 LIFE OF FATHER BERNARD VAUGHAN

even with the greatest care, mistakes cannot be precluded. Behind the reporter, to whom a typed copy and a mug of honest ale can be imparted, sits the invisible editor, with his blue-pencil. I think that in every case of Fr. Vaughan's having got into trouble, this was due to some careful, qualiiying sentence of his having been omitted either by the reporter or the editor. What he said in the pulpit, was, first filleted ; then, hotted up for the general press, then, served up as hash by the local ones ; so that if he so much as suggested that the conditions, say, of " living in " did not always make for the morality of shop-girls, this firm or that of milliners would all but start legal proceedings against him ; if he said that Protestantism was a dying cult, letters poured forth whose writers urged that they knew several virtuous Protestants.

Then, sensationalism. I shall have more to say about that in the next chapter. Here I want, near the outset, to insist that Fr. Vaughan's sermons were not as a rule, or in their bulk, at all sensational. He usually began them haltingly, with a curious chopped- up wilful accuracy. You saw that he was thinking, and was resolved to say, and that his hearers should hear, exactly what he meant. Even when the sermon became flowing, he would suddenly revert to his harshest, driest enunciation, clipping the syllables off and throwing them at you like wooden blocks. He would do this even when using some of his oddest phrases, as though defying you to quarrel with them. For example, he liked to think of God's entry into our world through the Incarnation as an onrush, a

I

IN MANCHESTER 69

swooping forth of love, and he would often use the phrase from the Canticle which speaks of the Beloved as leaping and " skipping over the hills." To most of us, that Orientalism comes as a none too pleasant shock. But defiantly he pelted you with that sort of phrase ; and if it was often said that he succeeded because he knew just what his audience wanted, he also knew just what he liked himself, and was clear that his audience should not be let off, but should hear it. In his " denunciations," too, which, if you read them, sound as if they must have been howled or hissed, as often as not he would be using this trenchant, acid, voice, sometimes an almost croaking voice, that never suggested so much as the possibility of loss of self-control. This was also true for his " slang." To read him, you might have thought he used it through being slip-shod, or even, through a childish vanity which might be prompting him to exhibit his up-to-date knowledge of the world's jargon. To hear him, you would not have been tempted to think that. It, too, was curtly, or even brutally chucked at you — yes, much in the way in which Newman makes the devils in the Dream of Gcrontius say they are " chucked down " from heaven. It was the violent word needed, and not unique in Newman, wliom no one would call, I sup- pose, wantonly slangy.

\\']iat was more open to criticism, was his rhetoric. Some people dislike rhetoric altogether, and doubly in the pulpit. This is an affair of taste, and personal. But all may ask that if rhetoric be used, it be good rhetoric. Fr. Vaughan's was often very bad. Well,

F

70 LIFE OF FATHER BERNARD VAUGHAN

non omnes omnia. But I should never admit that in his sermons there was only rhetoric, good or bad. He took immense pains in working them out, and did not bluff his audience. I was often touched by his requests for information or correction on points of fact, say, on some detail of pagan cult or belief. He would certainly struggle to twist the fact into some- thing more dramatic. — " May I say so and so ? " he would ask ; and when one answered " No," he would sigh and loyally not say it.

What his critics worst objected to, was the moment which nearly always came, when he " let himself go." Sometimes the moment lasted the whole sermon. His audience might sympathise with him, or, if they did not, they would simply loathe life while the sermon lasted. " I could not prepare," he wrote to Lady Shephard. " I had just to let myself go. It must have sounded awful rubbish and twaddle to non-Catholics. Tell X that next time he must come and hear me on some subject more common to us both." If you did not like his extraordinary shouts, or strident outcries, no saw, no thumbscrew could have been a worse torture. But many most certainly liked them. At Man- chester, he concluded a sermon by leaning over the pulpit and saying to his hearers : "I love you ; I love you ; I love you," in three perfectly different voices. " Every tooth," said some one whose own sense of humour was in abeyance, " every tooth was on edge." But no. I heard of an old lady who in her simplicity had come for miles just to hear him say that, for he often said it, and no doubt fully

IN MANXH ESTER 71

meant it. And again, after a sermon, a priest had come from the church, and had described it as " the usual stuff." But immediately on his words, a lady called on this priest, in floods of tears : the sermon, someliow, had been just what she needed : her whole hfe was changed, deeply, and lastingly. A friend of his has told me, not without some satisfaction, that a cultured person, emerging from one of Fr. Vaughan's sermons, summed it up in the one word : "Flap-doodle." No doubt it was nearer Ella Wheeler Wilcox than Walter Pater, for style ; but after all, sermons are meant to be listened to, and an audience nurtured, if not on Mrs. Wilcox, at least on Mrs. Glyn, would not have hearkened to the reasoning of Aquinas. The " soft raiment " of diction, or even of subtle or novel views, were not there to attract ; and since no one ever called Fr. Vaughan a wind- shaken reed, he may profit by the tliird option offered long ago.

Not that he thought of himself in exaggerated terms. He knew his limitations, which plenty of people made sure that he should know, but also, his powers. If they were third-rate, as he judged them to be, use them he would to the utmost. " If all 1 were good for were to sweep a crossing," he de- clared, "I'd do it so tliat all London would cry out — Come and see Vaughan's crossing ! " And. " I am the Lord's sheep-dog. If He says to me, Bernard, go and bark ; 1 will go and bark as loud as I can. Round 'em up ! Fetch 'em in ! Then when He says to me : Bernard, to heel ! back I come, with my tongue hanging out." Not but wliat he knew

72 LIFE OF FATHER BERNARD VAUGHAN

that the words and the ways, which he used both as counters in life's game and as the genuine expression of his self, were liked. He would roar with laughter at his own fireworks, and then, with a wave of the arm, a tilt of the chin, and a triumphant smile, would cry, '* They like it ! " And so they did. Who has not heard of his laying the foundation-stone of a suburban church in Manchester, and mounting a shaky platform some twenty feet high whence he preached while the building behind him was actually going on ? Men climbed up and down ladders, and mixed the mortar, and in the street below, electric trams ground their way by. Fr. Vaughan seized the occasion : he spoke of building, and traffic. In two or three minutes, not only the building opera- tions had paused, but the very trams were stationary, and passengers, drivers and conductors were added to an audience which had risen from twenty-five to hundreds.

Yet, though he gave his goods to feed the poor ; though after a sermon he was found to have had to hang his soaked linen up to dry, such had been his exhaustion, if he had had no charity, of what use was all that ? Had he had no interior life, of what pur- pose to chronicle thus the husk ? But never was he forgetful of the only thing that counted. All through his life he had loved to preach on Prayer, " the Food of the Soul." Always had he insisted that for this there was no substitute. Disunited from God, the soul was bound to starve. Hence his had always been a true devotion to the Blessed Sacrament. Unable to stay long at any occupation, long prayers

IN MANCHKSTKR 7J

would liLive bec-n iinpossiblc to him, and his wcic short. But they were very frequent, and his chief " devotion " was the making of many httle visits, in which rapidly he asked from Our Lord in the tabernacle, grace to do the next action well, and to pass the hour aright. And since he was but too well aware, in the delicacy of his conscience, that the act might have been better, the hour holier, never a day passed without his purifying his life by means of the sacrament of penance. Every day, he went to confession, tersely, humbly, and carefull}-. And to my mind, his real, personal attitude in life ex- presses itself in a line he wrote to an old friend, Henrietta Duchess of Newcastle.*

" Heaven ! " he wrote, when beginning to suffer, as he early did, from insomnia. " An everlasting holiday ! How enchanting it will be. Pray that I do not miss it. And, rather later ; " Let us often ask ourselves during this (Lent)— Who ? What ? Why ? Who suffers ? What does he suffer ? Why does he suffer ?" To the end of his life he repeated to himself these questions. And he answered them thus :

Wlio ? My best, my constant friend, my Master, Brother, Lord, God and All.

What ? He suffers cverj'thing and from everybody.

Why ? For me whom in love He created, in love re- deemed, in love has pardoned and sanctified.

In tuni we may put another triple question.

Who offends Him ? A poor worm of the earth dependent absolutely on His hounty. A creature made to His image and likeness, a child raised tt) the dignity of co-heir with Christ, etc.

♦This lady, who luul been received into the Church in Fr.inc« some time before she know I'r. V.uich;ui, died .it WiHidtord in I'li v She h.id always gencrou.sly helped I-"^. Vauplian, and her name as benefactress can be read in the Chapel of Our Lady dcUa Strada at Manchester.

74 LIFE OF FATHER BERNARD VAUGHAN

What is my offence ? Then the catalogue of our sins.

Why do I offend Him ? To gratify what I should crucify, etc.

Do pray for me and pray for great gift of prayer, and love of Our Lord. This is only for you.

The supreme Jesuit authority had approved of his work at Manchester, had congratulated him on his men's Sodality that sent such numbers to Com- munion, and, after the Moorhouse lectures, on the practice of speaking in public halls as well as — almost rather than — ^in churches. The General pre- sented these lectures to the Holy Father, and ob- tained for the lecturer the Apostolic Benediction.

Having then preached some three sermons a week ever since he had come to Manchester, he preached once more, on the text: "Rise up and go forth, thy place is no more here," and then left the city without any farewell.

II

IN MAYFAIR

AS long ago as 1881 Fr. Vaughan had preached a course of sermons on the Divine Life of the Soul at the Jesuit church in Farm Street, But he had come seldom enough to London during his Manchester period. On the whole, he knew little about London, and London knew nothing at all of him. In so far as anyone was aware of his arrival, they were apt to ask what " the man from Man- chester " was likely to make of the metropolis. " He will find." people said, " that that sort of thing will not do here." And it is possible that Fr. Vaughan half felt so too. Perhaps he had not fully reaUsed the extent to which South Africa had been providing millionaires, and how the architecture of Park Lane was bulging and twisting and courageously com- bining styles hitherto thought disparate, at the behest of imaginative wealth. In the romances of Mr. Anthony Hope, much of the spirit of that remote age may be re-discovered. Yet we hasten to agree that glazed tiles and tena-cotta mouldings were not yet at their work of making Mayfair look like a rich provincial suburb.*

In the midst of all this, stood the little Jesuit

•I proptnsc in thi.s section to describe the scirt of life Vr. X'aughan led at Mount Street till loio, when he went to Montreal. I make no attempt to do so chronoIok;ic.T.lly or even exhaustively : noteworthy incidents, characteristic occupations, and thus (1 hope) a due general impression are all I want to allude to and provide.

76 LIFE OF FATHER BERNARD VAUGHAN

" chapel," as the maps sometimes still describe it. Begun in 1844, it opened on to the peaceful mews above which stare the back-windows of many- storied Charles Street. At that end of the church (in which Fr. Brownbill received Gladstone's " two eyes," as he called Manning and Hope Scott, and where Manning's first apostolate was housed) rises the earlier residence of the Jesuit fathers, where their writing staff still dwells. But after a while, at the other end of the church, and of a garden patiently green between high walls and under films of soot, some benefactors built the house known as 114, Mount Street, where Fr. Vaughan actually lived — not, as popular diction demands, in Farm Street. From his high-up corner room, he could contemplate the disused cemetery on to which Audley Street chapel backs, or, craning his neck to the right, he might look across Mount Street and perceive the dignified corner of Grosvenor Square. From three directions, on nights when dances summoned the world to those elect districts, motors whirled past, tilting each time the lid of the local drain and letting it fall back with a crash not agreeable to one already suffering badly from insomnia.*

In Fr. Vaughan's room were some high book- shelves, but practically no other furniture save what was strictly needed ; a big crucifix hung opposite the foot of his bed ; and on his mantelpiece was a curious and Spanish-looking water-colour of his mother.

*I am not sure that this was the room that Fr. Vaughan had at the beginning ; it remains that all those rooms have practically the same outlook and are not adapted to people suffering from insomnia. Fr. ▼aughan never, so far as I am informed, took drugs for his complaint.

I

IN .MAVi<AIR

//

At first it did indeed look as if Fr. Vaut<han had fallen like a stone into the London pool, and gone down witlKHit a ripple. However, an unexpected kindness was done him b}' Protestant agencies.

The Chatham ayid Rochester News, in the summer

of 1901, published a letter signed " Loyal Protestant"

which declared that Bernard Vaughan, brother of

the Cardinal, had taken the " Jesuit Oath," from

which the following words were quoted :

" I do renounce and disowTi my allegiance as due to any heretical king, prince, or state-named Protestant or obe- dience to any of their inferior magistrates or officers, etc."

Fr. Vaughan's solicitors thereupon commenced an action for libel against the journal, which appealed, naturally, to " Loyal Protestant " for his evidence. The " Loyal Protestant " answered that he was sure he had seen the Oath in print somewhere, and had taken it for granted that Fr. Vaughan must have sworn that oath. The Chatham and Rochester News then went carefully into the matter, and came to the conclusion that the allegation was " absolutely unfounded, and that the Jesuits take no such oath as that alleged, (and) we feel in honour bound to express our regret that we had inadvt rtently allowed any such fraudidiuit imputation upon the loyalty and good faith of the Kew Bernard Vaughan to appear." Naturally I'r. Vaughan's solicitors accepted this full and honourable apology, which was " fortunate," said th.' News, " for ' Loyal Protestant ' as well as for ourselves."

It might have been thought that this controversy, which is one that drops periodically from the moon

78 LIFE OF FATHER BERNARD VAUGHAN

to occupy and waste the time of busy men, might thereafter have ceased. But not at all. A Pro- testant journal, called The Rock, now defunct, pub- lished on August 23rd an article called " Jesuit Out- laws," in which the editor of the News was taken violently to task as a fool, if not a knave. ** For," said The Rock, ** another of these outlaws, Mr. Ber- nard Vaughan, (one steeped in sedition) commences an action against the editor of The Chatham and Rochester News. Why has the truth been kept from that editor, that even were that oath the Father Vaughan is alleged to have taken proved false, Jesuits cannot be libelled. They are outlaws, and outlaws have no legal rights, either as corporations or as individuals." Unfortunate Rock. If it had only kept proper names out ! It might still supply a somewhat slimy foothold to those who cared to perch upon it. But having described Fr. Vaughan as an " infamous son of Loyola," and a confrere of men " who own no nationality, no law, save the will of their own General, who were the sole cause of two revolutions here, and who every day perpetrate crimes against our laws and constitutions by inciting Romanists to rebellion and to another civil war," it laid itself open to reprisals. When it heard that an action was being laid against it, it apologised to the extent of saying that the words " steeped in sedition " had slipped in by " an unfortunate over- sight." Fr. Vaughan did not accept this apology, and The Rock spent a long time in collecting money . for what it called a " test case." It helped itself by placards and caricatures and by meetings. Also

IN MAVFAIR 79

the case was several times adjourned, not owing to any application from the Jesuit side ; and even when it did at last come on for a hearing, The Rock's solicitor went suddenly sick, but since no affidavit to that effect could be produced, the Judge refused to accede to the application. The case therefore came on, on June 2nd, 1902, in the King's Bench Division of the High Court of Justice, before Mr. Justice Wills and a special jur}'. Sir Edward Clarke. K.c, Mr. Hugo Young, K.c, and Mr. Denis O'Conor were for Fr. Vaughan, plaintiff, and Mr. Blackwood Wright, for the Defendant. Mr. Macaskie, K.c, had the ungrateful task of cross-examining Fr. \'aughan. The only points he could really make were that Fr. Vaughan could not remember exactly the various details of the insulting passages, so that he could not have minded very much about them ; that he had suffered loss neither of mone^^ nor hospitality through the libel ; that not he, but his superiors, would pocket the damages, if any ; and that tech- nically he required a license from the Home Secretar}' in order to reside in England and had not got one. An attempt to rouse odium thcologicum was made, by rehearsing the stock accusations made against the Society, and in particular Fr. de Luca's book on Canon Law was quoted. Fr. \'aughan pointed out that it contained notliing novel nor peculiar to the author, but, on the other hand, that it embodied decretals of which many dated from ancient cen- turies when the unity of Christendom still existed and was recognised as of paramount importance by all, and that Fr. de Luca's theories about the right

8o LIFE OF FATHER BERNARD VAUGHAN

of the Church to persecute were indeed but theories inapplicable at the present day. He then announced with some vehemence that he was glad to have this opportunity of publicly stating that he rejected and repudiated all such speculative theories and views (on this particular subject) as monstrous anachron- isms, and concluded that he might say, with Cardinal Manning, that since the unity of Christendom had been broken up, " the use of persecution for those who hold religious opinions contrary to ourselves would be a crime and a heresy." For the energetic form of this statement he was somewhat criticised later on. However, after an admirable speech by Sir E. Clarke, and a very impartial but quite relentless summing up by the judge, the jury, after an absence of less than half an hour, gave a verdict for the plaintiff with £300 damages, and some time after this The Rock finally crumbled and blew away in powder upon the breeze.

Established thus in the eyes of all London, by far the most striking figure in a court packed as though for a divorce suit, his " thousand years " of family loyalty made quite plain to the exclusive, and his bonhomie having captivated the others, Fr. Vaughan became without any further trouble a London per- sonage. But much more than by this was he abso- lutely flung up against the attention of a far wider world, not by the Smart Set Sermons, about which everyone has heard, but by the concert at the Albert Hall, in 1904, of which I speak in the next section. Naturally all London — I might say, all England — was thrilled to learn that Mme. Patti was to sing.

IN MAYFAIR 8l

and in fact did sing, once more at the Albert H:ill, and even those who knew it as Mme. Patti's Concert, were forced to use the alternative description, and call it Fr. \'aiighan's C(jncert. Above all, it was an astonishment to learn that the Farm Street priest had all this while been working in W'hitechapel. And even then, the next event, if not in his public English life, at least for his own feeling and mind, was his going to Rome in the winter of that year to preach in honour of the Jubilee of the Definition of Our Lady's Immaculate Conception. I need not dwell upon Fr. Vaughan's very childlike devotion to Our Lad}'. It coloured the whole of his life, and this visit to Rome gave him new strength, especially as it brought him once more to the feet of Pius X, for whom he justly felt a very profound veneration. In the season of 1906, Fr. Vaughan preached ser- mons which he afterwards published in book form under the title The Sins of Society. The sermons themselves were preached without manuscript or note, but can have been but little different from the printed version. The book ran into at least fourteen editions, and was pubhshed by Kegan Paul & Co. To it he prefixed some pages in which he quite frankly owned that he had sought to make a sensational, and so, an emotional appeal, for by no other road, he held, could he reach the intelli- gence, let alone the spiritual innermost, of those he hoped to make his hearers. In the preface he also says that he means to write an epilogue which shall suggest remedies for the ills he has diagnosed. But he does little more, there, than to pray for a riddance

82 LIFE OF FATHER BERNARD VAUGHAN

of agnostic philosophy, and a return to a national belief in Christ. He dwells, too, in this epilogue on the vice of race-suicide, relatively unstressed in the sermons.

As for the sermons themselves, they had every kind of success, including that of " scandal." Farm Street church was crammed Sunday by Sunday with crowds described as obviously smart or patently suburban according as each paper thought its readers had been there or had not : the congregation thronged the nave and aisles, overflowed into the chapels, sat on altar-rails or pillar pedestals, and was marshalled into queues outside by policemen who regretted their Sunday rest. Society leaders gave " Vaughan luncheons." Prominent peers were said to be much distressed. People mentioned an All- Catholic petition that the sermons might be stopped ; and again, certain portals were announced as for ever closed to the Smart Set who in no conceivable circumstances could have been pictured knocking at them. Journalists, annoyed that their thunder had been stolen, and resolute that no one should say with impunity what they had not said first, proved the most profitable foe. They quoted parallels : already they knew the name of Jeremiah, and soon learnt, and made puns on, that of Savonarola. Juvenal came next, and had some success ; but Lucilius — secuit urbem — was a thought too recondite and never really throve. John Bull condemned Fr. Vaughan for blatancy and self-advertisement ; and John Strange Winter, who certainly ought to have'' known all about it, attacked his " slipshod Enghsh "

IN MAYFAIR 83

and diagnosed hysteria. Punch devoted one of Blanche's Letters wholly to the sermons, and was at least good-temj)ered ; but Mr. Filson Young, in the Outlook, proved himself a master of tlie methods he shrieked against. To make uj), .Mr. G. W. E. Russell recalled the really interesting career of the Rev. G. II. Wilkinson, who also, at St. Peter's, Eaton Square, in 1870, " spoilt a London season " by his attacks on all classes of society, though a writer in the Free Press declared that a Jesuit denouncing marital infidelity was but Satan reproving sin, and that the jewel was but " gold in a swine's snout " ; whilst a well-known doctor, with piercing intuition, told the Daily Mirror that he could see that Father Bernard's views on divorce were ** strongly tinged " with the Roman Catholic belief in the indissolubility of the marriage bond. As the sermons proceeded a real emotion became manifest. Societv found defendants. Y'ou could always tell when the critics were angry or anxious, for then they mocked. I'r. Vaughan was denounced alternately as a shrewd charlatan, making mone}' for Farm Street, and again as a naive hermit, tricked by tales told to " make his flesh creep." His transparent sincerity forbade any vogue to the former accusation ; his twentv years in Manchester, his experience in the con- fessional, his work in the East End known by now. and his whole manner, soon silenced the latter. But it had to be elaborately explained that only a small section of " society "' was surely being aimed at. It was indeed argued that no " smart set " existed. Delinquent duchesses were merely Mrs. 'Arris in

84 LIFE OF FATHER BERNARD VAUGHAN

disguise. Anglican Archdeacons showed that society was, if anything, steadily improving, and that there was much good in all of us, at any rate in Belgravia ; and Dr. Horton said that the same was true for Bayswater. It was found safest to allude to Marie Corelli and ** Rita," and to say that Fr. Vaughan had beaten them at their own game. Thus an air of good humour and also of superiority was pre- served, and yet the preacher himself might feel complimented and continue to buy the paper.

As a matter of fact, he bought few if any — their own representatives sent him quite enough — and continued to preach as he pleased. His first sermon had been on the Pharisee and the Publican, and had denounced the unreality of what he had not been the first to call " society " : the sermon made a sensa- tion but provoked but slight criticism : he defended it on the ground that the Church caters for human creatures and does not feed them with what they cannot possibly eat. " Is that," people said, " the best food that you can give them ? " " No," he answered, " but it is the best that they can digest." But that he meant to do more than deride the idiocy of the pleasure-seeking rich, was clear, when he described the three months of the season as a three- act drama which, if it did not turn out to be but a bad farce, ended as tragedy. The second sermon, on Dives and Lazarus, aroused the first real contro- versies, as well as the caricatures and cartoons, which began when he said that Society was as rotten as any tinned meats from Chicago. Hereupon voices were heard saying that Fr. Vaughan provided no

IN MAVFAIR 85

remedies fur the ills that he rebuked, and never went to the roots of things. Mr. L. Chiozza Money, in the Daily News, asked him to scarify the rich not as rich, but as usurers, and to turn his eyes to the due distribution of wealth. The Labour Leader asked him to consider how fortunes were made, not how they were spent, and even Mr. G. K. Chesterton entered the lists, in a rage, not with Fr. Vaughan, but with those who catalogued the charities of cer- tain colonial millionaires to show how good rich men might be. There is no doubt that this last sort of criticism was of value to Fr. Vaughan, since it led him to attend 3'et more closely to social and economic problems, and, with more knowledge to back him, to speak with more power. The third sermon was on Herod the Tetrarch and the marriage bond, over which the press got into inextricable confusion between Salome and Herodias, and seldom spelt " Antipas " correctly. One journal added much to the joy of the land by an enchanting error — it said that Fr. Vaughan had asked that immoral ladies be tattooed. Alas, he had begged nothing more drastic than their taboo. It remains that that Sunday, which occurred in Ascot week, became known as the First Sunday after Ascot. The fourth sermon, placed first in the book, was on the Prodigal Son, and dealt with gambling and it was this that really roused the rage of the clubs. Father Vaughan, as I said, explained very clearly, when in Manchester, the ethics of gambling, and did so once more now : but this proved too stiff for the reporters, who were content to exhibit the preacher as a Puritan kill-joy.

G

86 LIFE OF FATHER BERNARD VAUGHAN

A similar treatment, then, of an identical subject, having caused Fr. Vaughan to be pictured, there, as a licentious Cavalier, here, as a Puritan and a prude, it is probable that each set of critics had really felt themselves palpably hit by the indictment, and that Fr. Vaughan's reasoned via media was the right one just because both sets of extremists called it wrong. He preached once more, on " Magdalen in May fair," and described the methods by which marriages were engineered when dollars were needed to regild coronets, or when a title was felt to lend vicarious fragrance to the coins. Non olet, Vespasian said ; but nostrils were, in 1906, still not so numbed as his then, or ours now.

There was, after a space, a final sermon at Farm Street ; but the season was then over : " London " was empty ; and since the sermon dealt chiefly with the ruin and starvation of the French clergy, the earthquake at San Francisco, and the disaster at Valparaiso, it aroused but little interest.

People smiled when it was announced that Fr. Vaughan had gone, after this, to drink the waters at Harrogate, and thence, by way of Lord Edmund Talbot's, to Ugbroke Park, where Lord Clifford of Chudleigh was entertaining Queen Natalie of Servia. But a certain reaction had occurred ; the smile might be legitimate, but it was without malice even though people did not know how cruelly Fr. Vaughan was suffering from sleeplessness, and also from the diabetic illness which was to cause him much distress and was already discernable. The press itself was now acknowledging, far from ungraciously, his conl- plete sincerity, nay, simplicity. He had seen that

IN MAYFAIR 87

there was a mass of very bad behaviour in our midst, and none but a fool would have denied that ; he saw, too, what one had to be rather less of a fool to see, to what it was leading the country. He saw that it was unusuall\- noisy, and very ricli, and easily imitated in a meaner way, and that there was just then an unusual readiness so to imitate. To put the centre of one's life's gravity in money ; to spend money in showy pleasures while you have it ; to think lightly of marriage and of the duties of mar- riage, are attractive vices which the crowds do not need to have stimulated in tliem by the example of a tiamboyant class they watch, imitate and deride. Fr. Vaughan was frankl}' disgusted, and alarmed. At least, they had better be told. Very well, he would tell them. _ For that, he must be heard. Other attractions made themselves kno^\'n by means of placards. He chose five " pictures," he said, from the Gospels and placarded them. People should see and hear. W hen the gibe was produced, that the only empty places in London were the churches, he said, " Very well, I will hll mine." And he did, and in Ascot week, too. Having gained a hearing, he kept it. The congregations increased. And when readers of the Monday newspapers said : " He merely serves up The News of the World garnished with ecclesiastical sauce piquanie," they did not know that they were not given the spiritual parts of the sermon to read, nor even the reasoned parts. And perhaps, few even grasped tliat the denunciation was not the body of the sermon, but the contrast meant to make the sequel more cogent. Still, the audience

88 LIFE OF FATHER BERNARD VAUGHAN

had to listen, and not a few were pricked, not in palate alone, but in heart. Paid bills astonished the dressmakers, and wages made servants happy. True, there were still the sweating-dens, nor was co-operation everywhere established — ^in short, there was no national revolution ; but the fringe, those who were in danger of being influenced by the bad public opinion, who did not quite dare to express even to themselves their disgust at the evil exhibi- tion offered them, were refreshed and encouraged. So do not judge the sermons by canons that never were the preacher's. The sermons were not like, and did not emulate, the sensational novel. Miss Marie Corelli may — one never knows — have meant to write good English ; Dr. Emil Reich, then lec- turing at Claridge's, may have believed his impres- sionism was real thinking ; and Mr. G. B. Shaw certainly tossed about a number of ideas and argued vivaciously around them. But Fr. Vaughan cared little how he said a thing, provided he said the thing he meant to say. " Do you know," he asked a reporter, *' that my five nun-sisters are all praying in heaven that I may say the right thing ? But I fear I am responsible for the way in which I say it." What he wanted to hand over, through the impres- sions he might make, was principle ; and he held his principles to be, quite simply, truth. Let them hear the truth. The Truth shall free them. And one press-notice — I think exactly one — shows that its writer could detect what he called the " vein of love " that ran all through the sermons. Fr.» Vaughan loved those whom he scourged. Did they

IN MAYFAIR 89

guess that ? Who knows ! But none who knew him need have the shghtest doubt tliat that was true. He loved God : he loved souls. He was wretched to see that an idle or a jaded world could lind no time to know God, nor the supreme manifestation of love, and the key to all riddles, God Incarnate. " What urges me to preacli," he said, "is the consciousness that God loves these people — inhnitely more than I do, and is using me as an instrument for helping them."

The Sins of Society had an amazingly good press. Those who read the book reahsed how far less sensa- tional had been the sermons tlian the reports had led them to expect. The next series of such sermons, which was not in fact preached till the Lent of 1907, may therefore b£ here alluded to.

It is difficult to do even a good thing twice. Fr. Vaughan proposed to speak on the chief incidents in the Passion of Our Lord ; but rather as in his tirst series he gave a " picture " of some parable or inci- dent in the Gospels and then affixed to it a denuncia- tion of some vice not closely, though sufficiently, connected with it ; so here, the connection between the two parts of his sermons was of the loosest. In the first, he related the history of the Agon>' in the Garden, and drew a general contrast between the Mind it imj^lied in Our Lord and that of the " worldh- world." It was the difference between a view of sin sufticient to break tlie Divine Heart, and the " reinterpretations " of sin in whicli those lind refuge who have not strength of mind to tolerate the old conxictions that concerned sin. The second sermon,

90 LIFE OF FATHER BERNARD VAUGHAN

on the Sin of Caiaphas, went aside from the main topic to the prevalent doubts, expressed in Anglican pulpits, as to the Divinity of Christ ; but the press, which had concentrated on the shopping-frauds mentioned in the first sermon, here altogether occu- pied itself with the strictures on the cult of pets, and on the craze for *' mascots " — to use a word in vogue, I think, a little later. Similarly the third, which was on Pilate and his disbelief in the possibility of finding out what Truth was, supplied the oppor- tunity of saying that Fr. Vaughan attacked the Stage, though the tricks of fashionable ladies, who wished to get much for little, as from doctors, filled out their columns. The next sermon, on Herod, had its topic ready indicated ; and the next, had its moral no less obvious, on The Sin of the Jews, who chose Caesar for their king. On Palm Sunday he did not preach ; but on Easter Day he spoke on the moral resurrection of the race of which he held he saw some premonitory symptoms. The Good Friday sermons proper to the devotion of the Three Hours were also preached by him and call for no comment. In fine, the most visible result of this set of sermons was an interminable correspondence about pet dogs. — ** She insists," he kept lamenting, " that she will see her pet again — ^but she doesn't say where . ." and a briefer but more pithy one, mainly with tradesfolks, on their fraudulent customers. These sermons ap- peared in book form, Society, Sin, and the Saviour.

But if Fr. Vaughan did, without the slightesu' doubt, hit very shrewdly home when he described

IN MAVFAIR 91

in detail from the pulpit the sort of mean tricks on tradesmen of which plenty of his hearers, or next day readers, were guilty, he had not the slightest intention of letting oft the tradesfolks when he thought they needed chastisement. Xo one, of course, is going to suppose that Fr. Vaughan was supercilious towards the shopman world. I should say that one of his real sacrifices, made when he left Manchester, was, precisely, his friendship with so many whose vocation was trade on a large or a small scale. In London he used to try to meet them and did so in a measure. — " One day," a boot-maker writes to me from London (it is true he shoes the feet of royalty itself), "a handsome merry gentleman walked into my shop and enquired if anyone sick was expecting him, and mentioned he was Fr. Bernard Vaughan. I had a little chat with him, and found he had been given the WTong address. [Well . . perhaps.] ' We're both in the same trade,' he said. ' We both look after souls.' " But how much less geniality there is in London than in Man- chester, and how bewildered are boot-makers, how shocked are butlers, how flustered are most footmen, by any hint of friendliness. That is, at the outset ; the first and the last, perhaps, will yield. But the butlers . . . ! To resume. Far from letting his friends off, when he thought they needed a rebuke, He once returned to Manchester and in the course of his sermon said :

If Jesus looked upon the garrets of the slums of our cities, would He weep ? If He went into the pro\-ision-dealcr's shop and saw re-dried leaves, cla}-, and currant-sweepings

92 LIFE OF FATHER BERNARD VAUGHAN

put into the working-man's tea, and the borax compound, starch and glycerine put into his cream and milk, what would He think ? What about the peroxide of hydrogen, potato and other stuffs in his bread ; what would He say of those aniline dyes, refuse and putrid rubbish in His children's jam, and of the sodium sulphite to brighten up stale meat ; and what about the flabby fish freshened up by what he would not mention. [I think the reporter could not catch the words, here, and that Fr. Vaughan said " formalin."] You will say that these things are rare. That is not the point. The point is, Are they there ? Our Lord would weep to see that the poor man's small pittance instead of buying him nourishment was getting him some- thing pernicious. He would see tradesmen who looked as smart and clean as the goods in their windows, which were labelled, like the tombstones of their friends, with lying epitaphs. He would say : Unless you are on your guard, you will be making trade an organised system for robbing working men of seven shiUings in the pound. My command- ment is : Thou shalt not steal, even when you are not found out. Some of you may be in trade and think I am hitting hard at you. I am if you are guilty ; if you are not guilty you will be glad that I have spoken because of those that are.

Forthwith an indignant meeting of the Manchester, Salford, and District Grocers' Association was held, to consider, first, the action of the Local Government Board which had objected to the treatment of rice with talc for the purpose of polishing it. That, it was urged, was the fault of the public which would leave his stock on the hands of the honest grocer who should choose to sell only an unpolished rice. But while the Local Government Board was " known for its stupidity," Fr. Vaughan' s remarks had been scandalous if not libellous. " Give a lie an hour's start and you cannot overtake it." " The grocers

IN MAYFAIR 93

were harrassed and persecuted as no other body of traders were." Accrington, Coventry, Nottingham and other places protested no less vigorously. Fr. Vaughan, in reply, referred his assailants to the National Pure Food Association, which poured out what it held to be good evidence, and an acrid corres- pondence ensued to which I need not further allude, as the controversy then passed out of Fr. Vaughan's hands. He had, moreover, very carefully guarded himself against the charge of indiscriminate invec- tive, and had no doubt but that he was in possession of a sufficiency of facts to justify his speaking in the way he did.

On this occasion, it had been felt that Fr. Vaughan's words would have been the excuse for rash generahsation at the expense of grocers. In September, 1907, about two years earlier, he had made a speech at the National Vigilance Association, at the Westminster Palace Hotel, in which he ex- claimed against the dangers of " Living in." " If they Hve in," he cried, " God help them." There- upon the Secretary from the Drapers' Chamber of Trade Offices, Cheapside, entered a protest, and Fr. Vaughan retorted that he had not so much as men- tioned drapers. Rut it was uri;t'd that lie had alluded to shop-walkers, and had seemed to refer to a particular shop, and that everyone would sup- pose that drapers in particular were meant. Fr. Vaughan offered the organ of the Shop Assistants' Union as j~»rcn'iding enough facts to support what he said, if those of his personal experience were doubted. Again, the controversj* passed into the

94 LIFE OF FATHER BERNARD VAUGHAN

press, and the Manchester Guardian approved the suggestion {made, I think, by the Drapers* Associa- tion themselves) that a commission be appointed to examine the problem of living in. I have not tried to follow up the results of this discussion — very vigorous action was soon taken, quite independently of Fr. Vaughan, by certain journals and associations : there was even a strike — but as for Fr. Vaughan's part in it, I should judge that he knew perfectly well the limitations of his role. He was not the man to specialise, and to devote his time to organising com- missions on particular subjects, but to air the sub- ject, and if concrete results came about, such as a commission arranged by competent persons, he felt that he had helped towards this to the extent of which he was capable. And as I have often said, he really did " docunlent " himself as fully as possi- ble before speaking, and had far too great a sense of fairness to make sweeping assertions that never could be verified. At the back of all such onslaughts, was a passionate pity for the disinherited or dis- approved. In this connection, he used to say that bazaars ought to be engineered if only to teach the ladies who held the stalls to realise a little of what they made the girl behind the counter to endure when they went shopping. And he was never slow with his good word for barmaids. The girl at the bar, he announced, properly paid, is better off than underpaid girls at the counter. But underpay the barmaid, and— well, " if the spirit is served, the body is destroyed," one way or the other, by starvi tion or the streets. And he went everywhere

IN MAYFAIR 95

lecturing on the Living Wage according to the principles of Leo's encyclical.

He certainly did always try to get back to princi- ples, though in a sense his were spiritual, and there- fore still more ultimate than the merely economic. But again, at that time when facts required to be brought home to the imagination, and " sweated labour " was a topic more often heard of than it is now — we have become feebly much more academic — he did a great service in placarding facts. His address in tlie Manchester Free Trade Hall, April, 1908, on Sweating, was only one of a hundred that he gave. In the Weekly Dispatch of January igth of that year, he had written on " Why 1 am fighting Sweating," but was careful as usual to speak only of what he called " the sweating set." But he illus- trated his contentions by facts relating to the hook and eye industry in a great midland city. It had. said he, fifty button factories, and twelve hook and eye factories. 288 hooks and 288 eyes had to be sewn to cards and linked for id. A pack of these meant C)d. Out of this had to come needles and cotton, and the work came to three farthings an hour, totalling 3s. 3^. a week. Again, in January, he spoke at the Queen's Hall, in London, on behalf of the National Anti-Sweating League, on the eve of the opening of Parliament. With him on the platform. or felh)w speakers, were men like Lord Dunraven, Bishop Gore, G. B. Shaw, and Charles Dilke. Who shall tell Ikav much effect this meeting had even in the House of Commons, which jiassed the second reading of the Sweated Industries Bill in the week

96 LIFE OF FATHER BERNARD VAUGHAN

previous to the further sermons he devoted to this sub] ect both at Farm Street and at the Carmes ? Yet, " Say nothing," he had been begged : "for the kiddies will die if I have not these skins to pull to pieces " — the speaker was making is. 6d. for " pull- ing " sixty rabbit-skins. " I cannot imagine," he was crying everywhere, " anything sadder than not to have friends among the poor. Not to know the poor is not to know Jesus Christ. And is that how you house Him ? I have just come from a room fit to shelter two persons. In it twelve machines work all day. At night, the machines are removed, straw is put down, and men sleep there till 2-30, when they are turned out, and the room is re-let till 6-30, when the machines are brought back." He was constantly quoting the line : "A single sordid attic holds the living and the dead." He had seen the thing : the father was there, drunk in his misery ; two children were playing in the ashes ; the wife lay dead. He would not even rebuke the drunken widower. Very little drink, he reminded his hearers, upsets a starved stomach. Champagne-drinkers can't abuse the poor-man drunkard. As for himself, he said, he was sick and ill for three days after twenty minutes in that room.

No wonder that he carried on the indictment of sweating to its consequences, and among these were noticeable the slums. Humanise a man, he begged ; then you can civilise him ; then Christianise him ; leave God to canonise him. But do your own share in this co-operative work ! At Sheffield, in the same year, he was attacking, with fearful vehemence, its

IN MAYFAIR 97

slums, thuugh lie drew his illustrations wholly from London life. In its East End, he said, one man out of every three died outside his home ; including the West, one out of every five. Out of 11,000 volunteers for the Boer War, only 3,000 were accepted as fit, only 2,200 as of moderate build. At Sheffield he took his examples from elsewhere, not having made himself feel sure, I suppose, what the conditions of that town were ; but after a visit to Leeds, while on the one hand he got himself taken round the worst parts and professed surprise at the improve- ment upon what he had seen twenty years previously- . he did not in tlie least hesitate to write soon after in the Yorkshire Post : " Your Town Hall needs the vacuum cleaner and your slums the pick-axe and the shovel." I hastily protect myself (and him) by saying that all this occurred half a generation ago : but my point here is, that if he wanted to say a thing, he most certainly said it, and felt he could rely upon his being understood at least half the times. Nor was there much resentment : the North is proud. but it loves a hard-hitter. He often had severe things to say of much that might be found in Brad- ford. But after a visit there in 191 1, the Mayor said that they would have to rent the railway station for his next visit, such were the crowds. His inspec- tion of the place, though he had gone there actually to speak at St. George's Hall for hospitals, had been fairly thorough. As at Grimsby, he made a point of examining in minute detail the fishing ci>nditions, so at Bradford, after his Mass, he went straight to the business premises of the Lord Mayor and thence

98 LIFE OF FATHER BERNARD VAUGHAN

from warehouse to warehouse till noon when he was the centre of a welcoming crowd in the Exchange. He even collected samples of raw material. " I have been wool-gathering all the morning," he told the interviewer, as they stood near the window, Fr. Vaughan gesticulating in a cheerful way to the delighted crowds who made it almost impossible for his carriage to reach the railway station. Even when there was fierce dissension, there was seldom bitter- ness on either side. Once, it is true, he had sharp sorrow in his voice, when he commented upon what he saw. In September, 1909, he returned from Carlsbad and went to Braemar for an after-cure. Perhaps his own acute physical suffering, and the knowledge of how much his friends' generosity helped him to alleviate it, made him the more eager to speak as he so often did for hospitals. He preached, during his "after-cure," in the Catholic Cathedral of Aberdeen for the Morningfield Hospital for Incurables. The Aberdeen Free Press considered that of the 2,500 who heard him, not more than 1,000 were Catholics. He took for text his favourite one : '' Seeing the city, He wept over it," and pictured Christ looking down at any great modern city, Glasgow, Edinburgh — not only " white palatial Aberdeen."

If Our Lord were here to-day pleading for the object for which I am standing in this pulpit, would you see the tears upon His cheeks ? I think you would. There is a hospital, not far away, where some beds are vacant, while hands are stretching forth and tears and cries are uttered to be laid on them, and they cannot be filled because a population of 150,000 people cannot support eighty poor people suffering

IN MAVFAIR 99

from incurable disease. I am ashamed to think, I am really ashamed to think, that in Aberdeen this great popula- tion can provide for its sick forty-two beds onl}'. Is it that the expense is so great ? Do the physicians and the surgeons make inordinate demands ? They go ever^'where, our I^hysicians and our surgeons, the largest-hearted men in the kingdom, lending their invaluable aid, but their arms are tied because the citizens have closed their hands and shut up the wards. It is a disgrace upon Aberdeen, a disgrace, a blot, which must be wiped out with the tears of your hearts.

He calculated that it took is. 6d. a day to keep a bed occupied — ^^28 a year. Next day, in an inter- view, he developed practical suggestions. Families, parishes, could found beds ; people should go round and collect, not send mere letters. In the church, he said, he had been shocked to find, at the collec- tion, endless threepenny bits. " Aberdeen was a mint for small change." However, after the sermon. he had gone outside and found a new congregation of cabbies and chauffeurs, and — need I say — had at once preached, from the church steps, a sermon to them too. And also needless to say, not one of them but had contributed his generous sum.

I would like to add immediately after this, part of a speech he made at Blackpool. You will see that in it he is quite free with the criticisms he wants to make, and yet in how genial a tone he makes them ! That is because he was familiar with and verv much liked Blackpool. He liked the noise and the crowds, and if anyone had called the place vulgar he would have been breezily contemj^tuous and thought what a lot the critic lost if he could see no more about it than that. He exulted in its friendliness : he must

100 LIFE OF FATHER BERNARD VAUGHAN

have chuckled with pleasure to see, as his train steamed in, how the backs of the houses advertised, with their full address, '' Mrs. X, from Clitheroe " ; " Mrs. Z, from Blackburn," so that their visitors might know where to find a full compatriot. Imagine entering London, and seeing on those dingy walls the homely word that " Mrs. Y, of Harrow, of Ash- ford, of Birmingham," might be found there, and would be right glad to entertain you. But pre- cisely because he could feel, in Lancashire, so much at home, even when opening his bazaars he could plunge right down into advice. He would applaud the " progress " he saw round him, the honest two- penny shows to which he had been so frankly glad to go himself, the sight above all of the family parties enjoying themselves. But then :

Instead of appearing at this bazaar " supremely happy," I feel a poor forlorn creature because all those beautiful electric lights round Talbot Square were being removed before I left. I knew Blackpool ever since Blackpool was a child, when the Catholic Church in Talbot Road was one of the few outstanding buildings, and when the sea did not appear to come within a mile of where it now holds up its mane and flings itself across land beyond the hmits of Black- pool. Mr. Mayor, you should mark those hmits by the finest pier jutting out into the sea that the country has seen. Let it be an object lesson to those who are neglecting our httle island on the other side. Furthermore, when I think of the crowded homes in the summer, we must have camps for boys and camps for girls, where they can drink in the sunshine, bathe in the sea, partake of the bracing breezy atmosphere, and go back with no microbes to ravage them and destroy their homes. We are too crowded. Let us try to extend our dominions round and about Blackpool. Instead of letting the sea take away from us, let us go forth towards thi' sea and build up by the power of the architect. My friend.

IN MAVFAIR 101

Alderman Mather, lias told us that he can restore the Catho- lic Church. If he can do that he can do anything. And there is another thing I want to see in Blackpool. On the promenade between the North Pier and tlie Victoria Pier, on that great desert of drab and grey, I want to see little sunken cases here and there, so that the eye may be relieved by the red geraniums and the green grass, and forget the weird waste of grey, sometimes under a sky too grey already. Now, Mr. Mayor, here is a fine opportunity. You know that Blackpool, unless it is quite crowded, looks wanting in colour and I want to see plenty of colour, more especially for those who come from the cold grey dull towns and villages of Lancashire and Yorkshire. I want to see prettiness. I would do away with all the drab benches. I would have them bright green. Have bright colours ; lighten the people up ; make them forget the dull cares of the past life ; let them renew themselves and the face of the earth at bright breezy bracing Blackpool. Lift up the lights and keep the prices down, and you will have a safe resort for our working brothers and sisters from the towns and cities of Lancashire and York- shire. I hope that Blackpool will never be " improved " to be the ideal resort for the genteel, but for the bread-earner, who needs the sea and all its bracing breezes. There is no liner race of men and women on earth than our Lancashire folk, yet I find them stunted and narrow-chested, and bleached and anaemic, from many causes that I will not go into now, and I say it is the great mission put into the hands of the Blackpool City Fathers, to see that our hardworked brothers and sisters should have a grand holiday. And how well they behave. They are an object lesson to the smart set, whom some of them I hear are trying to get among them at Blackpool. They are not taken up with vice, indecency, bad language and dnmkenness. You can move about among them, as I have done, and feel you are proud to hear them and feel the homy hand of the labourer in your own. Keep your lights up. so that you may do away with the police. Lights are far better than police, and I saw that to my advantage yesterday after a long walk. We ought to protect our brothers and sisters who are tempted like the rest of us, so keep your hghts up and you keep a clean conscience and a

H

102 LIFE OF FATHER BERNARD VAUGHAN

pure body, with a soul like a pearl in the rough shell. Have nothing to do with slum-land in Blackpool. Mr. Mayor, if anybody wants to live in a slum, let him go and hve wherever he Hkes so long as he keeps away from Blackpool. We have no room for slums here. There are poor houses, and cheap houses, but no slums. The slum breathes the microbe which ravages the physical and moral being ; and so, Mr. Mayor, no slums. And so every day I wish Blackpool to merit more completely its splendid motto of " Progress."

I shall quote only a few more instances to show how far was Fr. Vaughan, in his London ministry, from absorbing his energies in mere denunciation. Whenever he saw a philanthropic cause that he could help, he helped it. More than once during the earlier part of his stay at Mount Street, he spoke on behalf of those indigent gentlewomen whose lot is so undeservedly cruel : at the same time, he used always to urge the importance of teaching girls — all girls — some useful work or other : he examined very closely the conditions of the employees in a great London establishment, and then consented to write a " message " for it that was advertised broadcast and at least let people know the sort of thing a shop had to be before Fr. Vaughan would care to recom- mend it : he replaced Lord Balfour of Burleigh at a meeting on behalf of the Victoria Working-Men's Club at Richmond ; he spoke for the Catholic Nurses' Guild; he announced and propagated the establishment of six bursaries at a big London school in memory of his brother, the Cardinal ; he spoke for an orphanage at Hull, when the Mayor took the chair despite vigorous Nonconformist protests-^ '* As though I ought," said the Mayor, " to have

IN MAVIAIR 103

resented anyone save a Nonconformist trying to do good " ; and again, for the after-care of the Blind, Deaf and Crippled Children at Bridgewater House — and alwcivs one of his chief preoccupations will be the well-being of those children whom he so warmly loved, and who, with their unerring sense, showed that they knew his love was not a pose and always thronged him without a hint of shyness. For other orphanages he spoke in theatres, as at Grimsby, and for Fr. Berry's Homes at Liverpool, and, need I say, he did all he could for the stage, saying that not even among the poor had he found a charity and generosity to surpass that ui the " profession " for its suffering members. He presided, in fact, at the Playhouse, in London, May, 191 1, on behalf of the Actors' Or- phanage Fund, along with Lady Tree, Miss Ellen Terry, Miss Lilian Braithwaite, Messrs. George Alexander, Cyril ]\Iaude, George Grossmith and Harry NichoUs, and no doubt others, several of whom were always his very good friends, and he was de- voted to the Catholic Stage Guild. He spoke for the National Societ}^ for the Relief of the Blind in J une, 1910 — nearly all these instances are taken from tiie years 1908-1910 — under the Lt)rd Mayor at the Mansion House ; for the Lifeboats in many different places ; and, as I said, on a great man\' more sub- jects in many more i)laces than 1 here indicate.

What 1 should like to be allowed to insist on after looking over this sort of list that I lui\e made, is my disgust when people say, first, about Fr. Vaughan that he was fond of lime-light. He may have been : but what he liked doing with it was, turning it on to

104 LIFE OF FATHER BERNARD VAUGHAN

the subject he was talking about. He had no objec- tion whatever to being deluged with lime-light if that would make people look at him, and then, listen to what he wanted to say. But he never wanted the lime-light on himself to keep it on himself. He never kept it there ; no one, most certainly, has the right to say that. To say so, were the extreme of ungenerosity, and of untruth. When he was ex- hausted, when he knew well what cruel nights of torturing insomnia the nerve-strain of lecturing would inflict upon him — ask him for something in the name of the children, of the blinded, of the worker, the sweated, the drunkard, the prostitute, he would get up and come and do it. Now frankly, I regard it as more of a spiritual feat to keep yourself in the Ume-light unselfishly, than to keep out of it altogether. And if at times Fr. Vaughan liked feeling himself in the lime-light — and most certainly he liked it — ^well, he looked very well by lime-light 1 The papers that jeered, condescended to talk about money. Certainly a deal of money flowed through Fr. Vaughan's two hands. Some one said, laugh- ingly, when a boy had swallowed a threepenny bit, " Send him to Fr. Vaughan — he can get money out of anyone." So he could : but who kept it ? Cer- tainly not he. His personal poverty was complete. He could dress right glossily, when the environment insisted on it ; but if you knew him well, you saw him, most times, in deplorable seam-worn clothes. And when he went to South Africa, a friend was appalled to find that he was sailing with scarcely b coin beyond what would be needed by the exigencies

IN MAYFAIR 105

of the journey, and absolutely insisted that he should accept what should serve to get him at least the usual comforts. But, said this same friend, had Fr. Vaughan chosen to let his penurious state be known, what a rain of ducats would have fallen on him !

Mgr. Provost Brown, of Southwark, tells me that he first came into contact with Fr. Vaughan " when ' Education Bills ' were to the fore and there was much talk of the unequal treatment of the Voluntary Schools by the State and the hardships to which they are subjected, haNing to carry on without the rates which were drawn up to support their rivals, the Board Schools. Father Bernard wTote strongly on the subject and once contrasted the many millions spent annually on the Board Schools with the small Government grant given to the Voluntary Schools. In his anxiety to make a good case he included, so far as I could see, all the capital sums as well as amounts spent on annual maintenances since 1870 bv the School Boards. Unfortunatelv Blue Books showed that the huge total he mentioned did not mean the annual expenditure by School Boards but the whole of the money raised by them from Rates since they were established. Cardinal \'aughan ad- vised me to wTite to his brother about this : I did so ; but in reply received only a i:)ost-card -' My dear Sir, — No doubt you think you arc right. I think I am right ! God bless you. Bernakd \'aughan. Mgr. Brown cannot feel sure that Fr. Vaughan even realised he was a priest, but the incident caused no ill will. Later on he and Fr. \'aughan knew one another well, and when the Provost was ill Father

io6 LIFE OF FATHER BERNARD VAUGHAN

Bernard used often to come and sit by his fire and " talk very intimately." " Few," says Mgr. Brown, " who knew him only as an orator, guessed his extraordinary goodness of heart and his readiness to encourage others. Appreciation of his utterances was very dear to him, and became still dearer as his vital energy decayed, but he was never slow to notice what others achieved, and above all did many acts of kindness in an unobtrusive way. Towards the end his life seemed saddened by the loss of health, but anything that could be done for God's Church always appealed to him, and enabled him to arouse something of the old enthusiasm, and he was always a man of profound religious feeling."

It remains that Fr. Vaughan's brusquing of the situation could not always win so intelligent a pardon, especially among those who never met him at close quarters.

The one point that seems legitimately to be made was, that Fr. Vaughan refused to argue when he should have done so. Of course, when a man is talking from a pulpit, he exasperates a certain number of his hearers precisely because they cannot contradict. But even when men stood up and shouted at Fr. Vaughan on a platform, he was not always happy in his retorts. Sometimes, he just snubbed the heckler rather heavily. That is of no use. Then, after a lecture on " Socialism," in the Large Hall of the Exhibition Buildings at York, at which the Sheriff of York presided, he received the following very courteous letter from the York I.L.P. : I'

IN MA VI- AIR 107

Dear Sir, — The members of the York Independent Labour Party (a Socialist organisation) instruct me to write asking you if you would be wiUing to debate the subject — Sociahsm, with an exponent of Sociahsm to be chosen by the I.L.P.

The chairman, of course, to be neutral, and agreed to by both yourself and the one chosen to speak on behalf of Socialism.

I may say that on Monday. March 27th, we are to have a visit from Mr. \Vm. C. Anderson, the chairman of the National Independent Labour Party, and we would suggest that if possible, and if you are wiUing, that be the date for the proposed debate.

I enclose stamped envelope addressed for reply, which kindly let me have as early as possible. Yours faithfully,

J. W. E.\KNSHAVV.

To this Fr. Vaughan replied :

Dear Sir, — I am too overwhelmed with work to under- take the business you so kindly offered me.

Life is a rush, and the many tempting things offered one have to be declined in order that more pressing work may be done. Yours tnily. Bernard Vaughan.

That looked like shirking, and was surely felt as such by the recipients of his answer. I do not tliink it was sliirking, for as a rule his engagements, it is (juite true, were compiled whole months in advance. But had he felt able to carry the debate through well. I think it was such a chance, that he would have made time for it. Fr. Plater's life is full of instances of the enormous value of even an hour's friendly explanation of seemini^ly liostile points of view. It might almost be thought better so to meet, and to be. for the moment, defeated in mere argu- ment, than not to meet at all. For a good argument is not always at one's beck and call, but good-\nlI

I08 LIFE OF FATHER BERNARD VAUGHAN

always is, or should be, and everyone, save the very ill-conditioned, recognise sincerity, and respect prin- ciple. For my part, I should have preferred Fr. Vaughan to have said that he was not a good debater : he required to prepare very carefully what he meant to say : that he had, after all, his method, which was, to speak at considerable length and not in the quick give and take of debate, when, moreover, the constant reference to particular instances tends always to obscure those great principles on which alone he wanted to dwell. He might even very well have declared that he disliked the whole method of debating, as calculated to lead nowhere — for who has ever drawn much enlightenment from a debate, or been converted by one ?* Still, the impression made was that he acted de haut en has, and his very famous lecture at the Queen's Hall, on March loth, 1909, when, under the presidency of the late Duke of Norfolk, he asked a very gilded audience whether Socialism were indeed Liberty, and not Tyranny, was an instance of what looked like a preference for speaking to packed houses, where applause was a foregone conclusion. What I have said about Fr. Vaughan's fighting propensities ought to suffice to make any such accusation idle.

If I had to point to one sort of place in which he felt himself not at home, I should say, the Univer- sities, meaning by that, Oxford and Cambridge. He went to Cambridge once or twice, but I do not know what they thought of him there. It was, however, at Cambridge that he made one of the two retorts J»

*I find that later on, in America, he did say practically this.

IN MAVrAIR 109

that every paper has quoted ever since. He was shown, wht-n hinching at Trinity, a famous portrait of Hem}- Vm by Holbein. " What would you do, Fr. Vaughan," he was asked, " if Henry stepped down from the frame ? " "I would ask the ladies to leave the room," he answered. At Oxford, he gave the Catholic Undergraduates' Conferences in 1905, on The Body of Christ ; and spoke at the Town Hall on the Censor's role in literature ; and he spoke at the Union at least once, at the end of 1907 ; that is an assembly which admits of and even may admire rhetoric, far from accustomed to it though it be. I think Fr. Vaughan spoke there about the " Im- morality of Speed." Public Ministers hurry, he said, because they must, not because they like it. But in smaller gatherings at Oxford, he was not at his ease. Not indeed that his audience was likel}' to be very much wiser than he was : but because it was perhaps more sophisticated, and probably far more conven- tional, and certainly man}' times more self-conscious than he. Touch its quivering limbs, and away it stampedes, over all the fields, like a nervous foal. At one such meeting of undergraduates. I remember that a man interpolated an orthodox remark on, I think, Birth-Control. " I should like," said Fr. Vaughan, " to shake that young man by the hand." The youth wilted. " Not wishing," another wrote to me after a similar experience, " to be made a public exhibition of. I fled the moment we adjourned." And I can myself recall meeting Fr. \'aughan near Hyde Park Comer. I turned back to walk with him up Park Lane, just inside the railings. On the

110 LIFE OF FATHER BERNARD VAUGHAN

other side of the carriage- way, two young men passed by who knew me uud sahited. " Who are those ? " demanded Fr. Vaughan in his high voice. ** Intro- duce me," I beckoned them across and said, ** These are so and so : this is Fr. Vaughan." He seized one of them by the hand, and chipped the other hand on his companion's shoulder. " Splendid ! " he cried. " Magnihcent. You are the men we want. The Empire needs you. Hundreds of you. God bless you ! " The young men, beetroot-red, melted into Piccadilly, vovNdng eternal vengeance, and for my part I promised Fr. Vaughan that if he behaved like that again. I would speak to him no more in public. He just laughed, and so did I. And so, in the long run — a good long run — did they.

From all this please gather, that from the picture of Fr. Vaughan you must banish at least all features proper to the thin-lipped ascetic, the fanatic, the kill-joy ; all those proper to the suave and hand- washing ecclesiastic ; and all those suitable to the subtle diplomat. Please see in him a very simple man, aflame with the most genuine indignations, ready tor the most straight-forward friendships ; ready to laugh with open delight with those who did not mind an honest laugh ; very shy of the shy, and of the pompous or dogmatic or languid and over- exquisite ; and totally averse to the endless qualifi- cations which, for the sake of a donnish accuracy, finish by robbing a statement of any discernible meaning whatsoever. He was far more inclined to hurl a massive statement at you, making sure thatl- in itself it meant no more than it should, and leave

IN MAYFAIR in

to you the task of chipping off the exaggerations that had made it so jaggedly strike your attention. Before quite leaving this element in Fr. \'aughan's career — his association with public movements con- cerning morality and general well-being — I may quote his guarded approval of Sunday amusements and especially music ; he would have liked the Franco- British Exhibition "open on Sunday afternoons, but not so that excursion trains could have come from Manchester" : his energetic support of games and sport, including boxing, provided always Mr. Roose- veldt's ideal were verified — he had declared that he did not want men who could say they had done some- thing in tlie Olympic Games twenty years ago, and nothing else ever since — and Fr. Vaughan, who really had some affinities with Rooseveldt in more ways than one, objected only to those " sportsmen " who confined themselves to looking at, talking about, and betting on sport. As for the presence of ladies at prize-fights, he ct)uld not speak calmly of it, knowing quite well the special sort of sensuality that mostly sends them there. In his denunciation of bad literature, he recognised, indeed, the due role of a censor, but insisted that the proper tiling to do was to provide good books ; and as for the idea that " art " palliated everything however lewd, he could not bear that either, and therefore spoke loudly against the " living pictures " which were about that time so much talked about, especially as no one in his heart supposed that people went to see them in the throes of a higli artistic passion. However, tliis opinion so annoyed Mr. W. R. Titterton, in a weekly

112 LIFE OF FATHER BERNARD VAUGHAN

paper, that he asked for a bonfire to be made of these " midnight crawlers " — the clergy — on the top of which Fr. Vaughan should be consumed, showing that Mr. Titterton, too, approved of the censorship. I confess I am not now quite sure whether this occurred a propos of the Pictures or of a criticism of some statues in a London street which were con- sidered unsatisfactory. Poor things, they were early-Epstein, invisible save from the top windows of the building opposite, and anyhow doomed soon to be clad in London grime, and could not, one would have thought, have done any harm to anybody. It was, perhaps, a pity that Fr. Vaughan accepted so readily the urgent invitations that he should asso- ciate his name to all such protests indiscriminately. Yet he was very far from condemning music-halls. In a foggy climate, he said, they were a necessity. You could not have, in a London drizzle, the open- air restaurants of Paris. And he would have appre- ciated the words of M. F. J. de Tessan, in La Liberie, who declared that he still found the English music- halls tres-familial : you saw there the apotheosis of the Good Detective. " La police dans toute cette his- toire avait le dernier mot : c'etait le point essentiel. J'admets bien," added he, " que certains promenoirs sont des docks fleuris et encombres d'ou I'on s' embarque pour Cythere — " but, unless I err, Fr. Vaughan saw that particular element modified.

And as for horse-racing, he was often sharply criticised by Nonconformist organs for saying that he hoped King George would keep up King Edward's., stables ; but he considered royal support of this,

IN MAYFAIR 113

as of every sport, of high importance, as helping the

sport not to degenerate yet more. He spoke often

too on the Education Hills of the hour, but the need

for quotation has passed along with these.

Of specilically Catholic works in which he took a

personal share (besides, that is, preaching for them —

these would be too numerous to mention). I cannot

but allude first to the Catholic Women's League.

This was inaugurated in 1905, in the Cathedral Hall

at Westminster, under the presidency' of Cardinal

Bourne. Its ideal was, to give to every woman who

was willing, the opportunity of ministering to her

sisters who had need. It had been pointed out that

there were three chief difficulties in its way. The

first was the Modernist panic, just then at its

height. It was felt to be dangerous so much as to

start anything at all. Then the Feminist movement

was then expressing itself in terms of militant

suftragism, and the whole movement was thus ijetting

a bad name : in fact, those who lived secluded never

heard about women's share in public interests save

in terms of suffragism. Finally, there had been no

evidence so far that Catholic women could find scope

for their activity outside the purely religious or

charitable organisations that had for long existed.

Miss Fletcher, who describes this state of things,

tells, too, how the C.W.L. obtained the spiritual

guidance of Fr. V'aughan :

One fitiH-ire stood out as unimpeachably Catholic, thoroughly national, who could be seen in our imagination standing four-square to criticism, even slaying our mis- guided enemies ! On the one hand was the tempting thought that this outstanding figure would act as a wind-screen when

114 LIFE OF FATHER BERNARD VAUGHAN

gales prevailed, on the other was just a doubt as to whether he would consent to leave the women at the wheel, whether he would really believe in the existence of the shore for which we were making. Overtures began, interviews took place, and all difficulties disappeared in the face of Fr. Vaughan's absolute honesty and far-seeing wisdom. But so, too, did the comfortable idea of the wind-screen ! Those interviews were stimulants, and made of some of us sternly resolute persons. For this was in substance what he said : — I am not sure if your movement is a sound one or not. I certainly see difficulties and some dangers. Don't expect me to ask a single person to join you ; don't expect me to advocate your work in general assemblies. If people join you they must do so because they believe in the work you are setting out to do, not because I ask them to. They must look into things for themselves and not take my approval as a guarantee of safety. If God is blessing the work it will grow in spite of all difficulties. My part will be to remind you to pray suffi- ciently, to put spiritual ideals before you and to remind you to live up to your motto (he always seemed to have a real affection for our motto). I was not one of those present at the prehminary talks, but I have a very distinct recollection of the interview in which he finally gave his consent. He was visiting Oxford as the guest of the Newman Society, and gave half an hour in a very busy day to the question.

The terms of the agreement reached were, that on the secular and practical side we should carve our own way without any criticism and advice from him. Any question of Catholic principle referred to him he would do his best to answer, and he would at all times exhort us to prayer.

It was an ideal entente, and it worked admirably. He always came to the annual meetings which were concerned with work done and new programmes planned, and in his brief speeches always swept us up to the plane of spiritual realities. He never refused an invitation to speak at a public meeting organised by the League, and the Annual Retreats which he gave to the Central membership were continued up to last year. When first he became Spiritual Adviser the League existed only in London, each Branch as it came intoj' being had its own Spiritual Adviser, so that he came to belong

IN MAYFAIR 115

to the Central Membership. In early years he often paid sur- prise visits to the ofhct-, always (so it seemed to the workers, anxious to make a good impression) when they were at their busiest and in their most untidy state. Sometimes when a Committee was sitting, then he would efface himself in some comer while the debate proceeded, always anxious not to dis- turb any work. Sometimes he dropped in at tea time, and always the kindness, the wit, and the encouragement of his talk heartened the ofhce staff.

That he did bear the brunt of much criticism, and much opposition, which never came to our knowledge, I have Uttle doubt. He knew that enough and to spare reached us and he scrupulously refrained from passing on such news.

I believe myself he drew no little amusement from the businesslike attitude we cultivated. I remember that for our Second Annual Meeting we had, in our inexperience, drawn up too crowded a programme, and all the speakers invited had accepted. The Cardinal had honoured us by consenting to preside, and we had pledged ourselves that the meeting should not exceed one hour and a half. The Committee in the privacy of its Council Chamber had the courage to decide that ten minutes should be the maximum for any speech. It fell to my lot as President to communicate this decree to our illustrious speakers ! Fr. Vaughan was sitting next to me, and I remember handing him a shp of paper with what then seemed the audacious conditions, as the least awful way of performing my dreaded duty. He turned and looked at me in a way which mercifully showed that his sense of humour had been aroused, but said never a word, and I ftlt that an eagle was looking down upon an impertinent sparrow. When his turn came to speak 1 wondered if he would administer a snub by choosing his own time. As he finished he held out his watch to me, the hand pointing exactly to the tenth minute, nnirmured " obedience." and resumed his seat, need- less to say to the intense regret of the audience.

I can only attempt to sum up the impression he conveyed in all his dealings witli us, as that of authority that was wholly spiritual, and a personality that was entirely humble. Let us try to realise the great debt we owe him for his long friendship.

Ii6 LIFE OF FATHER BERNARD VAUGHAN

Another Catholic work in which Fr. Vaughan shared was, to anticipate a Httle, the Motor Mission. A fuller account of it is given in the Life of Mgr. R. H. Bejison, ii, 209, sqq. It was organised in 1911 at Brondesbury Park, and Fr. Vaughan soon was preaching from the motor's steps in East Anglia. When Kensitites came calling out " No Popery 1 " he called it louder still, only he meant, said he, " Know Popery." " We will follow you," said they, " wherever you go." " Just what we want," he retorted ; " follow us to the end." They were honest fellows for the most part, and rather liked being photographed alongside of Fr. Vaughan, for, deeming that theirs must be but a dry job, he had asked them in to have tea, and they came. They seem to have been puzzled by the dogma of hell ; he kept repeating that he could say nothing from experience, but only what he had learnt at school. " At school ? " *' Yes : my school was the Church, my master, Jesus Christ." Haverhill refused the missioners its Town Hall, so they took the Corn Exchange, a more suitable place, said Fr. Vaughan, for chaff. Certain it is that the meetings, which began with booings and hustling ended in cheeis. " We are both on the same road," said one heckler in a moment of supreme toleration. " We are," answered Fr. Vaughan : " but won't you turn round and come my way ? It's hot down there : up here it's breezy." And as for questions, " I will answer as well as I can," he said. " But we have only one infallible Pope and I am not he." 1,

Meanwhile he was preaching Lent and Advent

IN MAYFAIR 117

or " seasun " courses of sermons, none of them what any stretch of imagination could call sensational. In the Advent of 1908, he spoke at the Cathedral on The Divine Promise, the Eucharist, carrying on thus the work done by the Eucharistic Congress of that year, and, needless to say, he had helped to prepare the minds of Catholics all over the country by preaching in preparation for it. In Advent, 1909, his course at Farm Street was : "Is England Christian ? " and in the May of that year, he spoke there too on Characteristics of Christ —His courage and energy ; constancy and kindness ; compassion and sympathy ; charity and gentleness : His Cross and His Crown. In the Lent of 1909 he preached there on The Gospel of Doing Good — its Author, Importance, Motive, Method and Reward ; and in June, sermons on St. Joan of Arc, which formed later on the substance of a small book. These courses doubt- less disappointed the press : but that on Marriage gave rise to all sorts of new controversies — especiall\- with the Nonconformist journals, because the ex- treme practicality of the sermons caused them to say : " Is that all ? Where is the Christian ideal ? " " Sir," quoted the preacher : "I have given you reason : I cannot give you understanding too." At anyrate, not one of this class of critic, so far as I can see, could dare to recognise the sacramental value of Christian marriage, nor assign its indisso- lubility to its divine Guarantor, Our Lt>rd. At the Carmelite Church in Kensington, he preached several sermons on Character, a subject he was already treating in lecture after lecture : and he went to

ii8 LIFE OF FATHER BERNARD VAUGHAN

Manchester to preach four sermons on "Is Rehgion Worth While ? " and renewed somewhat of his old triumphs there.

Of his lectures, many just now dealt with the Accession Declaration and the Coronation Oath of the King. Fr. Vaughan knew perfectly well what King Edward's opinion of those formulae had been, and was convinced that his son's would be much the same, as indeed the event proved that they were. However, Fr. Vaughan's speeches on the subject probably helped to reform public opinion not a little on so undesirable an anachronism. And he talked, or wrote, on Mormonism, Spiritualism, Christian Science, Retreats, Lourdes, and many other things which all came back to the same thing — the need of Catholic principle and Catholic character in a world that was disintegrating for lack of them. But the chief topic of the lectures of these years was certainly Joan of Arc — enough to say that in the February alone of 1910, besides his course of sermons on her at Manchester, he spoke about the " Match- less Maid," as he habitually called her, at Doncaster, Leeds, Liverpool, as well as in London and in Dublin, and, later on that year, at Stonyhurst, Brighton, Preston, and to the Royal United Service Institu- tion. I think it was on her too that he addressed 2,000 Catholic troops in South Camp at Aldershot. Everywhere the crowds flocked to him : in Liver- pool, after the Lord Mayor had presided, and a Congregationalist minister had moved a vote of thanks, the Orangemen of St. Domingo Pit rose in. their wrath and marched about with fifes for his

IN MAYFAIK 119

undoing. Bui lo, Ik* marched back liiinstlf with them to St. Francis Xavier's school, wliere he was hvin^^ and spoke yet another speech to the motley assemblage from the steps.

And at due intervals Fr. Vaiighan disappeared : it was announced that he had withdrawn to some countr}-house or other, which was indeed true, and who can grudge him that refuge from the machine-gun lire of talk, the worse than cinema-studio glare beating on tired eye-balls ? For Fr. Vaughan, when he did not go to such places merely as head-quarters whence he issued forth to preach at a neighbouring church, to open yet more bazaars, to present colours to boys' brigades, or prizes at county sports, did not go there, either, to pillow-light or to slide down banisters, which even his own sermons might lead you to suppose -^ve^e the main diversions of such haunts ; but, to be let altogether alone, which his hostesses were quite wise and kind enough to do.

Out of these facts, then, and in spite of them, were fashioned, during these years, the man and the myth. By dint of hearing so much about him, no one knew what he was like. The editor of John Bull himself proved his intuitive knowledge of men by sitting next to him at lunch and then declaring him to be " the typical Irish priest." Ladies called on Bond Street jewellers to seek the diamonded rings, the sealskin coats which Fr. \'aughan said really smart dogs wore. Portraits appeared in the Aca- demy of Vw \'aughan in swirling sable draperies. The colour of his voice was sensed by occultists. Drury Lane exhibited The Sins of Society complete

120 LIFE OF FATHER BERNARD VAUGHAN

with Longchamps and Miss Constance Collier at the bridge-table, and the placards half suggested that Fr. Vaughan would preach between the acts. Glossy society weeklies made of paper mercifully so full of clay that it has probably already crumbled into unlamented dust, showed by their very vulgar gibes that the preacher's shafts found every chink in their armour, and made it quite impossible for you to spend so much as one week without talking of him. The pink sporting papers were unable to recover from their delight at hearing that he had told a parson who had refused a cigarette on the grounds that we were not sent into this world to smoke, that this was the world he preferred to get his smoking over in, and credited him with every jest they could, including all Mr. Justice Darling's. "Sp}'" carica- tured him admirably in Vanity Fair ; material was stored up for the only quite malicious travesty, to be found in a novel by Mr. Wells, written when Fr. Vaughan was dead. He kept the king's conscience ; he baptised dukes and married off millionaires and rescued Park Lane maidens from the pawn-shop. And in the midst of this, the most simple-minded of men kept his head, said his prayers, and went regularly each week to Wliitechapel to catechise small ragged boys and girls.

Ill

IN THE EAST END

IT does not take long to reach Commercial Road — by Tube to the Bank, and then 'bus. And when you have reached it, you may be disillusioned, so wide is it and so lined with decent shops and ware- houses. If you think that the cinemas look vai,^uely ecclesiastical, that is because they, like so many of the warehouses, have been Dissenting chapels. There is little Dissent in that part, for the " middle class " has dwindled, or seems now to be Hebrew, so will you see on shop after shop tlie Russian, Pohsh and German names that are really Jewish ; so ubiquitous are the placards that you must try. raking up old memories, to transliterate ; and so noticeable is it that the only large religious building that you pass till you come to the huge Catholic Church, is a red- brick Synagogue. But there is no difliculty in recognising St. Mary and St. Michael's, despite the one rival that T saw, unscrupulously advertising " Mass," for by its porch stands out white and un- compromising the great Crucifix put up in memory of Father Bernard Vaughan's Mission, in loii. with its challenge : " Who is this ? How is tliis ? \\'h\ is this ? " beneath it.

Your first thought probably is : What can the cost of labour and material have been when this massive church was built ? This vast stone church with its

122 LIFE OF FATHER BERNARD VAUGHAN

sculptured porches and arches ; its lodge, where you ring to be introduced through catacomb-like corridors into its presbytery, grey stone too, with mullioned windows, and faces of angels and pleasant little devils peeping at you from the corners of the doors, and the stone Annunciation under which you pass into the garden ! Garden ? Yes, and a garden in which Father Mathew talked of temperance, and Daniel O'Connell of Liberty, and where nowadays a consequential cock struts among clucking hens. But his time is short — at least I hope so. For all but one of the group of cottages that makes one side of the garden and is part of Lucas Street, have been bought by Canon Ring, the Rector, and will make room for a great Nursery and Elementary School, and Con- tinuation and Central Schools, to which twelve East End parishes will send their children, and the garden will become their playground. A good, broad play- ground, where one may breathe despite the smoke from the tall chimney of Frost's rope-works that drifts down over the church's roof.

Lucas Street, just beyond the church, is where Fr. Vaughan, as I shall tell, had his little room, downstairs at the back. The street stretches out looking extraordinary desolate : asking myself why this was so — for the January afternoon was no more yellow-misted than in Commercial Road itself — I felt it might be due to the houses having no drip- stones above their windows ; their faces stared blankly at you, as if their eyelids had been clipped off. And then, the ground-floor had a sort of pathosi about it ; the tops to the doors were arched, and

IN THE EAST END 123

there were wooden shutters half off their hinges ; it h)uked as if it might have tried once to be pic- turesque and even dignihed, but had given up ; and lower down, an immense raihvay arch took the whole street at a stride. Business roared by with a rush ; the poor street was just not reckoned with.

Back to Commercial Road, and then down another street almost parallel to Lucas Street, and here, on the one side, the huge red schools, with their 1,200 children to shelter, and next door, what was once the Anglican church-school, abandoned now, turned into assembly rooms, I think, educational driftwood left by the current sweeping towards secularism. But opposite the Catholic Schools, the heavy Hall of Our Lady, yellow-black, whose arches rose, like the towers of Troy, at the bidding of sweet music. For to the money gained at the great Concert in the Albert Hall, when Mme. Patti came back to enchant London at Fr. Vaughan's request, this Hall owes its existence.

After this, I lust my bearings as the streets went in and out and strange little courts opened from them — a narrow entry, and a blank wall facing \ou, and houses on each side, a dozen feet apart. Here was Warton Place, and soon, Manor Court, and Giles Place, and the old Periwinkle Street, and after a while, St. James's Place, an alley five feet wide, tiny houses on the one side and a wall on the other. And finally, Shovel Alle\', into which you get by its handle, an arched passage, where surely the sun shines never. It is in these places that Fr. Vaughan spoke, leaning from window, or perched on table or on box.

124 LIFE OF FATHER BERNARD VAUGHAN

In the festering heats of summer, these little paved courts with their blind walls must be appalling, and even on the January day of dusty wind when I went through them there was a sense of stifling there. But what struck me most just then was their silence. At other hours, I have no doubt, they are noisy enough ; but who knows whether the impression of life having been largely silenced might not remain ? I felt that Fr. Vaughan might have wished to bring his large vitality down there simply to put that into the place—" I came that they might have life — and more abundantly." At least I felt that the Church was the one place where those whose outlet was not the public house alone or the cinema, that that Cathohc Church was the one place where deadened men and women might count on revival. Warm in the gusty winter, as all dwelt-in places are ; cool in the summers ; and silent, not because there was nothing to say, or worth the saying, but because its message was too intimate for words. And even materially, it is a wonderful Church.

It is very wide, and a mysterious little chapel far up on the left — ^it used to be a nuns' chapel — ^seems to suggest to you distances always more remote from the daily toil. And by successive levels you mount to the High Altar, past the Communion rails that stretch significantly right across the building. Like the churches of the wise Middle Ages, this one is the " poor man's book," so filled is it with storied glass and pictures. And let no one forthwith super- I ciliously suppose an art which might offend a cultured

IN THJ-: EAST ESI) 125

taste. W'utt's St. Juan of Arc has settled there ; there are careful copies of Murillo and of Diirer, and there is at least one genuine Guido Reni ! And I was astonished at the Memorial Window in the chapel to the right, so well was it thought out, and so rich and yet restrained in colouring ; it is a Eucharistic window, where Our Lord reveals His Heart of Love to St. Margaret Mary, and round her stand Tarcisius, St. l^ascal Baylon, St. Clare, St. Juliana. The parishioners have need to be called and recalled to the Bread of Life — their manhood was more than decimated by the \\'ar ! At the foot of the great Calvary at the far end of the church, what sorrows have not sobbed themselves out ; at the altar-rails on which that window looks down, what new life has not been offered to the heart-broken by the Bread of the Strong there given. Pius X, whose tall por- trait hangs near the Calvary, must see with gladness those altar-rails re-thronged at his behest.

How, then, did Fr. Vaughan find his way down here ?

The history is perhaps obscure. I will tell what the tradition at Commercial Rocd is.

Even at Manchester, he had said he would try to take gold from Mayfair and put it into Shoreditch ; and when he arrived at Farm Street, his brother, the Cardincd, was still viiv anxious to see tlie Faith preached out of doors ami in Halls which non- Catholics might enter wlu-n they fought shy of churches. Those were the days of the heroic preach- ing of Fr. Bede, O.F.^L, under his railway arch in Bethnal Green. That was altogether to His

126 LIFE OF FATHER BERNARD VAUGHAN

Eminence's liking. It is even said that the Cardinal himself did some of his earliest priestly work down there — evidence of his having had a confessional there is offered, and it is thought that the parish priest of those days would not have tolerated the invasions of a young priest from St. Edmund's (where Herbert Vaughan was living at the time I am speaking of) had he not held a definite place on his staff. But I confess that the author of his biography makes it very hard to see where any regular work in the East End of London can be inserted. None the less, the tradition is very strong, and it is clear that the Cardinal much wished every priest ordained in his diocese to have some direct experience of work among the poor, and an " Apostolic College " was indeed organised under Canon Akers and Fr. Amigo (now Bishop of Southwark) in 1897.

However this may be, soon enough after Father Bernard's arrival in London, he communicated to the Cardinal that Farm Street did not absorb half his available energy ; and in igoi the Cardinal applied to the superior there and obtained leave to make use of his brother in the East End. It has always been part of the very clear ideal of the Society that its members should if at all possible include in their lives a certain amount of teaching the Faith to the illiterate. The permission was therefore gladly given, and every Tuesday afternoon Father Bernard went down and catechised the children of the schools of that parish and gave them Benediction. He did this regularly without missing a Tuesday till he went! on his tour in America, save on school holidays.

IN THE EAST END 127

After thut tuur. he resumed in the hite autumn of 1912, and continued regularly till 1918 when he changed the day to Wednesday.

It was on March 22nd, 1902, tliat he paid his first visit to the parish and preached in the open. This took place in a court still full of Catholics, and called Mayfield Buildings. Make the connection, please — Mayfair to Mayfield. Among his allies were the Blue Nuns, that is, the Sisters of the Little Company of Mary, in whose convent he stored during the week the great crucifix he took round with him. The sermcm was finished and the Sisters liome again, by seven.

In the Pall Mall Magazine for February, 1907, Mr. Charles Morley wrote a pleasant article which I would like to quote in its entirety. It was called : " London at Prayer ; the Man with the Bell and the Cross." Mr. A. C. Michael illustrated it with true accuracy and much sensitiveness to the spirit of the thing. Mr. Morley tells how, after much enquiry, he reached the church, and assisted first at the catechising by Fr. Vaughan of some 1,000 children. After this was over :

I slipped out quickly and stood in the rain watching the hosts of children come pouring through the jwrch, presently bearin.cj with them the prirst, all smiles, ahliough he was so crushed and jostled. He wedged himself against the gate, and looked down benevolently upon all those upturned faces, with a kindly jest for one, a laugh for another, and a blessing for all. They climg to his cassock until I thought it would be torn asunder, they hung round his legs, they fastened on to his arms, crying. " Father ! " " Father ! " to attract his beaming eye. " Bless you ! " " Bless you ! " " Bless you ! " " Now get away home ; you'll all be wet through." " WTiy.

128 LIFE OF FATHER BERNARD VAUGHAN

Patsy, where are your boots ? " " Got none ! " " Oh, well — be a good boy, and they'll come soon enough." " What ! Bridget Dooly, you shouldn't be out in this weather ; be off — be off with you. Bless you, my child, bless you." " The meeting's at eight o'clock sharp : tell your father and mother to come." I wonder he was not smothered. "How's your mother, Teddy ? " " Has your father got any work yet?" "No, you can't come ; you must go to bed. Haven't got a bed ? Well, stop indoors then, or that cough will get worse." "Be off with you. Goodnight — goodnight." " God bless you, my child — God bless you." And he hustled them gently, now with his hands, now shook his cassock at them as though he wore wings, and they fled with shrieks of laughter.

But the evening was not finished.

There had been a slight misunderstanding at the outset of the whole enterprise. The Cardinal had delayed to communicate officially to the Rector of the parish that Fr. Vaughan was to come thus into his domain. A paragraph in the press was his first definite notification of what was going to happen. No wonder then that it was felt that Authority was acting rather beyond its bounds. The local clergy were a little shy of the invasion, though they were never anything but most kind to the missioner per- sonally. In the spring of 1903, however, Fr. Vaughan maintained he would be at once more free, and less trouble in the presbytery, if he took a room for himself. He found one at 33, Lucas Street — a tiny room at the back on the ground floor. There he established himself, at a rent of 2s. 6d. a week — it would be quite 7s., I may say, to-day — and fur- nished it with a camp bed, a couple of chairs, and a ' gas fire. Mr. Morley describes how on the way

IN THI-: KAST END 129

thither after the catechism, he invested in two chops and some mashed potatoes, all of which he carried off with him in two paper bags. Arrived in his room he cunningly cooked them in what I should have thought to be a rather inadequate pan. However, there it lies, still by his fire-place in Mount Street, where I am writing. There was, too, an old man at a street corner who sold hot potatoes, and who used, when he saw him, to consider it a privilege to give him a couple to carry home with him. His shopping was not very experienced at first. An eye- witness tells liow he appeared very early one morning and demanded some milk for his breakfast. " Cer- tainly," said the lady at the shop. " Where's your jug ? " " Madam, I have none. Could you hire me one ? " "I can," she said. " But I have only lemonade bottle's. And you must leave a deposit." " Certainly. How much ?" " Twopence." " Madam. I will leave a sovereign." She thought he was mad, till his companion assured her of his respectability.

But he could, too, be severe.

In Commercial Road it is important to get what you pay for. It is tlierefore the custom to weigh the loaf you receive, and if it is short weight, a slice is added. A certain baker objected to doing this wlien Fr. \'aughan's clients arrived witli bread tickets. " This," he said, " is charity. I have no call to weigh loaves tluit are being given." But in Commercial Road there is much self-respect and it is dangerous to allude to charity. Next day, Fatlicr Bernard, at the head of a procession of mothers, arrived at the shop. *' Give me the scales," he said.

130 LIFE OF FATHER BERNARD VAUGHAN

" I am going to do the weighing myself." He did so, adding the sHce exactly, when needed. " Ladies," he said, as he handed out what was due, " this is not charity, but my gift of bread to my very good friends."

To resume. After his supper, a small boy would arrive, and together they went forth, the boy carrying a tall and vividly painted crucifix, and Fr. Vaughan with a bell. He took also the stole that Pius X had given him. I quote again from Mr. Morley's article :

We set off down the narrow street at a rapid rate. " A star, a star ! " cried our leader, casting one look up at the heavens. " I'm glad it's line for you ; just look in at the windows as we go." I looked, and saw into room after room, where pale, shadowy men and women were bending over clothes, sewing and basting as though for dear life, with sullen embers in the grates, upon which rested irons and kettles, pots and pans, dimly lit with oil and gas. " Ah, Jews, Poles, and Russians, and Germans," said the Father — " work — work — work — steady, industrious, thrifty, Hving on next to nothing, taking any wages ; but — but they have driven all our people out. What do you think of it ? " So, our little procession marched down the street, growing larger every moment, for sharp eyes picked the Father out of the gloom, attracted by the cassock, blacker even than the night ; children seemed to drop from the skies or leap out of the earth, raced up and looked up at the laughing face, each with a greeting, an " 'Alio ! fahver," from the boys, in husky tones ; a look with eloquent eyes from the girls, a lisp, and whispers, for he would halt for a moment here and there. It was during one of these pauses I first noticed that he carried a big bell, holding it by the tongue, for he used it to pat the head of some more than usually demonstrative youth, and as we turned into another street, narrower, and even darker, he exchanged tongue for handle and began to ring it vigorously. " Ding-dong, dong-ding," it rang, the 1 sound rousing up the echoes even in this dank and murky

IN THE EAST END 131

})lace. " Jangle-jinglc-jangle, ding-dong, bell." Now did heads peer out of windows and doors ; now did more children swarm out of the vaix)urs ; rough men, muffled about the neck, hanging round the doors of taverns, looked up, and lifted tiicir caps as we passed by, or came out, pot in hand, to hear the news ; housewives, hurrying home with milk, or hsh, or coals, or firewood, stopped to gaze ; the masters and mistresses of those poor little shops forgot their customers for a moment ; I saw even a waggoner perched up aloft, no doubt drenched and cold, move his hat out of respect. So deeper and deeper we penetrated the crooked streets under the loom of wall or warehouse, now passing through the pallid light of farthing shop, of beer shop, of coal and green shop, of parlour converted into workshop fitted with tools, passing by courts and alleys, and narrower streets running down to the river, which seemed fathomless and full of boding in the night. " Ding-dong, bell, dong-ding." Here we crossed the road, and entered another street, darker than the other, meaner, more ominous, with a lamp-post or two, a shadowy bridge far away. We marched a few yards and halted by the mouth of a dreadful court, at whose entrance hung one lamp. I wondered if it was Periwinkle Court, but the Father was too much engaged to talk to me. He was in the centre of a mob of children. No, we went on, and turned sharply into a passage, scarcely wide enough for two men to walk abreast, with a high wall on one side of it and cottages on the other, and stretching far, far into the distance, its length indicated by a few shadowy lamps. It is a pass where a desperate man could hold an army at bay. " This must be worse than Periwinkle Court ! " I thought, " and the Father intends to try my nerves — as if I hadn't seen enough to follow him to the lowest depths that London has to show !" " Ding-dong, ding-dong, ding-dong. bell. Who'll come to our meeting ? Who'll come to hear good news ?" Bang, bang ! thump, thump ! '* Anybody in ? Not come honu- from work \et ? You'll come — it's quite line ! Now, you will come ?— that's right." The reflection of the fire flame shoots out into the night, the door closes, and we are in the dark again. . . .

" Ding-dong, bell ! " At last we loft the pass, and emerged

132 LIFE OF FATHER BERNARD VAUGHAN

into broader ways, and at length came to Dunstan's Court, an open place formed by three blocks of dwellings. " Ding- dong, bell ! " — the heads were thrust out of windows alow and aloft, figures loomed at doorways and in staircases. Then a woman, with great bare arms, carried out her kitchen table, and placed it under the single lamp which hung on one of the walls. Tim removed the cloth from the Cross, and reared it up against the lamp, so that the light shone upon that poor agonised figure, so torn and bleeding. Tim took charge of the bell, and then asked me for the case. He opened it, and handed the stole to the Father, who put it on, got on to the table, and after a few words of welcome called for a hymn, which was evidently well known. It was a remarkable scene. There must have been three or four hundred people gathered together in the Court : children in the front, big and little, boys and girls, babies, many ragged, not a few shoeless and stockingless, most of them hatless, smeared with grime and mud, many others with collars and shining with soap and scrubbing ; in the middle distance women, old and young, many worn and paUid and bent with labour, others still rosy and in the flush of health, strange to say ; in the back- ground against the wall and at the outer rim, men, grim, even savage some, others open-faced, though poor and paUid, and almost beaten by the fury of the battle, others hang-dog and ashamed to be here. But every eye was upon the Cross and the preacher on his table under the lamp, with that stole glittering and shining upon his bosom.

The last echoes of hymn mingled with the wind, and the priest cried : " Now we will say ' Our Father,' " and the air was filled with the low munnurings of many voices. " And now ' Hail, Mary ! ' " The hps began to move again, and by the low hum you would have thought that swarms of bees had suddenly descended upon the Court. The ground was soaked with rain and mud, but some knelt, aU bowed reverently, the boys and men bare-headed. The preacher then began to speak. Suddenly some husky voice shouted from a top window : " The poor cannot be good."

There was an intense silence in the crowd, as though they were shocked by the interruption, which was evidently re-' garded as a breach of good manners whilst the Father was

IN THE EAST END 133

amongst them. The Father looked round gravely. " \\'ho says such things ? Do you think the rich are happy ? Why, they have not a want which they cannot satisfy ! "

" / know." he cried, " you have not the good things of this world ; we are poor, and our want is bread and tea and meat and rent. / know how hardly you are often put to it, how you have to starve your own selves in order to feed your httle ones ; / know, too, what a trial it is to keep pacing about looking for work and finding none." Then he pointed to that bleeding form, and a hush fell on the Court. " What did our blessed Lord suffer on your account ? Bear without murmuring the starvation wage on which you have to try to keep body and soul together. Of course we must do our best to remedy this bad state of things, which God must regard as a disgrace upon our Empire ; but after you have done your best to make your yoke a bit lighter, you must go to our dear and blessed Lord and just study the poverty, labour, and want in which we find Him."

Then came another dramatic silence, broken by the dis- tant notes of a barrel-organ, the groan of a cart, the dull hum of life ; and from my place against the wall I saw all those eyes fixed intently on the Cross.

" Now where is that man who said the poor cannot be good ? " " Gone, Father." " Gone, has he ? Fm sorr>'. Don't beheve him. And one word before we go. The people of the West End may not know what want is — but — but — I know them pretty well — and I can tell you that their state is not so much worth having after all. I dare say they have never known what it is to want a meal, but there are other pains and pangs worse than the want of a dinner. There is the want of love, the want of peace of conscience, the want of the desire of God and of His home in Heaven. Now an ' Our Father,' and one more for those who lie sick and ailing in this poor place, and one more for him or her who is the next to die." A hymn — a prayer — and he dis- mounted from the table.

Then I saw a scene of wild confusion, in the middle of which stniggled the Father, pushed this way and that by the heaving mass of children. I escaped to a doorway, and there saw the shimmer of a small bronze cross which was

134 LIFE OF FATHER BERNARD VAUGHAN

being kissed by innumerable lips. Some caught at it with their fingers, and clutched it ; the weaker men driven back, but put out their hands to touch it ; a httle giri carrying a poor withered babe a few months old besought him to touch her burden's face with it ; a mother brought out her sick child ; a weary labourer came up and kissed it fervently. I wondered how the Father stood his ground ; but at last the Court began to clear, the greater Cross was covered, the stole was placed in its case, and we walked away quickly, followed by many a " Goodnight " and " God bless you."

Sometimes the Duke of Norfolk accompanied Fr. Vaughan — unrecognised — and recited the rosary in St. James's Square (Oh ! not the Norfolk House one !), or rang the bell, an office shared with loiterers whom Fr. Vaughan collected as he passed. There was too a harassed harmonium which survived its rough journeys for some time. Either the nuns played, or lady visitors, among them Lady Edmund Talbot, now Lady FitzAlan. I find it interesting that Cardinal Vaughan, whose views of the Salvation Army are usually gathered from his disagreement with Cardinal Manning as to its virtues {Life i, 481) used to encourage the nuns who were rather shy of seeming to imitate its methods. He assured them, on his many visits, that at least it brought the Name of Our Lord to ears that had forgotten it. That is what Fr. Vaughan, too, did. Marriages, Canon Ring assures me, were in great numbers rectified ; bap- tisms were many ; things unheard since school-days were brought to life again in souls.

In 1903, Fr. Vaughan began to work on behalf of the Boys' Brigade, and it was probably the clear necessity of their not only having some kind of uni^ form, but of paying something for it (for you do not

IN THE EAST END 135

respect what is not yours, or that you have md earned), that made him first think of his clotliing club, for which he either begged clothes, or got them straight from factories that he knew in Lancashire. But in either case he always insisted that a fraction of the cost be paid by the boys. He had a special hobby of warm socks and boots for the men.

It was in the late autumn (jf 1903 that he first brought from her retirement at Broadway Mme. de Navarro (Miss Mary Anderson), who organised and gave for him a great concert in the People's Palace, Mile End Road. Probably never before or since has there been such an audience in that building. At least 2,000 children formed its nucleus. To them at intervals buns and oranges were distributed. Opinions differ as to how the second part of the concert was carried through. It is said that Father Bernard's strident voice was the onl\' recognisable one.

In 1904 Canon Ring succeeded the late Rev. Andrew Dooley as Rector, and he says it was clear, at first, that Fr. Vaughan was a little shy of him. and nervous as to how long their relations would con- tinue amicable. " We fairly disaj^pointed the pro- phets. I early saw in him a surprising humility and charity, and I think he credited me with some feeling for the poor. This was for him sufficient."

The first event of Canon Rmg's rectorate was the concert at the Albert Hall whicli brought about the sensational reappearance of Mme. Adelina Patti (Baroness Cederstrom). London could not beheve its ears : the Hall was packed : a golden river rolled

136 LIFE OF FATHER BERNARD VAUGHAN

away to Whitechapel and Our Lady's Hall was built. At this concert Fr. Vaughan " talked " between the parts. To every soul in that huge place every word was audible. As he succinctly put it — " Patti sang, and / spoke."

On November 4th, 1908, Mme. Patti came for the second time to the Albert Hall to assist Fr. Vaughan's East End enterprises. Miss Ada Crossley and Mr. Santley sang, and Sarasate played, and her goodness of heart revealed itself in the seven songs that Patti sang to an audience of 8,000. As the proceeds of the first concert had gone to making a club-house for men and boys, so the £1,000 that were brought in by this one were destined to help the orphanage and to establish the clothing club I mentioned, where clothes should be sold to the poor " for just a frac- tion more than would be got for them in the pawn shop." The clothes were to be especially children's clothes and besides this, a " fresh-air fund " was to be raised which should get the children out of London for a space of summer.

After three years, then, of hard work, Fr. Vaughan still found himself confronted with the eternal question of How to keep together the young men ? The children he had catechised were growing up and had to work in the hours at which he had brought them to the church, and perhaps were otherwise occupied when the time for street-preaching came. To build one of those Halls which he thought quite as much needed as a church, had become for him an oppressive problem. Quite unexpectedly a sit|j opposite the schools came into the market. In

IN THE EAST END 137

1906, the Duchess of Norfolk, in the presence of Cardinal (then Archbishop) Bourne, laid the founda- tion stone of a Hail which was eventually built at a cost of £3,000. One characteristic little story survives about this. A very generous lady, who had j)romised a considerable sum of money to the building fund, felt herself undesirous, after a difference of opinion with Fr. Vaughan, to place the second half of it in his hands. " Madam," he said, " I am just the Master's errand-boy, who will take your gifts to the poor if you wish it. I am a religious, and shall not be a penny the richer if you make me your present, nor can I be personally poorer if you don't." The matter ended in smiles, and an arrange- ment was made whereby the rent of the Hall — for the land was only leasehold — was permanently lowered in return for a sum of money down, which formed the residue of the promised gift.

Not till 1907, April 2nd, was the Hall opened, quietly and without ceremony. Fr. \'aughan could not attend, nur was there a formal opening later on. Nor was a plan of Fr. Vaughan's realised — that prominent music-hall artistes should come down week by week and give their " turns " free to the crowds they were certain to attract. A lecture by Fr. Vaughan was to have followed. None of the local clergy felt cpiite competent to cope with such a situation, especiall\' when recurrent weekly, and least of all when Fr. Vautjlian miizht not be there himself ; " and," says Canon King, " with that tact and humility and unselfishness which always marked his dealings with us, he abandoned his preferences

138 LIFE OF FATHER BERNARD VAUGHAN

and even his hobbies and adjusted himself to men and circumstances."

It was to this Hall, however, that Mr. Tommy Burns, the World's Champion Heavy- Weight, came on the invitation of Fr. Magrath of St. Mary and St. Michael's, and Mr. Pat O'Keefe, with great good humour and, I may say, with a display of remarkable skill, consented to be duly pummelled by the famous pugilist. Enthusiastic crowds assisted at the fight, and a flash-light photo shows Fr. Vaughan top- hatted, frock-coated, chin out, and altogether most militant, on the platform, alongside of Mr. Tommy Burns and his sparring-partner, alike wreathed, if I dare say so, in the most coy and artless smiles. Next day half the press was patting the priest on the back for a sporting parson, and the other half, with a good many pulpits, beat the irresponsive air with indignation. Well, no ; not irresponsive quite. The sound-waves travelled, and months later echoes came back from Australia, where the Catholic pugilist was having to defend, in the press, Fr. Vaughan's reputation from Nonconformist on- slaughts ; and then years passed, and the War came, and I found myself equipped with a topic among men who were enchanted to find that I knew the priest they had heard so much of, and over whose common-sense and geniality they had waxed, long ago, enthusiastic. In England, " lime-light " had of course been mentioned. Well, it is a kindly light whose rays reflect thus around the world the figure of a man who becomes the friend of those who neveil* saw him, and inaugurates, by the very mention of

IN THE EAST END 139

his name, yot other friendships whicli may end, who knows ? in the renewal of a friendship with God that had been broken. F(jr, wliile it is much to find that God's priests are not hostile, no priest will be fully satisfied, 1 suppose, with the friendships he enjoys until they have won God's smile to ratify them.

Fr. Vaughan did not keep his friends wholly inside London. When he could, he took the children out for expeditions. Twenty four-in-hands proceeded once a year to Epping, and troops of children were turned loose to play in the Forest. Fr. Vaughan here displayed, it is recalled, his singular mixture of disposition. He was the " life and soul " of the party, and yet, sighed the poor man who could not endure anything less than the speed of a motor-car, " If I had to travel to Glasgow at this pace, I should be mad long before I got there." For, once he had got as far as, say, Leytonstone, even the galloping horses could not prevent the journey becoming intolerably tedious to him. Arrived at the Forest, the children were given their buns and oranges while Fr. Vaughan and the teachers had their meal. Then he played games, rode donkeys, threw coker- nuts, till it was time for the children's tea. At this he waited on them, and the photographers on him, till twilight fell. The journey to and from Epping took the party througli Woodford, where the late Duchess of Newcastle had taken a house, at Car- dinal \'aughan's request, to make a centre for Catholic activities. Her grand-daughter had mar- ried Fr. Vaughan's nephew, Major Charles Vaughan,

140 LIFE OF FATHER BERNARD VAUGHAN

who lived there too ; and the Duchess, who had spent many years in devoted service of the very poor at her own East End Settlement, was overjoyed when Fr. Vaughan's guests halted at her house, and made her feel that despite old age and the illness that her labours and severe penances had certainly brought upon her, she could still do something for Our Lord in the person of His poor.

I suppose that the great event of Fr. Vaughan's sojourn in the parish of St. Mary and St. Michael's was the Mission of 1911, which lasted from April 23rd to May 14th. It was preached by Fathers O'Neil, Hassan, Riley, and Bernard Vaughan, S.J., and had a great success. Five thousand came to the services of the first Sunday, and even on week- days there were always thousands there. Altogether it was reckoned, there were some 64,000 attendances. Children's, and general processions went through the streets, crucifix at their head ; and at intervals, Bernard Vaughan preached at the corners, and a band brought the tunes of hymns, forgotten by too many, back to the ears and hearts of hundreds.

But the " incident " of the Mission was the giving of some " Dialogues " in the church, in which Fr. Vaughan and one other priest " talked " together in the characters of pastor, and of penitent, or un- repentant layman. At once, a storm blew up. First, the thunder merely muttered. Was not this an innovation ? In England, perhaps, but not in Italy, where the sense of the dramatic is not thought a wicked thing, and where a speaker known as the 1 Ignorante is publicly catechised in church. But, the

IN llIK EAST END 141

congregation laughs. Well — who does not laugh, human nature might enquire, when for once you find someone who knows less than you do, or at least when it is not you who are asked to exhibit in public your lack of information ? And learned medievalists harked back to Miracle Plays : in these, the Devil provided dehghted spectators with comic relief; they beheld, with glee, a discomforture not their own ; and who shall suppose that our Catholic an- cestors watched the snubbing of Satan quite in silence ? Doubtless there was an uproar. A tar more weighty, or shall I say ponderous, objection was, that Fr. Vaughan used, when taking the lay- man's part, a deal of slang. It was not slang, but honest Cockney dialect. But, it was urged, sermons should be in as beautifuJ an English as possible. The so-called uneducated can quite well appreciate a good thing when they see or hear it. Certainly : Fr. Vaughan, who was later on to insist that soldiers, in camp or hospital, could quite well recognise good music and ouglit to get it, would have been the last to deny that what you offered to anyone should be, if not the best of its kind, at least the best that you could give. But, he would continue, these Dialogues are not sermons, but as different as possible from sermons. Should it be said that none but the most pure English was ever suitable in church, he would quite simpl\- luiw disagreed. He would liave said that he could not have produced the effect he wanted so satisfactorily in any otlier way -he used business- jargon freely in Manchester, and, though less freely, the idiotic slang of Mayfair, which was real slang,

142 LIFE OF FATHER BERNARD VAUGHAN

in that elect demesne. But Catholic doctrine, it was truly said, can be stated in the simplest, yet the most dignified language. No doubt : but whether the working-man's own thoughts can be so conveyed, may be debated. Fr. Vaughan wanted to produce his listeners thinking aloud : and to do that he had to take not only the thoughts out of their head, but the words in which they would have articulated them, could they have done so at all, out of their mouths. Thereupon the objection reduced itself to this — Would those have been their words ; and if so, would not the hearers have held themselves in- sulted by the very accuracy of the imitation ? No working-man talks, it was said, in such torrential Cockney, least of all with a priest, for whose sake he grooms his language, any more than schoolboys use the extraordinary jargon with which Mr. Kipling, for example, equips them in Stalkey and Co. That author made, as it were, a catalogue of slang, and resolved to get it all in at all costs. And once more, no one likes to feel he is ** talked down to."

Whether Fr. Vaughan did his Cockney well, I cannot be asked to judge. I have heard him talk French, Italian, American so as to keep whole room- fuls in helpless laughter for an hour, yet all these languages were spoken by him with complete in- accuracy ; and as I have said, his Lancashire talk was frequently all wrong, yet gave, most certainly, the due delightful impression. Nor have I ever heard that a Lancashire audience resented his stories. I do not print any of the dialogues, though one can ^ still be read in the Tablet of that date, because I do

IN THE EAST END 143

not suppose that what Fr. Vaughan said was very like what he wrote in the case of the dialogues any more than in that of his sermons. And I am quite sure that not one of his actual hearers felt he was being talked down to. They liked to reahse that their priest knew their thoughts from inside their own skulls, and his abounding geniality left them in no doubt at all about his friendliness. He was talking for them, and not for the flattered critics of stalls or of dress-circles. And they proved their own friendliness by flocking not only to the dia- logues but to his confessional, so much so that he had to put up a notice over it — " Men Only." And after the Mission he was given a gun-metal watch, with this inscription : With love and gratitude to our Father and Friend. A Love-token from East-Enders. No one, who knows the kind of man who subscribed for it, dare see in this anything but sheer sincerity ; and happy the man who inspired the love that prompted the gift.

He was willing, in fact, to discuss privately the legitimacy of his method, and examined closely, without answering them, the public criticisms passed upon it. He was hurt when they stooped to pick up the weapon of personality that lay so ready to every hand. He swept to one side the word " buf- foonery," and he smiled to fmd that America thought his " vaudeville performances " to be " un- dignified." He was sorry if he had hurt men with whom he was anxious to be on good terms, but harboured no resentment. He allowed fully for other people's feelings ; but when he was convinced

144 LIFE OF FATHER BERNARD VAUGHAN

that such and such a method proved useful and was good, he went on with it serenely, leaving those who had no mind to it to damn it as they pleased. Some- what befoie this date, Fr. Ring had written to the Provincial of the Society of Jesus as follows :

2ist January, 1909. Very Rev. Dear Fr. Provincial,

I have often thought of thanking you for the generous help you give me in permitting Fr. Bernard Vaughan to work amongst the children and people of Commercial Road.

One cannot weigh or measure the results of any priest's work : but in the confessional, in the homes of the people, and in the spirit and activities of young and old we see and feel Father Bernard's useful example and personal influence.

To the clergy of this house he is an example of the highest ideals.

Only a day or two ago one of my young colleagues re- marked that he never met a more charitable priest than Fr. Vaughan. " You never hear him make an unkind or uncharitable remark about anyone," said this young priest. So popular and so able a man might be pardoned some- times for not suffering fools gladly ; and indeed many jokes go round at his expense and at mine. Sometimes priests chaff me and my colleagues for allowing Father Bernard to do all our work for us. I hear that I am jealous of him, and other stupid and idle sayings.

He must endure groundless gossip.

Materially, socially and spirituall}'' he is doing an immense service to our poor people and each and all of the priests who labour or have laboured with me here are like myself deeply grateful to him.

Fr. Sykes, who was then Provincial, wrote back

thanking Fr. Ring most warmly ; and after the

Mission Fr. Ring v^ote again to the then Provincial,

Fr. J. Brown, insisting that those who had not heard

the dialogues could not possibly judge of their

character or probable effect. Fr. Brown answered :

IN THI-: EAST END 1.^5

My Dear Dean, — I can't thank you enough for your most kind letter. It was so thoughtful of you to write, for naturally I was a good deal concerned owing to the stric- tures that have been made on the missioners at your church. However, you have set my mind quite at rest, both by your letter in the Tablet and by the very kind one you have addressed to me. . . .

Personally I am inchned to think that it would be a great gain if we had instruction in Catholic doctrine given in our Churches in the dialogue form — a very old one — as they have it in Rome. And if people do smile in Church they need not mean irreverence by it. Anyhow, I hope it will not be one of the points of etiquette that we may never smile in heaven.

Finall}-, i may say, that the General of the Society

wrote to him — not indeed about the dialogues in

particular, but about his East End work and its

method as a whole :

Dehghtful news reaches me from all sides concerning the apostolic work which your Reverence carries on with ad- mirable zeal and such success among the poorest of London's citizens. I am told that you have adopted the method of preaching religion which, in old days, was followed with such rich fruit, by St. Francis Xavier and other Saints of the Society — you address the people in public squares, streets, and crossways and instruct and exhort them, and compel them to the practice of their rehgion and the use of the Sacraments. " Compel them to come in, that My House may be filled " [Luke xiv, 23). This zeal of your Reverence has excited the admiration of the whole Province and indeed of the whole Society, and one may hope that other Fathers may lay aside all fear and soon advance into the titld that your Reverence has opened and take up a share in the work. If this happens, a very opportune remedy will be found for the anxiety which so heavily weighs on and distresses ec- clesiastical superiors — the number of Catholics who con- tinually slip away from the bosom of the Church (" leakage "), and a stniight road \nll be built for the conversion of the English people.

146 LIFE OF FATHER BERNARD VAUGHAN

So Father Bernard's voice continued to make itself heard in the courts and alleys and church of that grim district, save when once and again it was drowned, as by the rattle of Mr. Churchill's in- effectual artillery in Grove Street not many yards away, where Peter the Painter and his fellow- murderers had dug themselves in, and were making a last despairing bid for life.

Of this part of Fr. Vaughan's work I need say no more save that on June i6th, 17th, and i8th, 1921, a bazaar was held in Our Lady's Hall for the Con- tinuation Schools which I mentioned at the beginning of this chapter. King Manuel of Portugal and Queen Augusta opened the first day's proceedings, with Fr. Vaughan in the chair, nor was this the only time that royalty came to Stepney at the priest's request. It was just after his first series of Society Sermons, I think, that the ex-Queen Natalie of Servia went round the slums and courts with Fr. Vaughan, and endeared herself to many with whom she spoke, though they had no idea that the lady in black had once been crowned, and had endured tragedies more frightful than their own.*

*The evidence for Fr. Herbert Vaughan's work in the East End is as follows : (i), In July, 1856, his name appears in the baptismal register as baptising infants, not converts, as the other curates did. It is felt that the rector, Fr. W. Kelly, would have had no use for " roving ecclesias- tics." (2), There is a tradition that Fr. H. Vaughan had a confessional in the new-built church, which succeeded the venerable Virginia Street chapel in which the baptisms were performed. The new church was opened and used for Mass on December 8th, 1856, by Cardinal Wiseman. The Catholic population of the parish was then 16,000, and it is thought that Fr. Vaughan thus got his views " intensified " as to the need of an organisation hke Si. Charles's priests to carry out Wiseman's wishes about the Oblates. (3), Herbert Vaughan went to St. Edmund's in the autumn of 1855, while the Oblates were not fvdly organised till Whit- Sunday, 1857. During that time the zealous yovmg priest occupied a very difficult position, and maj' have found the outlet he desired from Ms " cold-storage," in direct work for souls in the East End. On the

IV

ABROAD

FATHFJv Vaughan several times kfl England in order to preach on some special occasion abroad. His visits to Rome have already been mentioned. But he very often went, too, to Ireland, and his temperament, need I say, exultud in the manifestations of faith, piety and hospitality he found there. Part of his boyhood was spent, as I have said, at his father's place, Rosstucker Castle, near Clew Bay, " with Croagh Patrick," as he loved to tell, " looking down on us : the whole family- used always to climb up it to ask a blessing." He used to be told that " beyond that horizon is New York." He reminded his hearers of this when lecturing in the Pavilion at Kingstown, on " Ireland in America." But much earher than that, he saw a lot of Dublin. The Freeman's Journal even then

other hand, it is thought that the char.icter of Fr. Kelly, a lino but " nii;pcil " priest, will have accounted for the brevity of Pr. VauLihan's stay there. (4), The tradition, that Fr. H. VauRhan w.is there as a younp priest, has been continuous at SS. Mary and Michael's, »uiil Father Ilem.LrJ u.sc<l to speak of his brother's connection with the pari.sh. On the other hand, Mr. Snead Cox reminds me tliat Herbert Vauiihan, •; : •>

in his diary the " consolations " t>f his six yr irs .\t St I-Mnm ^

to his work amouK young priests, :uul in tV

perhaps he did not tind his Fast End work . , . ,

The late Mgr. Fenton, in a memo on Herbert Vaughan s work at that time mentions Hertford, St. Alb.an's. and Waltham CnLW. but not Com- mercial Road. Wiseman him.sclf, when defending Uic Oblatcs, lays stress on V.uiijh.in's work here or there, but does not menti'>n the K-ost End. M^>re<.)vcr, he was fully occupied with preparing the Oblate organi- sation during 1856, and not yet dis^x>uragcil. This legitimate argument from silence certainly makes it doubtful if Herbert Vaughaa's sojourn in London was substantial. But his impressions of its value may have revived.

148 LIFE OF FATHER BERNARD VAUGHAN

says that it was once his wish to be aggregated to the Irish Province of the Society and to be stationed at Gardiner Street, such were the inspiring scenes he witnessed there. But he also never visited it without going round the slums with the Dublin clergy, and alluded freely, in England, to the spiritual happiness which alone rendered Hfe there tolerable. He in- terested himself very personally in various schemes for their improvement. There are, he said, all sorts of excuses for their existence hitherto. But it is the fool who makes the excuses ; the hero starts to redress the wrong. Both in Dublin, where he spoke more than once in the Rotunda, and at Cork, where he spoke for the Fr. Mathew anniversary, he drew enthusiastic crowds, though here too he was as frank as he was gay, and implored all concerned to develop Irish university education, without which, he urged, the proper proportion of young men would never occupy the positions they deserved ; and again, after lecturing on Character, he could be followed by a distinguished Irish prelate who said that every- thing seemed taught in the Irish schools save, precisely, what Fr. Vaughan meant by " character." Such was at first his ascendency that he could lec- ture with no less success in Belfast itself, on Joan of Arc, in the Ulster Hall, and was pleased to find the provision made for teaching Catholic philosophy in the University there. At other times he spoke at the St. Patrick's Training College, Drumcondra, and at the dedication of various churches in different parts of the island, and twice preached the Lent V in Dublin. But his popularity never survived, first,

ABROAD 149

his eflurt to explain the late Duke of Norfolk's political position — the Duke, who believed in the old political arrangement, thus found himself on platforms alongside of bitter anti-Catholics, — and above all, his reprobation, later on. of Lord Mayor McSwiney's hunger-strike. But outside Ireland it- self he had no warmer friends, to the end, than Irishmen.

Fr. Vaughan's hrst distant expedition was on the occasion of the Eucharistic Congress of Montreal, held from the 7th to the nth of September, 1910. Those held previously at London, Liege, Cologne, Antwerp, Brussels and Jerusalem, superb as they were, had this in common — they were held in ancient lands accustomed in some sort to these vast inter- national pageants and professions of faith. Mon- treal itself, despite hallowed memories of religious and secular history, yet felt itself near a beginning, and looked forward rather than back. Indeed, as the Papal Legate, Cardinal VanuteUi, pointed out, this was the first international Eucharistic Congress to be held in America at all. Montreal, however, took its very rise, in a fashion, from the Altar. A devout group left France in 1642, after Mass and Communion at Notre Dame, and arrived in the island of Montreal on the i8th of May, ha\-ing vowed to dedicate it to the Holy Family ; and the first act of these pilgrims was the celebration of Mass, and throughout the day of their coming the Blessed Sacrament remained exposed upon Its improvised altar. Since then the devotion of the city to the Eucharist has not slackened. On this great occa- sion I should like to recall how the Legate, after

L

150 LIFE OF FATHER BERNARD VAUGHAN

the ceremonies of the reception, went straight to the prisons of Quebec on the invitation of the Arch- bishop. To these children of the One Father, the first blessing and encouragement were given, and their souls associated to the splendours of that collective act of worship that their eyes would never see.

I cannot linger over the Midnight Mass at Notre Dame, when the 20,000 who crushed into the church were only the half of those who had hoped to enter, and for two hours six bishops gave the Bread of Life to those who came to the Communion-rails ; nor on the incredible scenes at the foot of Mount Royal during the open-air Mass of the Saturday, when a whole population poured out to flood the new Cal- vary with worshippers ; nor on the Procession of the Blessed Sacrament, in which 45,000 walked, and which took four hours and a half to pass the City Hall. Fr. Vaughan's own address was upon the place that Holy Communion should hold in modern life, and he was well able to show that without what it symbolised and caused, life sank from level to level of impoverishment, until the spiritual thing within us was like to die out altogether.

The effect produced by Fr. Vaughan during this Congress was by no means due, however, in the main, to this devotional address. In any case the language question in Canada was setting problems which made the air electrical for anyone who chose to allude, however tactfully, to them. To these, indeed, Fr. Vaughan made no reference. His crossing had been! characteristic — he left Liverpool by the Empress of

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Irchuid and made such friends witli the stokers, among whom lie and otht*r priests (I tliink) said Mass, that they brouglit the ship into Quebec an hour before time . . and he was so infectiously delighted at having missed, he said, not a single meal, that, a Cardinal declared later on, he saved quite a number of other ]X'rsons from sea-sickness. But when the ship reached purl, the crew , I ha\"e been told, " swarmed up the sides of the ship " in their eagerness to bid good-bye to the priest they had come to love, wijiing away with oily rags the tears that blinded them. He then filled in the space be- tween his arrival and the Congress b}' a sermon and a lecture. On the morning of Sunday, September 4th, he preached before some 3,000 people in St. Patrick's Cathedral, on "Sacrifice, the Soul of Religion." Nearly all the sermon was occupied with explaining this theme ; then he dwelt on the Sacrifice of Calvary, foreshadowed in the histor}^ of the Jews, and con- tinued and applied in the Mass. Where the Mass was removed, belief in the saving sacrifice of Christ was fading too, and he deplored that this was happen- ing in his own land. The Reformation was working out its fated consequences, and while tlie part of the nation that was still Christian, and held to tlie eternal salvilic value of Christ's death, was " creep- ing back " to the Catholic Church and the Mass, the rest was " drifting away " into Agnosticism. The lecture, that same evening, was in the hall of the Monument National, to about 2,500 people, in the presence, as the sermon had been, of Cardinal Logue. He had been invited to give it b\- the Montreal

152 LIFE OF FATHER BERNARD VAUGHAN

Catholic Social Study Club, which had wirelessed its petition to him while he was still on the high seas. Its theme was his favourite one of Character-building.

He woke next day to face a perfect pandemonium, which showed him that for the first time, perhaps, in his life, he had stirred up a hornet's nest. Sacri- fice the soul of Religion ? Mass the soul of Christian- ity ? Then Protestantism was a religion without a soul . . Protestants had no souls. . . Nay, the reproved religion was dying out in any case, owing to race-suicide, till the prolific Catholics should possess the land . . ? Was this, it was shrieked, a fit theme for one who was enjoying the hospitality of a Dominion still largely Protestant ? Of a city whose non-Catholic inhabitants had contributed large sums to the success of the Congress ? Where Lord Strathcona had lent his house to distinguished visitors ? Others, chiefly clergymen and earnest women, argued hotly that the Mass, being a mere external ceremony, could not be a soul to anything, and that anyhow all Roman Catholics were so unspiritual that souls were the last thing they should talk about and that Fr. Vaughan ought to be requested to leave Canada.

No doubt Fr. Vaughan had said a thousand times, and practically verbatim, what these angry critics said he would never have dared to breathe in Eng- land ; yet this very statement of theirs seemed to prove that they did not guess what the religious temper of England was ; and similarly, I think it is quite possible that Fr. Vaughan, of whom it wal- always being said that he " sensed " at once and

ABROAD 15:;

accurately wliat his audience wanted and gave it to them, did not as a matter of fact on this occasion do so. His experience had been collected almost entire]}' among his own countrymen, or in the very special atmosphere of Rome. So I feel sure he did not at tirst guess the wisest way of saying what he certainly \k-vvv intended to leave unsaid. He ma\' well have disconcerted those who naturally wished the Eucharistic Congress to be a time of peace and goodwill and supernatural charity to all men. On one occasion at least, a church, to every cornice and pedestal of wliich people were clinging to hear him speak, found that it had to listen, in the interests of prudence, to someone else. But that it was not thought that he had substantially compromised the aims of the Congress was proved by the fact that he was invited to stay on and to speak yet further in Montreal after the Congress should be over, and to tour the rest of the Dominion, delivering lectures. That the commotion was at least in the greater part a newspaper affair, seems shown by his forthwith being invited to address the Catholic Sailors' Club in Montreal itself, where to an enormous crowd, of wliich hundreds were sailors, he spoke upon general subjects amid rapturous apj^lause. He explained the point of the incriminated sermon with lucid brevity, and made it clear that while he had tlie most perfect respect {or an\ honest man, however liercelv Protestant, and would never dream of decrying his personal religious virtues, nothing in the wide world would prevent liiin horn assessing non-Catholic religious systems when needful, and condemnint^

154 LIFE OF FATHER BERNARD VAUGHAN

them if he found them wanting, as he then proceeded to do without further objections from the press or from anyone else. He repeated this defence fear- lessly later on, more than once, as, for example, in New York, where he took the wind out of every- body's sails by quoting Bishop Sellew, of James- town, N.Y., to the effect that Protestantism as such was decaying : "he seems almost willing," said Fr. Vaughan, " to give it a respectable funeral : I never intended to say as much as this Methodist Bishop." His frankness, courage, and above all personality won the day ; when the Congress was over he went on to Toronto, where he spoke at the Empire Club, on September 15th, with results which can best be estimated from a letter, part of which I quote :

. . . The telegraphic and newspaper conspiracy to pre- judice the community, even the Catholic community, against [Fr. Vaughan] has completely broken down. Some thought the use of the term " soulless religion " unhappy. It was used in an address to Catholics entirely, and nobody there during its delivery took exception to it. Only when the newspapers framed up offensive headlines was the public mind inflamed. . . . Fr. Vaughan came here to Toronto, and was my guest for a day. This is supposed to be the centre of militant Protestantism. But it is not. There is no safe place for mere negation now in the world. . . . We introduced him into the very inner guard of the enemy's fortress — the Empire Club of Canada — where, hanging a most conclusive and uncompromising argument for the Church on patriotism and loyalty to the Empire, he did Catholicity more good than any man who had opened his mouth here in a long time. Why, although he minced no matter connected with Catholic belief, and by the method of exclusion showed the nothingness of Protestantism, the work was so well done that a cheer, the hke of which has' seldom rent our rafters, went up from every throat in the

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great gathering. . . . The world likes a courageous man. His triumph here in Toronto was a wonderful one. May he return again and again. A. E. Burke, President of the Catholic Church Extension Society oj Canada.

Before leaving Montrciil, however, which he did on September 14th, he visited the Iroquois Indian Reserve at Caughnawaga on the St. Lawrence river. 1 quote a paragraph from Fr. K. J. Devine's fas- cinating book : Historic Caughnawaga, from the preface :

During its existence of two and a half centuries, the village witnessed many memorable scenes, when haughty chieftains, surrounded by warriors in paint and feathers, seized the tomahawk and started on the war-path as allies of the French ; or when in times of peace they mingled with dis- tinguished visitors hke Count Frontenac, the Marquis de Beauhamois, Chevalier de Calliere, the Marquis de la Jon- quiere, whom they received with military honours, Comte de Bougainville, who consented to adoption into their tribe. General de Montcalm, who chanted with them their stirring war-songs ; or when, as docile children of the Cathohc Church, the only power that ever curbed their savage inde- jDendcnce, they humbly hstcned to distinguished missionaries such as Fremin, Chauchetiere, Cholenec, Bruyiis, De Lauzon, the De Lambervilles, Lafitau, the historian Charlevoix, and many others.

After the cession of Canada to England in 1763, the Caughnawaga Indians held fast to their faith and to their French missionaries, but they yielded entire allegiance to the British Crown. Sir William Johnson, whose prestige rivalled that of any of the governors of the French regime, exercised his intluence and reconciled the warriors to the change of flags ; and when the occasion offered, they fought as bravely iind died as stoically as they did under the French.

To this tribe, then, Fr. \'aughan paid his visit and was solemnly made a member of it by the aged chief

156 LIFE OF FATHER BERNARD VAUGHAN

Sosiohahio, who gave him the name " Rawennen- hawi," which means " Word-of-God-Carrier." A charming photograph exists in which the priest is seen standing among the chief's grandchildren, while the old man himself is seen attired in full native ornamentation.

Fr. Vaughan also paid a brief visit to Niagara ; he even composed here, during a second visit, some verses on the contrast between the peaceful convent where he was entertained and the tumult of the Falls. I may here say that Fr. Vaughan was not only fond of quoting what one must confess to be sheer doggerel, provided the sentiments were pious, but even of writing it. He took a really child-like pleasure in rhyme, and even would declaim distichs from Pro- testant hymns, which are, I suppose, the model for pious verse, in the middle of his sermons. I like this trait in him ; but I feel no duty of quoting what he wrote in this department.

He left Toronto early next day, and no sooner was he on the express train from Fort William to Winni- peg, than the passengers " rushed " him for a sermon. An improvised rostrum was set up in an observation coach, and his voice made itself easily heard, it was noticed, above the roar of the wheels. His subject, startling though it may seem, was " Soul-Culture."

At Winnipeg he lectured twice, and the Manitoba Hall was crowded to hear him speak on a theme which ended in a panegyric of Imperialism. In that city he received the heartiest welcome, and his simplicity stood him in good stead, for he embarked \ also on the frankest declaration of the perils of

FaTIIKR Hf.KNARO VAI'C.HAN AM) THE CHIKK OK THK IrCh^.HOIS TRIBF.

AP.ROAl) 157

democracy, though lie said he could applaud the existence of that phenomenon at least in Canada, for there it had developed on very good lines.

Thence he went, so far as I can reconstruct his route, to Chicago. He proceeded to the Loyola University, and tliat very day lectured to 2,500 Knights of Columbus on " Association." " The ' Society-man,' " he said, " is no better than a tramp —he refuses to associate with his fellow-men." Later tliat day he >'isited two missions, one of which at least was under the care of the Paulist Fathers, with whom he was ever the best of friends — though even their spirit of enterprise, he suggested, might prove insufficient for tlie vast work to be done. "G«» round with a bell." he said, " as I do in London, and compel them to come in."

Next day he lectured to the University students and visited the County Hospital, and exulted to fmd tlie full facilities given to Catholic ministrations there, two priests devoting the whole of their time to the sick — without salary, as he pointed out when they, perhaps, felt diffident of doing so.

From the hospital he went to the Harrison Police Station — " noted," a commentator assures us, " among the police stations of the world." Bernard Vaughan with complete serenity asked what exactly was proved by that. True, a Judge, who was hearing a case wlien he arrived, with great courtesy broke it off to enter into conversation with liis visitor. Fin- ger-prints, too, were taken for his edification ; but when he was shouTi the cells — " as usual," says the same enthusiastic guide, " the place was crowded,

158 LIFE OF FATHER BERNARD VAUGHAN

there being four or five prisoners in most of the cells " — ^he waxed hot over this promiscuity in which prisoners of the most varied classes were then kept.

After this he " toured the down town district," and visited the Italian colony in its slums. He was enchanted with what he saw there, despite the fact that in one tenement he found eighty-six persons living on one floor. At once he was at home : the children flocked round him ; he talked his un- blushing Italian to them, and ended by singing " Santa Lucia," accompanying himself on his '* Caro- line hat." " If the Irish," he cried, as he blessed the kneeling crowds, ** are the salt of the earth, the Italians are the sunshine of life." He was fond of pointing out that the Italians could be happy on a slice of melon and a ray of sunlight, and argued from this that since in England the British working- man did not care for melon and never got the sun- light, he ought not to be grudged his glass of beer.

He left that night on the Twentieth Century, Ltd., for New York.

In New York he preached one great sermon in St. Patrick's Cathedral, and others elsewhere, and one can see from the reports that in his crowded days he got up many contemporary statistics concerning that city and its history. He never went anywhere without doing this if possible ; and though it is certain that to generalise on what you have seen in a two or three days' visit, is of the utmost danger, an outsider may well collect a bird's eye view and perceive what a place has come to stand for, more) easily than one who has spent his life immersed in

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its affairs. In Xew York he spoke chiefl\' un Social- ism and on Divorce, especially the latter. He was fiercely answered, niainl\' ab(jut Birlh-Kcstricticjn, his most ardent antagonist being Mrs. Ida 1 lusted Harper. " the Suffragist Leader," we are told, in New York. Hut here, too, he based liimself entirely on statistics and comments supjilied by non-Catholics, especially judges. The reports of his sermcms are pleasant and rather startling reading, not least after his invective against the multi-millionaire. " We have," one said, " no divine who could, or would dare, to speak like this." Another, who found that he looked " like a fighter, not a philosopher," con- cluded : "He must have been like this priest, the man who said — ' One, with God, is a majority.' "

Here, too, he visited the slums, spending almost an entire night there, he related. These slums, like the others, made him happy. " They are a Paradise," said he, " compared to ours in England," such happiness did lie find there among the polyglot Catholic po}>ulation. " God would feel at home," he said, " in your slums."

At the other extreme he lectured on Joan of Arc at the Brooklyn Academy- of Music, a Jesuit hall recently opened. Boxes were sold at twi-nty-five dollars, and 3,000 people filled the hall. Hut by now he was meeting with American as well as Canadian criticisms of his assertion that Protestantism was a dying faith. Almost immediately after his depar- ture, the Bisho]i of London — who has been very often compared. I tmd, with lurnard Wiughan, al- though I should not like to explain why I think the

i6o LIFE OF FATHER BERNARD VAUGHAN

comparison peculiarly idle — had raised wild enthus- iasm among the non-Catholic population by asking : '* Why am I not a Roman Catholic ? " " Because," he replied, after a solemn pause, " Because I am an EngHsh Catholic, thank God." It may be doubtful how much pleasure, or even meaning, this conveyed to the French-speaking population of Montreal, especially as he also asked : " Why am I not a Dissenter ? " and replied : '"Because there is nothing to dissent from." This communion in negation was not, however, taken up in New York, where the Presbyterian Ministers' Association of Greater New York, who retorted that it was Cathohcism that was dying, begged Fr. Vaughan to "look at Spain." Ancient myths about the Pilgrim Fathers were also rehearsed, unreliable theme for panegyric, which were answered, though not by Fr. Vaughan, on the spot. His least expected defender was, however, Mr. Holmes, of the Church of the Messiah, who declared that provided Fr. Vaughan admitted that Catholicism was dead, for the Inquisition functioned no more, he was perfectly right in saying that Pro- testantism was dying, if not defunct ; it was banished from the home, outlawed from education, and lay altogether outside pohtical or social reform. Were every Protestant church shut, and every minister silenced, it would not, said this singular pastor, make the slightest difference to anyone.

Fr. Vaughan continued placidly making the due retorts. To rich women he said he would rather see them taking in washing than taking in men ; to some^ plutocrats with whom he was lunching, and who,

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despatching telegrams and answering 'phone calls during the meal, told him that he would say, in England, that America was losing no time, he re- marked, " No ; but Eternity." " I will chuck the ' good time ' " he said, " for the sake of a good eter- nity." He deplored to find, among his Protestant brothers, that the Bible was used no more as a fixed rule of faith, but rather as a limp accordion. " Let politicians," he exhorted, " live above the snow- line ; run up your Stars into a clear crisp air, and let your Stripes be felt by all who wTong your country by defying the laws of God and of the Fatherland." Having made sixty speeches in his thirt\' days' visit, he left for home on the Oceanic, and held three services, by request, when still at sea on Sunday — he said Mass in the steerage, introduced an orchestra he had formed from the passengers, and preached on The Soul's Voyage over the Sea of Life ; preached again after breakfast in the first saloon on Trust in Our Lord in Life's Sea of Trouble ; and once more in the evening on The Soul, the Body's precious Freight. Besides this, he lectured on the Immor- tality of the Soul, Mr. Edison having recently dis- turbed consciences by his denial of that doctrine ; he was, urged the great discoverer, a collection of cells merely, and why should he, then, go to heaven any more than New York should, which was a similar collection of citizens ; and why should the brain go thither any more than one of his own phonograph records. To these philosophical conundrums Fr. Vaughan opposed a rather tart repl\", which in such circumstances may most certainly be forgiven him.

i62 LIFE OF FATHER BERNARD VAUGHAN

On arriving home, he went to and fro speaking on his experiences which had given him great joy, and had left him full of admiration for the two great countries he had visited, together with the convic- tion that Catholic principles alone would preserve the noble qualities he had seen in the midst of the destructive forces he had also noticed, and develop the national life to its due perfection.

Father Vaughan made a second tour through the United States, beginning on September 23rd, 1911, and ending on April 13th, 1913. This tour, I gather, was made desirable because of his growing insomnia, but became the occasion of earning money on behalf of the Zambesi Mission, so that however much he might enjoy himself, he could know that the trip was not a purely selfish one.

I do not think I need describe it in detail. Any such attempt would, to start with, involve me without any doubt in a hundred errors, since to reconstruct his itinerary from the sheaves of undated newspaper clippings which seem to form its sole record, would be nearly impossible. But then, not much is lost. A list of towns visited and lectures given would inspire no imagination.

He seems to have gone, first, from New York to Boston, where the Rev. R. J. Campbell was preaching at the same time. The comparisons are not illu- minating, save that the reporters seem agreed that the Jesuit was the more optimistic of the two. During his stay in Boston he must have spoken to 40,000 persons, and his main theme was, " Why* am I a Cathohc ? " In four sermons he dealt with

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four answers : " Because it means Incorporation with Christ, Membership with Christ, Life with Christ, and Sacrifice with Christ." And I should hke to mention here that it is often said that Fr. Vaughan eschewed the mystical element in religion. I doubt that. It is quite true that he saw so much of the fashionable pseudo-mysticism that occupies the feverisli or the jaded brains of uninstructed folks, and heard so much of its jargon, that he tended to distrust altogether the word itself and seldom if ever used it. But from the very beginning, when he preached, at Farm Street, his course on "Christ, tlie Life of the Soul," he was very faithful to this topic which is the theme of all genuine mysticism. In- corporation with Christ is surely the most sublime and profound of all Christian dogmas, and carries the soul onwards into the very recesses of the mystical life. So while he hated the thing that masquerades as mysticism, he was by no means only the shrewd pragmatist that some would seem to think him. During his sta}^ then, at Boston, he preached these substantial and dogmatic sermons, and also visited all manner of schools and convents, romped with children — Irish, Italian — and received bouquets of yellow chrysanthemums, eacli blossom with its gold coin attached " to help in lifting the Londt>n fog," a graceful notion, able to veil the too crude gift that must none the less be given. It is pleasant to read how large a part these talks with cliildren played as Fr. Vaughan moved about among the dense Catholic population of the Boston Archdiocese — it numbers no less than 900,000 souls, and, although the Zambesi

i64 LIFE OF FATHER BERNARD VAUGHAN

collections may have suffered, how generously he spoke on behalf of this necessitous enterprise or that.

By way of Providence, he went to Toronto and there preached the Advent.

From Toronto he went by way of Niagara to Buffalo, and everywhere it was noticed that his audiences were still better than they had been on his earlier visit, and that no ill effects of the storms of that date survived, though they still had their echoes — Fr. Vaughan was accused of having upset the Laurier Government by his Montreal utterances. To re-establish peace and good will, the Rev. Mr. C. O. Johnson, of the Queen Street Methodist Church, announced, during this second visit, that Fr. Vaughan should not be allowed to draw all Toronto to listen to his ** pretty things." He must be unmasked, his apostacy uncovered. Mr. Johnson would do it. The Ne Temere Decree was his weapon. As it had done in Austria, Spain, Italy, Portugal and South America, so here in Canada, said this orator, the decree would throw thousands of children upon the street and demoralise the whole Dominion. Let but the Church get sufficient power, and she would pro- nounce all Protestant parents everywhere to be living in adultery, all Protestant children illegitimate. " The audience clapped their hands and tapped their feet," says a journal under the headline, '* Protestant and Catholic Clinch at Long Range," and in conse- quence, perhaps, of Mr. Johnson's declaration that the Roman Catholic Christ was not the Protestants' one, the non-Catholic audiences flocked to Fr. Vaughan's lectures to compare the two. The \x^ shot of this episode was that Fr. Vaughan had to

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contradict a ubiquitous rumour that lie was to succeed Archbishop McEvay in the See of Toronto, and the local press no doubt soon undertook to make the meaning,' of the Ne Tcmere clear even to those who did not want to know it. Christmas closed in friendliness.

By way of Niagara Fr. Vaughan went to Savannah and within an hour or two was talking at a children's Mass and lectured afterwards to crowds who braved some of the worst weather they could remember, to hear him.

Earl}' in January he was back in New York, but began his work in Philadelphia. He was speaking much on Joan of Arc, and this led him also to speak often on Sufl'ragism. But he certainly arrived in America rather on edge about the whole subject owing to a discussion quite in keeping with the weather, that occurred on board the 5.S. Minnetonka on liis way across. Mr. Harry Phillips, a well-known suffragist, had been invited to express his views to the passengers and had in his turn invited Fr. Vaughan to preside. The address was agitated. At least twice, waves struck the ship so violently that lecturer and lectured were flung from their seats, we are told, in an undignilied heap. The result was that when Fr. \'auglian robustly disagreed with the whole of Mr. Pliillips's argument, tempers rose high and a sex-war broke out, so that when later on in the voyage Fr. Vaughan gave one of his favourite " readings " from the poets, Mr. Philhps's faction would not come. I feel safe in sa\ing that Fr. Vaughan's views on the whole subject of woman's

M

i66 LIFE OF FATHER BERNARD VAUGHAN

public role were what would be called old-fashioned. Or should I rather say, his instinctive preferences ? For the C.W.L. and many of his close friends among women of very active life would be able to tell that he was not only not a " woman-hater," as many described him, but fully in favour of their doing the new sorts of work which the times were asking for. But it must be recalled that the methods of militant suffragism had been dazzling the eyes of many to the principles and ideals that lay behind them ; it was against the method that he really used to in- veigh, not the sex nor its vocation. Besides this, I think that his mother had set for him an exquisite ideal that he never thought or wished to see sur- passed, and she, of course, had lived when home-life and " charity " were the ultimate horizon. Every now and then, Fr. Vaughan would speak as if these horizons were his, too, and again, he would some- times make rather rough jokes about women and their doings which would not seem to all in the most perfect taste. I do not know whether, when he was asked the eternal question — ** Where would you be if it wasn't for a woman ? " he really answered : " Eating ice-cream in the garden of Eden," or even whether, if indeed he said it, he invented it. But I think it is true that when a lady called out : " Tell Bobs the army will never be right till you give women more hberty," Fr. Vaughan replied : " Tell mothers the army will never be right till they give us more infantry." As for Fr. Vaughan's persistent attack on Birth Restriction, it may be possible to writ^a line on that later on. It remains that Fr. Vaughan

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arrived 111 America with the not quite undeserved reputation of being out of sympathy with the ambi- tions of so many of the finest characters among American w(jmanhood, and his invective against suffragism, often repeated during this tour, did Uttle to mitigate the indignation felt by many who would otherwise have been his hearers and indeed admirers. In February, Fr. Vaughan began to preach the Lent at St. Patrick's Cathedral. Enough to say, as to the attendance, that in that great church there never was room enough for his congregations, and that he declared that, coming late one Sunday and trying to force his way in through the main door, he was told that there was no more room save in the pulpit and that he replied that he would take that, then. The sermons had Socialism for their theme. The first was on Socialism and the Papacy ; the second, on Socialism and the State ; the third, on Individualism , the fourth, on Marriage ; the fifth, on Socialism and Religion ; and the sixth, for Easter Sunday, on Socialism and Social Reform. It was Cardinal Farley's first Easter as Cardinal, and his presence added very much to the splendour of the occasion. Tlie material for these sermon-lectures had long ago been collected for Fr. Wiughan by Fr. Plater, S.J., though I cannot tell how far the use made by Fr. l^later of the facts he supplied would have coincided with Fr. Vaughan's. Fr. Husslein, S.J.. was also to be thanked for help given. The six conferences were supplemented by four more, Socialism and the Rights of Ownership, and the Duties of Ownership, Socialism and its I^omises

i68 LIFE OF FATHER BERNARD VAUGHAN

and Socialism and the Christian Sociahsts. These ten conferences were prepared for publication during Fr. Vaughan's ensuing tour in the North- West, and appeared in book form, Socialism from the Christian Standpoint, Macmillan, New York, 1912. Oddly enough, Mgr. Benson was preaching and lecturing during the same Lent in New York : Benson, too, took Socialism for the topic of at least one lecture : it would have been instructive to contrast the two preachers, who yet were more like one another than might at first seem conceivable : but I cannot find that much comparison was made. New York was large enough to contain the two of them, since they could remain sufficiently wide apart. Neither would have been happy in the other's company, Fr. Vaughan would have infuriated Mgr. Benson, while Mgr. Benson would have seemed ineffectual to Vaughan. Yet where Benson was a boy, Vaughan was a child ; where Benson was iridescent, ironic, shrill, fancyful, secretive about himself and passion- ately interested in the individual cases that came into his path, an explorer, a convert, frail-seeming and thus pathetic, Fr. Vaughan was flamboyant, caustic, an elocutionist, a skilled apostle of the obvious, frankly — -almost brutally — self-advertising (" Have you ever taken a back seat, Fr. Vaughan ? " an Anglican Archdeacon rather raspingly enquired. " I will examine my conscience," answered he, " and if I have, I will write and apologise." The retort, I hold, was courteous), and delighting in crowds and the massive impression, and perfectly unskilled in minute analysis of this mind or of that ;

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a rooted Tory, though with his eyes wide open and

far more aware than the would-be medieval Benson

of the good elements in a vulgarised world that

Benson sim])l\- loathed ; and as for his appearance —

the Times-Star wTote as follows :

He has the figure of an officer of cavalr>', the glowing and audacious eyes of a brilliant woman, nose and jaw so nut- crackered that at first glance one fears he has forgotten to pick his teeth up from the dresser [sit venia], and the tonsure of the militimt priest. One may conceivably (the writer continues) disagree with what Fr. \'aughan says, but it is most unlikely that one will forget it.

These two men, therefore, united in the deepest things of all, in a quite passionate devotion to Our Lord and to the Catholic faith, similar in many of their preferences, fiercel}' divergent in their fas- tidiousness— for each had his own — swept the crowds to St. Patrick's or to Our Lady of Lourdes or first to the one and back to the other once again. Small wonder that such journals as were socialist were annoyed. They all reported Fr. Vaughan at great length -not, this time, by dictation — and made few comments. True, the Daily People professed that it w(nild have been a disappointment not to see a Roman Catholic dignitary " wearing out his teeth on the file " of Socialism, and found Fr. Vaughan " up to the mark — the mark of the capitaHst political stump-speaker with whom recklessness of allegations is a characteristic, and the chucking of big bluffs, and none too big, the most cherished method." And a great deal was heard of the anti-socialist Catholic campaign engineered from Rome by means chiefly of Fr. Vaughan, and two socialists, Messrs. Lindgren

170 LIFE OF FATHER BERNARD VAUGHAN

and Schwartz, sought for the arrest of Fr. John L. Belfort, rector of the Church of the Nativity, on the grounds that he had tried to incite to murder and violence by an anti-sociahst article. Everywhere the Knights of Columbus were of the utmost help on these and other occasions.

Between or after his New York sermons, Fr. Vaughan spoke at Washington, D.C., and Jackson- ville, Fla., at St. Augustine's, and very soon went north again to Detroit, reaching it via Boston, and then again south to Cincinnati, where he was corralled in the Emery auditorium by three militant and yet most courteous suffragist ladies who extracted from him none but the non-committal replies which by now he had schooled himself to make. It is true that his journey was already beginning to tell upon him, and his lecture had been given only after a postponement. Here, too, Mgr. Benson either just preceded or just followed him. By way of Kansas City he reached Denver, where he enjoyed himself immensely. He had attacked that city very forcibly because of its declining birth-rate ; but the nickname he gave it — Paris of America — ^healed the very wound it sought to make, and the criticisms were greeted, so far as I can see, with delight. Certainly, his picture figured everywhere, surrounded by prints representing the various modern dances which at that time he was denouncing. He was taken out to a gold camp and gave an address to the miners which is said to have delighted them.

At this point the records of Fr. Vaughan's totJf are in such inextricable confusion, and the gaps in

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them are so many, tiiat 1 will <jnl\- say that he seems to have gone by way of Los Angeles to San Fran- cisco and thence to Vancouver and Seattle and Pendleton in Oregon. At San Francisco he gave the retreat of which I here print the advertisement :

LiPK, the Soul's Jouruey. " I go, and return no more." Job x, ii.

The Ikvitation.

pATiiiiK BKR.N.iRi) Vaughan, S.J., Cordially invites you to accompaoy hiin on the " GoMcu Gate " limited E-vpress, which is scheduled t j leave San Francisco via " El Camino Real " for the " Paradise of the Soul." on Wednesday, January 8th, 3 p.m., and is due to arrive on Thursday, January 23rd, at 8 a.m. Academy of the Sacred Heart, San Francisco, New Year's Day, 1913.

Notice to Passengers.

" We exhort you, that you receive not the Grace of God in vain ; for behold ! Now is the acceptable time ; Now is the Day of Salva- tion." // Cor., vi, I, 2.

Rise up and ro forth, your resting place is not here. M\ch. •». 10. We have not here a lasting city ; we seek one to come. Heb. xiii, 14. We are sojourners before Thee, and there is no stay. / Par. xrix, 15.

Equiphent.

1. — See that you are on the right track.

2. — Expre.ss your lugi^age through in Advance.

3. — Make good use of the Observation Car.

4. — Thank God you are ou a I'iner.

5. — Be kindly to your Felluw Passengers.

6. — Be sure you slow into the right Depot.

N.B. — Be on Time.

Information Bureau.

" My days have been swifter than a post ; they have fled away, and have not seen good." Job ix, 25.

" Our time is as the passing of a shadow ; there is no going back. Wtsd. it, 5.

" The sun rose up with a bximing heat and parched the grain ; and the flower thereof fell off, and the beauty thereof perished ; s«' also shall some rich fade away 'n their ways." Lam. ix, 11. " Dearly beloved, I beseech you as strangers and pilgrims to re- frain . . .from desires which war against the soul " / J^ftrr it, 11. N.B. — No Sleepers on this Limited. No Return Tickets. First CLi&s only.

It may be — Now-or-Nevcr. Grace, like tue Express, waits for no man.

This part of his tour finished to all intents and purposes with a sight of a " Round up " at Pendle- ton, an exhibition that lasted three days and must certainly have been a superb display of horseman- ship which thoroughly deserved the praises he bestowed on it. I can imagine that Fr. Vaughan,

172 LIFE OF FATHER BERNARD VAUGHAN

sated altogether by the dinners whose menus sur- vive though I don't transcribe them, and the cloying diet of applause which was added to them, will have been glad at last to watch a thing quite perfect in its kind in which he was not the protagonist. Fr. Vaughan, who had been haunted earlier in his visit by Mr. Campbell and Mgr. Benson, here found that no less a rival than Dr. Anna Shaw, the foremost woman suffragist in the United States, was arriving at the same time as he did, and though I cannot make sure whether her train was sufficiently on time to allow the cowgirls who shared in the display to meet her, Fr. Vaughan was made to feel thoroughly at home by being welcomed at the station by " mounted cowboys in their wild and careless trap- pings and by Indians in all their bravery of colour," and had at his disposal " the old-time stage coach- and-four," while the whole procession was led " by the cowboy band with chaps and sombreros, playing 'Let her buck.'"

It had certainly been his intention to return, after Victoria and Vancouver, through Calgary, Edmon- ton, Saskatoon, Regina, Winnipeg, Port Arthur, to Toronto. He went to the first two places, but after that I lose sight of his track, though he was fond of relating how he enjoyed the Yukon.

Of that stay in the North I can find but few records. I can safely say, however, that he liked it more than any other part of his trip. In the lack of per- sonal comments made bv himself, I think it wisest to quote the following extract from a paper whose V name, unfortunately, is torn off the cutting I possess :

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Father Vaughan Mushes in North, After a Long Trip in Yukon and Klondike, he says Alaska was Good Buy. Praises the Country. Tells of Grand Scenery, Picturesque People and Work of Church among Natives.

Rev. Bernard Vaughan, the English Jesuit, says the United States drove a good bargain when it purchased Alaska for $7,000,000. And Father Vaughan has seen only a strip of the territory. He came back on the steamship City of Seattle \'esterday from Skagway. He sailed north a month ago on the Admiral Sampson, traversed the Yukon district and crossed over into the Klondike to Dawson.

While in the North Father Vaughan was the guest at a banquet at which the menu was made up of bear pie, caribou steak, moose tenderloin, leg of mountain sheep, grouse, wild <luck, salmon, crab and trout, and the chef was a Chinese and the waiter a Japanese.

The venerable priest, who, when he is in England, labors among the slums of London, became a musher, went up and down the creeks among the miners and preached to them. He lectured in a dozen mining towns, speaking on a wide range of subjects, though he says some phase of sociahsm was the theme that he was asked to discuss most frequently in the Coast towTis. Any man who was ready to take off his coat and put his back into his work was welcome.

"In Alaska they do not ask you what you are, or whence you came, or how much you ha\e got, but only what you want and what you will do for it," said I'athcr \'aughan. He says he found the miners to be a hearty, honest and good- natured, open-handed class of men.

" The miner's life," said the Father, " symbolized that of the zealous Christian. It was made up of faith, it was buoyed up by hope, and at length it stnick gold, that pre- cious ore which was the symbol of charity, for which every man in right earnest about his mission in life sought till it was found. It, too. was the current coin in the kingdom of Christ. There was faith, hope and charity, but the best of these was charity. Circulate it widely."

He mingled with the natives and says he found them sin- gularly courteous, reverential and truthful. He was touched by the piety of the Catholic members of the tribes and says

174 LIFE OF FATHER BERNARD VAUGHAN

they compare favourably with the whites of his country in their simple, fervent practices of religion. He preached to them, he received some of them into the church and officiated at their weddings.

Father Vaughan says he found the Cathohc church doing good work, zealous work, among the natives and whites, the priests' self-sacrifice in their devotion often rising to quiet heroism. One priest he found mending his own clothing and cooking his food. He found it cost more to live in the North than it does in London, but if hving comes high, he said, wages in the Klondike were correspondingly skyward. Fancy a gardener on cin Englishman's estate getting a dollar an hour. Father Vaughan found one near Dawson getting that wage, and a Japanese cook drawing $i8o a month, a maid $86 and a night watchman $i6o, and when he bought a daily paper he parted with two bits.

Father Vaughan says there was quite a flutter aboard the City of Seattle when the passengers awoke to find the vessel ashore near Ketchikan. One woman passenger who met the priest as she stepped from her stateroom said she was sure the steamship had struck an iceberg. " I told her," said Father Vaughan, " heaven was as near by water as by land," but she seemed to doubt it.

" During the voyage we did pass near scores of icebergs," he said ; " nay, hundreds of them, some near Taku glacier beautiful beyond description ; bear, too, swimming after salmon. We several times saw schools of whale floundering about and giving every indication they had a keen suspicion we were without harpoon or whale gun. Some of them were more than lOO feet long."

Father Vaughan was to have spoken in St. James' cathedral this evening, but, owing to the delay in his arrival, the address has 'been postponed until to-morrow evening. His subject will be " Reason and Revelation." He will leave this week to visit Yellowstone park and on his return to this city he will likely make an address in some public hall. He will go east on his way home through the Canadian Rockies.

Father Vaughan, it is quite clear from another

ABROAD 175

cutting, studied very closely the process of mining for gold, and applied it skilfully to the Christian method of self-discipline. He evinced much admira- tion for the efficiency of the local police purity squads, and examined as many of the social institu- tions of the region as he could. All over the world a mining population seems to display the kindest geniality if but it receive sincerity and cheerfulness, and both these qualities were eminently Fr. Vaughan's. So he never ceased to love his memories of Alaska and the Klondike.

Had his tour satisfied him ? I cannot tell. Yet I think it ought almost thoroughly to have proved to him how little one can take for granted. " As a pleasure tour," a priest has written to me from one of the cities Fr. Vaughan visited, " it was very gratifying ; but as a lecture tour, it did not come up to expectations." I can perfectly understand that. Fr. Vaughan had not chosen his subjects well, nor enough of them. He does not seem to have had half a dozen lectures prepared, and though as a story teller he was excellent, even his stories could be but half ajipreciated, since the Lancashire and even the Cockney dialect in whicli many of them were told seemed merely odd to the listeners. Then, alas, publicity cuts both ways. It is all very well to be advertised and reported ; but when that has been done half a hundred times, and the same tales told and re-told, the ensuing half a hundred lectures are apt to sound flat. Socialism, even before he came, was a wearied topic ; and his view of suffragism gave real annoyance. What he really " got home " on,

176 LIFE OF FATHER BERNARD VAUGHAN

as he quoted, were the lectures on Joan of Arc and on Character. But even in these — for he always prefixed some paragraphs de circonstance — he fell into the error of using the local slang. There is most certainly no harm in slang dexterously applied. But — well, he was not always dexterous. Is there a thing that sets one's teeth worse on edge than familiar slang unfamiliarly used ? Uncles, on visits to small nephews still at school, little guess how their efforts to be boys among boys infuriate the nephew. And the tragedy was that Fr. Vaughan was not even an uncle from whom much may be tolerated in view of the hoped-for coin. While Fr. Vaughan, in America, gave himself, perhaps, a few of the airs of an uncle, it was his hosts who contributed, and very generously, the coin. In fact, a Denver audience did not applaud, and Fr. Vaughan was hurt.

Many, too, of Fr. Vaughan's audiences were ex- ceedingly refined, and had looked forward to a different sort of diction. His roughnesses, they could appreciate : but not his slovenlinesses. And after all, he could be too easily beaten on that field. What chance had headlines like : Religion s Friend is Science, Eloquent Vaughn Says : against Short Arm Jolts from Fra Elhertus : " Into his wonderful storehouse of knowledge, of wit, of wisdom, and of words which he Melds into epigrams that inspire and endure, Elbert Hubbard dipped generously at the Tramway Auditorium last night, impaling on the barbs of his mental lances delectable intellectual dainties for appreciative audience." This gentle-^ man's jests pursued Fr. Vaughan no less than the

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earnest suffragist and the eminent preachers ; and I confess that if amusement was what I sought, I should have preferred Mr. Hubbard, through whose crackling epigrams shone a good kindliness and much common sense, to his rivals. I think Fr. Vaughan had the right to feel happy, and did, no less than his hearers, when he spoke frankly Christian things, that he had thought out thoroughly and always felt most deeply, from the smaller pulpits of convents or the altar steps of schools ; or laughed among the small Italian children, or came back from the simple world of the Klondike to Douglas, and, as his farewell to America, received into the Church some Taku Indians, married two of them, and was delegated to administer the Sacrament of Confirma- tion to yet others. The priest's hours of most joyous joy are those when he can leave speech to one side, and use anointed hands for tasks that admit of no mistake.

Fr. Vaughan came back by way of Tokyo and was there invited to give two lectures, one to the Univer- sity students, one at the Peers' Club. Never before had a Catholic been allowed to speak to the students in their hall, and they gave liim a great welcome. H.H. Prince Tokugawa, President of the House of Peers, had collected a remarkable audience to hear Fr. Vaughan. He was himself " the heir and repre- sentative of that illustrious family of Regents who governed the Japanese Empire while the Emperor was kept in 'golden custody,' that is, till 1867." It was this very family which had persecuted the

178 LIFE OF FATHER BERNARD VAUGHAN

Catholic Church from 1613 onwards, and had found so many priests faithful even to death.

Fr. Vaughan chose for his subject. Socialism, the present unrest and the need of religion. Professor Ishikawa interpreted what Fr. Vaughan said. I understand that Socialism (in the revolutionary and anti-religious sense, which was always that in which Fr. Vaughan used the word) is not a pressing problem in Japan. I have been assured that a hierarchy of discipline is still on the whole well preserved there. So Fr. Vaughan's speech, which made a truthful review of the state of things in Europe, will have been useful as a warning rather than as advice for actual application. It may, too, have served to corroborate the excellent habits of mind which are said to exist in nearly all classes of Japan, and will thus have merited the applause which crowned the astonishing honour done to Fr. Vaughan by these two invitations. He also addressed an assembly of Japanese ladies on the ideal of womanhood that was his.

In China he stayed but a short time only, nor did he see more, I think, than Shanghai. He visited a college, and the University in the French concession. Almost at once after his arrival on March ist, how- ever, he had been begged for a pubhc lecture. There was the usual rush for tickets. On the 7th of March, " the doors of the Town Hall were besieged an hour before the advertised time. When the doors were opened, in they poured like an irresistible stream, without, however, there being any disorder what^ ever. . ." The audience was naturally far from

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wholly Catholic ; in fact, two non-Catholic bishops and several Protestant ministers were there and the most cordial feelings prevailed.

By way of Paris, where the religious revival much impressed him, Fr. Vaughan arrived home in England on April 15th, after eighteen months' absence from England, having travelled 30,000 miles, and delivered quite four hundred speeches to half a million people.

Had, then, his time been wasted ? In spite of what I said about his American tour, 1 do not think so. For himself, it had been an enchanting ex- perience, and people had really been extremely kind to him. Even for his confreres, the lesson that there was a world-wide and not merely local work needing to be done, and one that could be done by English- men, was valuable. It was inspiring to realise that a special contribution might be made from our land, deemed so far from Catholic initiative. Whether substantial good of any definite sort, was done, may be doubted. But a spirit was diffused and much encouragement given. And, when you try to assess the feeling for Fr. Vaughan that survived the thrill of the moment, it certainly had in it a strong element of affection— the thread of simple love that was in the man had not escaped the audiences who admired and criticised the rhetoric. It is strange how no amount of the mediocre can annul the real and the good, when that is there ; and most certainly it was there, and the quiet, straightforward friendly talks and jests and advice have survived and are remem- bered and quoted, and a sense of Fr. Vaughan's true largeness of heart and height of ideal was kept,

i8o LIFE OF FATHER BERNARD VAUGHAN

just as in himself he found that he recalled, and would love to speak of, the thronging children of the slums, and the tremendous mountains and the fir trees and the snow, when he forgot the terrible tedium of the official dinners and their opera singers and the pearls, and the interviews and epigrams, and the elaborate illusion of success.*

*He kept and valued a little address — doubtless one of many — from the citizens of Whitehorse, Y.T., and of the surrounding country, which told how they appreciated " the fact that we address ourselves to one who is taking his rank as one of the foremost lecturers of the time and we trust that upon the completion of your tour into this exclusive mining district of the Yukon, that you will feel that you have been most warmly received and your work very greatly appreciated by all without respect to creed who will have had the pleasvire of meeting and hearing you. In conclusion permit us to thank you for the opportunity you are affording us in this visit and to wish you good health and bon voyage."

That was the kind of letter that warmed his heart.

THE LAST YEARS

WIIEX Fr. Vaughan returned from America, it soon became evident that he had aged ver)' much. It is true that ten years of life remained to him ; but he did nothing on any large scale during them nor did he initiate anything really new. No doubt into these years the period of the War inserted itself, during which everybody was living from hand to mouth, and as for Fr. Vaughan. he, as we shall see, was during those years so called upon to speak on every imaginable subject that he certainly had no time to learn about any of tliem thoroughly. Those years, for him, were practically one long improvisation. x\part from that, he was living on what he had b\' now acquired. I cannot pretend that I think his tour in America did him any good. Physically, no one could have stood that racket at his age ; and spiritually. I think it accus- tomed him to need excitement more than he had liitherto. If only he could have realised that even in America his improvised harangues and his hun- dred-time repeated lectures had not served their purpose fully ! Had he but been willmg to retire for complete rest and done some reading and really careful writing ! He came back, said he, with his youth renewed, if not like the eagle's, at least like the corncrake's ; and he was not quite wrong. It

N

l82 LIFE OF FATHER BERNARD VAUGHAN

was noticeable, soon, that he dragged his foot some- what : I began to ask myself whether he were not deliberately adopting the mannerisms of an old man ; his face fell in at the temples and round his mouth and the croaking voice he had liked to speak with especially at the beginning of his sermons, became more habitual ; he took to reading his addresses, and could not always hear the questions or comments at the end of them, and this annoyed him. I remem- ber that he came to Oxford to read a paper on Spiritualism. It was not at all a success : he had assumed he would be speaking entirely to Catholics, whereas the hall was three-quarters full of others. His point of view — that spiritualist phenomena were, if not fraud, due all of them to diabolic agency, did not commend itself even to his Catholic hearers, and he made no attempt to attend to an attitude, which was a very honest scientific and psychological one. In consequence he merely ridiculed the quite courteous and most defensible speeches that followed his paper, and the effect was deplorable. None the less, he was convinced that the paper had been a great success. This showed that he had failed to " sense " as of old, or had been quite unwilling to discover beforehand the probable temper of his audience : and though he asked, as ever, for hints, I do not think he now attended to them or even really tried to. In fact, I think he had given up trying ; he could do what he could, and it was useless to ask anything else from him. Unwilling to cease work, he carried on with very great courage, since the efforl tired him terribly ; and there were frequent flashes

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of his extraordinary charm, and of the old vivacity, and of his tenderness and human understanding. But you could see that life was withdrawing itself, or revealing its presence more by sudden flares, than by a steady glow or even the mighty conflagra- tions, so to say, of his triumj)hant days.

Age brought with it disabilities, no doubt, but also the consolations of his " jubilee." In December, 1916, he had completed fifty years in the Society. Not only did his English confreres show in very many ways, especially the promise of prayers and Masses, their sincere respect and affection, but from all over the world recognition reached him and, what to him was of unequalled value, the renewed and specific approbation of the General of the Society and of the Holy Father himself. Already from more Generals than one, messages of good will had rejoiced his earlier years — even in 1904 the General of the time had congratulated him on a miraculous escape he had had when his bicycle had been knocked over in a London street. " Birotis," said Fr. Martin. " in aeternum valedicens, vehiculis publicis utatur ." and now Fr. Ledochowski sent him the promise of fifty Masses for his jubilee. In 101)5 the Holy Father had first given to Fr. X'aughan the right to bless crucifixes with the addition of certain privi- leges in the matter of mdulgences. and in 1909 this was repeated. Now, in the December of 1916, Pope Benedict not only gave to Fr. \'aughan the privilege of using a portable altar, but wrote to him personally as follows :

i84 LIFE OF FATHER BERNARD VAUGHAN

To Our dear son, Bernard Vaughan, S.J., London. Benedict XV, Pope.

Dear Son, — Health and the Apostohc Benediction. Both for your own sake, dear son, and for Our own, we rejoice that you have reached by God's goodness an age at which you can renew that joy which was yours when, fifty years ago, you entered upon the reUgious Ufe of the holy vows. For your own sake, since We fully realise what an unfailing treasure you must have stored up for yourself in heaven, after so long a life, after so much work done, and having adorned, and still adorning, that more holy state of Ufe with its appropriate virtues ; and on Our own account, since an opportunity is thus offered of congratulating you — as we do, most affectionately, — as a soldier who has fought out his campaigns with so much honour, we further desire that the privilege of a portable altar may in some sense make the joy of this fifty-years jubilee a permanent one, and with all our heart we impart to you that privilege, so that never may the occasion be lacking, as for yourself, so for the Universal Church, of propitiating God with the Sacrifice of Salvation. To Our love and goodwill towards you We also add the Apostohc Benediction, and most lovingly in Our Lord, dear son, we impart it to you and to your fellov/ rehgious that it may ensure for you all heavenly graces. Given at Rome at St. Peter's, December 14th, 1916, in the third year of Our Pontificate. Benedict XV, Pope.

In writing thus, I have, of course, anticipated, and the aging process was quite gradual. The delight of having Fr. Vaughan back caused him to be invited everywhere to give an account of his tour, and as, on his return from his first one, he got into bad trouble with the Canadian press for seeming to decry the Canadian weather by comparison with the salu- brious airs of New York, so now he was denounced under the deceptive cupola of St. Paul's for talking ' ** balderdash " when he went about saying that

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travel had convinced him, as it dues or should con- vince anyone, that the Catholic Church was the only live church surviving.

He said this first at a tremendous meeting of welcome he received from his East Enders. One thousand men belonging to the Guild of the Blessed Sacrament there assembled to cheer him home. At this meeting the Mayor of Stepney, not a Catholic, w^as present and offered Fr. Vaughan at once a com- phment and a challenge. " If there is," he said, '* so tremendous a difference between the worship and doctrine of the Catholics and those of others, there should be a con'esponding one in life. I have a tremendous ideal of a Catholic. Light has been vouchsafed to you that has not been to me. I cannot be a Catholic at the present moment. I have not the behef. But you who believe all there is to beheve, ought to be a much better people than the others. I am sorry," said the Mayor, " for having wandered from the point." " No," cried Fr. Vaughan, " you are right on it."

His relations with Anglicanism as such did not become more amiable, though as usual members of ever\' denomination won his personal respect and gave him theirs. The controversy connected with the name of Kiku\u was agitating minds, and Fr. Vaughan spoke much upon this house di\ided against itself, sometimes with humorous consequences. I have already told how the Egress incident and the Uneatable Game episode earned for liim quite des- perate rebukes from the Nonconformist press : and I may mention that once, when with perfect good

i86 LIFE OF FATHER BERNARD VAUGHAN

humour he had told an Eastbourne audience that :

The authorities in your church contradict themselves as consistently as the weathercocks over your School of Art. I noticed yesterday that while one pointed to the north, the other pointed to the north-east. If one is to the south, another is to the south-west. Each is living its life of splendid independence, so that in Eastbourne you can rejoice in having any kind of weather you like.

the local press was very hurt. It explained elabor- ately that the vanes, being eighty feet apart, naturally shifted about owing to the various " cur- rents of wind that smote them." " Exactly," said Fr. Vaughan. And after a speech on the Anglican National Mission in 1916, he was reported as having said that " no matter how many dinners were eaten or how many were given, there would be no dif- ference," and an indignant storm arose — the Mission did not intend to give dinners : was Fr. Vaughan accusing it of touting thus for success ? whereas what he had said was that no matter how many drums were beaten or missions given, the effect would be slight. Not but what he was fond of these gastronomic metaphors. " Anglicanism," he often said " was a meal a la carte, at which you ate what you pleased, and did not quarrel with your vis a vis, whose taste might differ ; whereas the ' simple Bible teaching ' that was still recommended would no more feed the soul than reading the menu would the starving body."

But I can honestly say that he took no pleasure in attack. I repeat, heresy and schism were not that on which his eye cared to dwell. He had no wish to feel uncharitable, and they made him feel so. He

THK LAST YEARS 187

was quite incapable, and knew himself so, of entering into the singular states of mind which were those of his opponents and he could only speak of them and to them as he himself could see them. His Kikuyu sermons are laboured : the theme was not what he would choose ; but when at the end he can turn his eyes to the Faith and to the True Church of Christ, he is happy. At the end of such a sermon he spoke til us :

And now. my Catholic brethren, let me address myself to you and let me exhort you to love the Faith that is in you as your greatest treasure out of Heaven. It is the Pearl beyond price of all. It is the only thing that matters, the one gift that is worth while.

It will take the duration of eternity to thank God for calling us into His Church, in which alone is found peace for the mind, rest for the heart and guidance for the will. O Holy Church ! O Bride of Christ ! O Mother of men ! How can I adequately express my unstinted gratitude for all thou art in Thyself and for all thou art to me. In thyself all glorious, without spot or vsTinkle. altogether holy and without blemish, thou hast come down the ages trampling error under thy feet and holding aloft the torch of truth and the mirror of justice in thy spotless hands. True, on thy garments I sec the blood of battle and on thy brow the sweat of toil, but in thine eyes is the fire of youth, in thy step the spring of hope, and on thy lips the note of truth and the song of triumph. Princes and peoples may arise up to assail and slay thee, but they can but inflict wounds and utter vain things ; they may check, but they cannot stay thy progress ; they may condemn but they cannot despise thee ; they may threaten, but they cannot silence thee ; for thy message is to all men and thy mission to all time.

O Holy Mother Church ! who on thy lap hast nursed us and at thy bosom fed us. and within thy sheltering arms folded and taught us ; O thou, who art our light in darkness, repose in certitude, comfort in sorrow, and strength in weak- ness, rise up, we beseech thee in the majesty of thy strength.

i88 LIFE OF FATHER BERNARD VAUGHAN

and come forth with thy pitying eyes and outstretched arms to gather to thy embrace and fold to thy heart our separated brethren, who Hke sheep without a shepherd are gone astray on the uplands swept by contrary winds of doctrine, or are being lost in the valleys below, where the mists of doubt, like a fog upon the river, press forth from the burdened heart of so many bewildered souls the prayer, " O God, if I am to believe, teach me what it is I am to beUeve, and in Thy mercy send me a teacher from whom I am to learn it, that before I depart hence I may find repose in certainty, and so end my days in peace. Amen."

During this last part of his life, Fr. Vaughan was often asked to publish his memoirs.

" I feel no call or inclination," he wrote to Mr. John Long, who knew him well, *' to do so. Instead of leaving behind me a monument I want to prepare one before me. The last milestones on the way homeward are being passed and I am so intensely interested in what is coming that I feel cold about what I am leaving. It is no use writing unless one's heart is in it." (December 20th, 1920.) And again, ** I have never kept a diary. I note some of my faults. A man is never impressed by his successes if he has a modicum of common sense, but by his faults only. My monument is not behind me but before me." And to Mr. Hilliard Atteridge he wrote that when he was dead he would be very dead indeed, so that no memoir would be written by him. '' And," he added, " I should have to leave out all the best stories." All the same, one may regret that he did nothing. At least he would have been able to con- tradict a good many myths. But he did not care to do even that. As long ago as 1907 he had written :

" I have ceased to contradict what women say Father

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Vaughan said. As she ' heard ' me saying it, what would be the use of my denying it ? Nothing matters. It's all right. Don't mind 'em. ... J did not write about these matters for if I attended to them all there would be no time for real work. Life is made up of trivial misunderstandings which for the most part right themselves and when they do not. must be borne. It's all right. Bless you. Never worry."

However, he had already published a small book which I have not yet mentioned, on Joan of Arc, which derives an extrinsic importance because of the notes made by Mr. Andrew Lang in the margin of the copy kept at Mount Street. The nucleus of this book was formed, need I say, by the lecture on the " Matchless Maid " which he so often gave. It was charmingly illustrated by M. Gaston Huissiere. who made but one slip — he gave Jeanne yellow hair and blue eyes, whereas she was dark, as Mr. Lang pointed out. The Cardinal Archbishop wTote a preface, and this, with Fr. Vaughan's own Foreword, made the object of the book quite clear. It was not to be a work of erudition, nor yet just devotional. It was to help those Catholic women who felt the call to activity and who did not wish to lose, in their obedience to this modi'rn duty, the spiritual ideals and iniluence more easy to preserve and exert in their secluded liie hillK-rto.

The story is told with simpliciiy, .md the morale are gently dr;iwn. They concerned, as a rule, tlio importance of true character, without which a girl who lived as she did could ne\er have survived spiritually intact the chances of her strange history. To the chapters that contain the story, Fr. \'aughan

igo LIFE OF FATHER BERNARD VAUGHAN

added an apologetic one. A recurrent criticism on his lecture was that the Church, which was now for beatifying her, had at the first condemned her, and also, had been miserably ungrateful in waiting so many centuries for her rehabilitation. He points out that the tribunal " which sentenced her to death, cannot by any effort of the imagination be regarded as a valid ecclesiastical Court," and Mr. Lang here laconically puts in the margin: "Bien." As for the rehabilitation, it was accomplished within twenty- five years of her death by Callixtus III. Mr. Lang adds a note of exclamation in the margin when Fr. Vaughan quotes the opinion that the ** change of attitude " towards Joan which, after centuries of comparative neglect, became visible in the seven- teenth and eighteenth centuries, was accelerated by the influence of John Wesley, who, says Fr. Vaughan, was not a little affected by Scotch writers. " The Scotch," he says " were almost without exception true to their tradition about Joan," and here the margin contains nothing but the severe letter s, which Mr. Lang would have replace the ch which so shockingly terminates the national designation.

Mr. Lang's notes are of substantial value, and should be attended to in any second edition. Here and there he adds but a query ; elsewhere there are definite corrections, some of mere slips. But again, his erudition makes certain what few could be sure of, as when he alters Fr. Vaughan's statement that Joan bribed a bell-ringer (p. 4) with handfuls of wool from her sheep, and finds from Ducange that what she ' gave were probably small cakes. At times he gently

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checks the writer's exuberant imagination — as when Fr. Vaughan says she rode on a sable charger, whereas that beast's colour is unknown. Tlie notes are characteristically humorous, as when tht* author says that " Jeanne passed a very trying summer." and the margin dryly observes : " Rather ! House burnt. . . ' or when, to the remark that " God Him- self helped her to win a way into the brusque soldier's heart," Mr. Lang appends that it " took about six weeks." But he contributes besides the historical corrections that the little book badly needed, and the personal Hashes that recall his pleasant manner to our memory, one set of comments which has this interest — Fr. Vaughan did not insist nearly so much as he might on tlie preternatural element in Joan's history. One instance is this — Fr. Vaughan says that on tlie occasion of her first vision she " recog- nised the rudiant form of St. Michael." though it is certain that not until she had seen him many times did she know who tlie apparition was. Similarly Bernadette at Lourdcs. \Miatever she may after a while ha\-e surmised, it was long before she even guessed who was the Lady she kept seeing in the Grotto. A recurrent vision wliich puzzles, is far harder to rationalise than one which at once explains itself ; you construct a hallucination from material you already possess. There is here opportunity for a psychological study of real interest.

It were of course foolish to seek, in this little book, for what it never dreamt of claimiui;. It is the memorial of an enthusiasm wliich its wTiter very sincerely felt, and which he will be glad to have us

192 LIFE OF FATHER BERNARD VAUGHAN

commemorate ; and I suppose that he did more than any one man, in this country, to bring back to popular veneration the name and image of the holy child to whom our nation did a wrong for which no reparation can be excessive.

He also wrote and published later on in the National Life Series a short book called The Menace of the Empty Cradle. The first part was a reprint of an article on " Race Suicide " in the Nineteenth Century and After. The second part contained a number of letters extracts from which had been printed in that bulletin, and also from many news- papers that had criticised what Fr. Vaughan had said, favourably or the reverse.

At the outset he condescended to notice the criticism of those baser society papers which — too unintelligent to be able to distinguish between their and his ideas, ideals, and motives, or just cadging for a snigger, — ^had kept calling out that he, a celi- bate priest, ought not to defend or demand large families.

Not caring to risk his pearls, Fr. Vaughan began by stating that he based his argument not on religion but on considerations of citizenship :

My object in writing is, as a British citizen who cannot fail to recognize the gradual trend of the nation toward selfish and individualist hedonism, with a consequent appall- ing amount of personal unhappiness, resulting in great measure from the positive repudiation of marital obligations, to ask my fellow-countrymen this question : " Are the homes of England still the foundation of England's great- - ness, or are they being tampered with, not to say under- mined, by selfishness, luxury and sin ? "

THE LAST YEARS 193

He then anticipates the argument that individuals are under no obligation to the State, but briefly, having assigned the limits of the reciprocal obliga- tion involved in his book on Socialism. Here, he speaks just as he does about the wTongness of stand- ing out of the War. The State exists : every citizen in a thousand ways profits by its existence ; to take a selfish view of marriage was to sin against civic justice. The statistics he then offers show that the selfishness, which he sees to underlie the misuse of any natural function, has its roots deeper than the particular misuse of the function he is here consider- ing. He sees no doubt in the insensate self-indul- gence of those who have much money the direct cause of their refusal to have large, or any famihes ; but it is still b\- tlie selfishness of the very rich that the destitute or impoverished middle classes are practically driven to deny themselves large families. His merciless condemnation of the luxurious is due largely to the fact that it is they and their behaviour who created and perpetuate the miserable state in which others have to live. The ill-housed and ill- clothed ought not to be in those conditions ; that they are so, is scarcely their fault at all ; the axe nuist be laid to the root of a very different tree. And he maintains tliat only by thus attacking the true roots of the evil, will redress be found, and not by introducing yet another misuse of life, such as the birth-restrictionists demand. The ideal of marriage and of home must be preserved, no matter how much the suffering even of many individuals at the moment.

194 LIFE OF FATHER BERNARD VAUGHAN

In his answer to those who pathetically asked what they were to do meanwhile — since the cure of sick society will not be achieved in an hour or a year, he had but to answer that the Church, which always supports human nature in the fullest sense — that is by no soft sympathy only, but by encouraging its development along the only lines that are psycho- logically right — ^repeated her old command of self- control. To that, the reply nearly always was, that the thing was impossible. And the reply was backed by many allegations, part medical and partly psycho- logical. I certainly regret that Fr. Vaughan was perhaps ill-equipped for attacking the question on its psychological side. His statistics were such as were then available ; I understand that even now they are inadequately collected ; had Mr. HaUiday Sutherland's book existed when Fr. Vaughan was writing, he could have improved this part of his work. But what is quite as important, he barely touched on : that is, the nature of mental control as distinguished from repression. While he was right in refusing to permit himself the moist senti- ment that disfigures such literature as is associated with the name of Dr. Marie Stopes, he was not able to show with that tenderness, which rests upon wisdom, any method of self-government. No doubt he suppHed ideals and motives : but he scarcely so apphed them as to neutralise the myriad influences that flatter inclination, such as art, amusements and light literature supply, so strongly reinforcecj by, precisely, the falsely scientific works of the restrictionists.

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But I would nut have it thought that Fr. Vaughan was once more adoj)ting the methods of sensational- ism. 1 f e really studied. He had his eye, as much as anyone, on the tangle of causes and effects. He watched systems, and the cost, of education : he niver forgot the relation of wages to work and to life. His sympathy with " liard cases " none could doubt. But he never would take the easy wav out of a difficulty, and never would allow that a wrong situation could be cured by wrong methods, and he held that those were wrong, which interfered with the man as a whole, and therefore in the long run with society itself. He had in his mind, we may aver, two very strong principles : one was the Supremac}' of God, the other, the goodness of human nature, despite its sins.

The War naturally brought a great pressure to bear on Fr. Vaughan, not only, as upon all, from within, but in the shape of endless invitations to speak for war-charities and the like.

It is interesting to see that from the very moment of the assassination, to which even now we lind too little imjiortance attached, he tirml\ i)redicted anarchy, and he kept asserting and reasserting throughout those years the economic and social ujiheavals that we have witnessetl, even when such l^rophecies seemed cjuile uut of keeping with the duty of t)ptimism. He thought that ni» pessimism could be worse than that which sliould succeed hopes defeated. " We. who learned as little from the South African War," he insisted, " as the French

196 LIFE OF FATHER BERNARD VAUGHAN

did from the Franco-Prussian, will have to suffer much and long." I would like it remembered that never, on the thousand occasions of patriotic speeches and sermons to which I shall allude, did he fail to inculcate the austere lessons of the duty of self- examination, self-rebuke, and self-reform. I have once more wondered at the fate which beset him in regard of all these speeches. Both from the quota- tions that were made from them, and from the criticisms that were passed on them, you would take him to have been but a Jingo-priest, profiting by the pulpit to clash the cymbals of hate or to pour forth slop-pails of sentiment on the heads of canonised ** lads in khaki and boys in blue." It would be foolish to deny that his utterances were sometimes out of place or lacking in good taste. Yet the one which raised even in England a storm of indignation, was, in its context, at least quite logical. It was spoken at the Mansion House, on January 25th, 1916, when he said that, " Our business is, to keep on killing Germans. Somebody has got to be killed, and do you suppose we ought to be killed in view of the motive we have gone out to fight for ? There- fore we have to kill a sufficient number of that tre- mendous army so as to entitle us to dictate terms of peace. I know I shall receive to-morrow a batch of letters asking me if I am a priest of God. I am. An unworthy one, I know. But the alternative before us is — " and he developed the option of conquering or being conquered, not dwelling at the time on the possibility of a merely more chaotic chaos on this side and on that. There is no doubt whatever that

illl'. LAbi VLAKb 197

he took the view of thr ordinary Enghshmdn, that right was massively on the Enghsh side, and that sheer treachery had disfigured the action of our enemies. Tliat being so, he did not hesitate when the necessary consequences of this behef, namely, the concrete duty of fighting as hard as was possi- ble, set themselves before him. The " batch of letters " most certainly came in : all sorts of un- expected people professed themselves shocked, chiefly, I suppose, because of our national horror of putting things into words — for in this very declara- tion of our duty of " kilhng Germans " I am quite sure there was no spirit of hate or even of self- righteousness. Once Fr. Vaughan had made up his mind that it was his duty to bayonet a man, I expect he would have done it with energy, and have forth- with administered to him the sacraments with warm and genuine affection.

This did not prevent, as was but natural, his remarks being hotly resented in Germany. It was said there, that he had stated things that were ethically wTong. This was not so ; again, the press had misquoted him. But he had used expressions about foreign rulers that to me, at least, seem at the worst, unkind and untrue, at the best, undignified. \Miat he seriously condemned in Ciermanx*, the German episcopate also condemned, and he had the corresponding versittn of it to condemn among our- selves, and did so. But Fr. Vaughan, bi ing a mem- ber of a corporation, the Society, which has the name of being singularly unanimous in its views, had clearly put his German Jesuit confreres into a most

o

198 LIFE OF FATHER BERNARD VAUGHAN

uncomfortable position. Naturally they protested, in a dignified and guarded letter, copied forthwith into the whole British press. That this was " natural," Fr. Vaughan himself, of course, per- ceived and declared. He defended in pulpit and on platform and in print the German Province of the Society, composed as it was, he wrote, of men " learned, loyal, patriotic, and zealous," for whom he had, personally, but " esteem and affection." At least, he urged, the protest and what had pro- voked it helped ** to knock the bottom out of the old charge that Jesuits all the world over were as like as bricks in a wall." German Jesuits loved Kaiser and Fatherland as we love King and Country ; and to join the Society did not strip a man of his personality. All his life he had liked to maintain that, consistently with perfect loyalty to his "group," he had never ceased to be " Bernard Vaughan " ; and rather later, when crying out from the top of one of those tanks where he spoke so much, and exhorting everyone to offer his last coin and his last ounce of energy, he retorted to someone who called out that such were not the Pope's views — " Why should they be ? Common or garden folks like you and me have the right to our own opinions ; much more an august personage like His Holiness."

The simplest way of ascertaining Fr. Vaughan's real views on the European tragedy is to read them in his What of To-day ? published in 1915, by Cassell's, and censored, by accident or design, by a German priest resident in England — the late Fr. Strassmaier, ' an Assyriologist of world-wide renown and endeared

THE LASi VEARS 199

to many hundreds of our own fulks by long decades of devoted service. The book was sold for the benefit of Belgian refugees, and dedicated to King Albert. Lord Roberts, a very short time before his death, wrote to Fr. Vaughan that his overwhelming work alone prevented him from writing a preface for the book, else, a " congenial task," and, said he, in a second letter, Father Vaughan was most welcome to use the first one as introductory. The rest of the book, after the war-essays, is filled with chapters on the various subjects in which Fr. Vaughan' felt him- self most at home — Sport, Advertisement, Labour, Sweating, Social Reform, Democracy, Feminism, Marriage, the Servant Problem, Spiritualism, and Old and the New Spirits discernable in England, and other essays on more directly religious topics but not as a rule directly Catholic ones. His ideas are, wrote (I think) The Guardian, those of the best sort (jf " man on the 'bus " ; and indeed I fancy that this book is by far the best in which to study the ideals that Fr. Vaughan stood for, and that a real service was rendered to minds which liked to be helped to think clearly, by the many simple distinctions il drew and by its straightforward examination of cunent catchwords. The book had a deservedly good press, and as good a sale, and in it, moreover, are to be found all the elements of that lecture on Character he was so fond of giving, which 1 there- fore need not quote. The tlieme had become even more important at that liour of crisis.

Fr. Vaughan therefore went speaking e\'ciywhere for the Red Cross, on the Irish regiments, for which

200 LIFE OF FATHER BERNARD VAUGHAN

he had a perfect cult, especially after he returned from a short visit to France some time in 1915 ; for Miss Lena Ashwell's fund for Concerts at the Front ; on President Wilson's peace note ; at the Aeolian Hall on the National Call to Prayer ; for the League of Remembrance, the Women's League of Service for Motherhood, and at very many camps to which non-Catholic chaplains invited him almost as much as the Catholic. His life may be pictured if I set down no more than his engagements — other than sermons and much else, I have no doubt, that I do not find noted — from the end of June to mid- September, 1916. I see that he spoke during that time for an endowment scheme connected with the Veterans' Club, at the Mansion House ; in the Rodney Hut at Crayford ; in the Empire Theatre at Cardiff and His Majesty's Theatre, Carlisle ; for the Montenegrin Red Cross, and at the Automobile Club for Russian and Pohsh Jews. He spoke at a Hyde Park Hotel tea for the wounded, and at a Sunderland House concert for Belgian prisoners in Germany ; at a girls' club in Mile End Road, and at a display at Beaumont College. He was a guest at a souvenir lunch at Grosvenor House, and preached at the Liverpool Irish Requiem in Liver- pool when, too, along with Mr. T. P. O'Connor, a good friend of his, he spoke at the concert that took place in the evening. Small wonder that when, about that time, the craze for filming celebrities began, he, with Cabinet Ministers, appeared on the pictures ; and it was recognised that the two men who "filmed" by far the best were Fr. Vaughan

THE LAST YEARS 201

and Mr. Will Crooks, and, as a third. Mr. Lloyd George. Besides this, I will onl\' add that on March 4tli, 1917. he spoke for Sir Llerbert Tree, who had organised monthly lectures at His Majesty's Theatre in aid of war-charities, and defined *' An Empire's Measure of Greatness " to be that of the character of its citizens. Sir Arthur Pinero was in the chair. Perhaps at no other time did Fr. Vaughan, from his sensitive appreciation of men's instincts, so clearly foresee and state post-war slogans, and criticise them all. He relentlessly drove his hearers back to prin- ciples, and forward to prayer, and the death of the late Duke of Norfolk was providing him with the strongest of arguments for his double thesis. And indeed a more perfect example of supernaturalised character could not be wished for. Simplicity and nobility of mind ; gentleness and strength ; robust sense of humour and habit of fun, and a most deep spirit of prayer and a true mortification were com- bined in that great Catholic. Some letters survive in which he thanks Fr. Vaughan for pra3ers collected and Masses said during his illness, and the Duke's astonishment that so many should have cared thus to help him was, to my mind, as significant as his earnest desire for all the help he could obtain in the hours when his life was reaching its consummation. And it would have been wholly in keeping with the Duke's wish, that Fr. Bernard found himself unable to go to the funeral of his very old friend : he was receiving into the Church a Canadian private soldier. A humorous incident di\*ersifted these days. He had lied from the noise of London to take refuge at

202 LIFE OF FATHER BERNARD VAUGHAN

Cromer, where Lady Shephard, an old friend of his, was staying. She tells me how Fr. Vaughan, who daily drove in to Mass in a baker's cart driven by a very small boy — ^used to go bicycling in the after- noon. Once he landed at a village inn, and, in the abundance of his good will asked the landlady so many questions, that she telephoned for the police, being convinced he was a German spy. So Fr. Vaughan knew by experience what it meant to pass some hours under arrest, in the cells. And it is solemnly recorded that when he was lecturing to wounded soldiers in Blackpool, in 1916, a legless soldier ran all the way back to hear him. . . It is certain that at these informal talks he was immensely successful. His talks began with stories, became serious, relapsed into a string of stories inimitably told, and, after a space for questions, ended with the blessing of God. His devotion to these sufferers was most genuine. Once, at Wimbledon, he wit- nessed the disedifying spectacle of civilians pushing their way on to a tram and elbowing wounded men off the step. He simply swept the intruders away, and helped the men to mount. A cheer arose. " Don't cheer me," he snapped. " Hiss yourselves." Besides this, I will but recall the procession which he led from Westminster Cathedral to the Shrine of St. Edward in Westminster Abbey. He had expected fifty pilgrims : five hundred arrived ; at their head was borne the great East End Crucifix which, it was his dying wish, should pass into the possession of the Catholic Evidence Guild.

After the War, he continued as well as he might

THK LAST YEARS 203

to help forward the various relief-funds, such as St. Dunstan's, which he visited along with Sir Arthur Pearson, for whom he had the highest admiration. " They work here," he dictated, "up to their best, and not down to someone else's worst," and his letter was transcribed from Braille shorthand notes by a blind operator. He was Vice-President of the Chaldean rehef fund, and from the Editor of The Record of the " Save the Children " fund, Mr. Edward Fuller, came afterwards a most touching tribute to the work Fr. Vaughan had done for the starving children oi Europe. "As a world-traveller," Mr. Fuller wTote, "an intimate observer of human nature, and a worker, for many years, among the congested populations of Manchester and London, no less than as a Father of the Society of Jesus, Fr. Vaughan realised the significance of the child in the corporate life of the community, and for this reason we, who believe in the universal child, are the poorer because of his death."

And it is pleasant to know that his work was remembered in the true spirit of friendship. Thus the Major late commanding the Stepney Battalion of the East London Volunteer Regiment. wTote in 192 1 to invite him to dine with the officers at the Holborn Restaurant. " We are all so hoping," he said, " that vou will show your interest in East London h\ making one of us as you did during the war when we were so delighted to see you. If \ou can and will come. I will, with your permission, call upon you to say a word or two. Just a few- words from you will do us much good, those of us

204 LIFE OF FATHER BERNARD VAUGHAN

who have lost brothers, sons or nephews — and we do want a few words of comfort now and agam from those in authority Hke yourself." Major Freyberg also tells me that Fr. Vaughan had not only dined with and addressed the ofi&cers of the Stepney Volunteers in 1918, but in that same year had attended a concert and entertainment at the People's Palace at which H.R.H. Princess Beatrice was graciously present.

During the evening Father Bernard Vaughan gave an address and his appearance on the stage was the signal for all the children in the galleries to rise and shout their words of welcome and then followed the address deahng patheti- cally with all the East End had endured so patiently, and giving words of encouragement for the future. Then he went on to impress upon all the beauty of and necessity for a healthy family life. He pointed out our own Royal Family and the example they furnished to the whole Nation, and then he made a touching allusion to the Jews he met at the East End, saying that in the sanctity of their family life there was so much which Christians could copy.

Then he went on to indulge in humorous anecdotes and made us all laugh so greatly that we had almost exhausted our stock of risibility when the stage was occupied by a well-known comedian, although it was not long before he got in touch with his audience, and so all progressed in true East End manner.

After the Princess had departed amid every token of loyalty and respect, I noticed the crowd outside, instead of diminishing, was increasing every minute, so I said to the Officer in charge of the Police : "Do they know the Princess has already gone ? " " Lor, bless 3^ou, Sir," he said, " they're waiting for Father Bernard Vaughan and here he comes." But the attitude of the crowd, mostly children, soon proved his words to be true, and such wild and un- governable enthusiasm bars all description. Women may often be mistaken in their love ; men are not infrequently

Till-: LAST YKARS 205

wanting in loyalty, but children in their love and loyalty never err.

Unfortunately for me and my brother Otlicers we never did have the great pleasure of a few words from him again, although we sent him many an earnest invitation, but he wrote to our Mess President that much as he liked coming to us there were other matters to see to. Missions and so forth, which he considered had a prior claim over what he looked upon as enjoyment.

PART III.

ADVESPERASCIT

As our heavenly maker best knowcs ye mould wee ar made of and provides accordingly for our ad\antage and safety ; so her naturall temper being hott and fyer\', he ballanst yt uivacity of humor by such deepe apprehensions and scrupulous fears, as kept her in great humility and submis- sion . . antl (she so prepared for death when she suffered) from deep apprehension and a constant timorous conscience (that) would put her into great frights and diflicultyes, seconded by ye malice of ye inuisible enemy, in wh you might still discover ye force and efficacy of thos former endeavors she had still used in her recource to God, and submission both to Ghostly fathers and Superiors wch was now her only solace and remedy.

And as her devotion to ye Bd Sacrament was most exem- plar and known to all to be wt she cheefly aymed to be excellent in, so our Deere Lord vouchsafed her that high favour as yt wn wee were almost past hopes of her capacity to receave her Viaticum ; tow fathers of the Society with our owne Ghostly fathers and chaplin wth all ye Communit\- praying by her, as beleeving her neere her end ; having :dl ye remarks of a dying person both in her countenance and motions ye Superior — wn the commendation of ye soule had binn all repeated said to her D. Clare if you desire absolu- tion bow yr head wch she immediately did, and ye Ghostly father gave her absolution. Ye Superior agayn sayd to her D. Clare, if you desir to receave our Bd Lord, as >t Viaticum, l)ow yr head ; she presently did soe ; and lookt up with a great cheerfullness, and on of ye fathers speaking to her to prepare to receave her heavenly spows her Lord and her God, she shewed thos evidences of devotion, and present right understanding of yt great action, as with much joy they brought ye Bd Sacrament, wch she receavde wth much peace and devotion, to ye great comfort and edifica- tion of all yt were present, and tni evidence of AUmighty God's peculiar favoure and mercy to her soule.

Memoir of Dame Clare Vaughan.

SOUTH AFRICA

ON April 7th, 1922, Father Vaughan left for South Africa on the Arundel Castle, Union- Castle Line, and, partl}^ owing to the kind influence of his friend Lord Inchcape, the officials did all in their power to make the trip pleasant for him. He was genuinely grateful, and often alluded to the admirable arrangements of the steamer, not least for the third-class passengers. Sermons and lectures, he said, were not insisted on ; but he was always made chairman of sports, entertainments and concerts, which does not sound restful, and despite the letters I have received relating his high spirits and series of puns perpetrated for the sake of his companions, the record of his ecstatic enjoy- ment of the sunsets tells most of the healing value of the voyage. And a different healing was offered by messages, of which, for friendliness sake, I will quote two :

I am sincerely sorry to read in the press to-day that you are so ill. But I humbly and sincerely pray that God's blessing resting on the medical skill and nurses attending you that you will soon recover again. England can ill spare at the present time such an earnest outspoken God's messen- ger. You do not know me but I remember 370U weU thirty years ago coming to X station to visit Y HaU. I was station master there about six years from the opening of that Hne and you used to go and speak so free and jolly to my late wife in the station house. God bless you, dear

SOUTH AFRICA 211

Father \ auglian, \ours most respcctfullx-, X. V., a Pro- testant.

And, this time, from South Africa itstlf :

Cead mile FaiUe to South African shores. For^ve me writing and trouhhng you with this scribble, but a Man- chester fellow cannot possibly help it. And a ineinber of the Young Men's Christian Doctrine Confraternity will ever cherish the reverent memory for the Vaughans.

On ins arrival at the Cape he was forthwith inter- viewed by the Cape Times and the Cape Argus, to whom he made a characteristic little speecli on the need of principles if the true success were to be ob- tained, but emphasised, chiefly, his joy at being able at last to see, though so late, South Africa. He was then welcomed by the Catholic Federation, and by the representatives of The Southern Cross which has preserved admirable reports of the visit. He was forthwith motored to the Bishop's House, where he paid due respects, and thence to the Marist College, Rondebosch, Belmnnt, where he spoke to the three hundred boys and obtained the correct half-holiday. Thence to the Good Shepherd Con- vent at Claremont ; and thence to the Dominican Convent, W'ynberg. Here he made another speech whicli was really fresh and happy and entranced the children even before the half-holiday was announced. and he was then allowed to lunch at a h.otel. Alter lunch the lu^spitable lady whose cars were at liis disposal took liim to Nazareth House, where the children's band met liim and he spoke yet again, and then called at the Sanatorium kept by the Sisters of the Holy Famih- where he was to spend

212 LIFE OF FATHER BERNARD VAUGHAN

some time later. Finally, he was given a " quick run round the Mountain " and returned home. Such was the first day of the South African rest-cure. He then continued his voyage in the Arundel Castle, landing at Port Elizabeth for a few hours where he was met by Bishop MacSherry and the local clergy, and finally landed at Durban. He stopped for a few days at the Cathedral House as the guest of the Bishop, and then for better rest went to the Sanatorium, a nursing home conducted by the Augustinian nuns. Here he remained three weeks, and it was a special joy to him to meet there Dr. Margaret Lamont, the well-known Catholic medical missioner, whom he had received into the Church almost exactly sixteen years before. He had not forgotten that, all those years ago, he had pro- mised to give Holy Communion to her and to her husband. He now redeemed his promise, and she on her side was able to tell him he had been right, when, to her anxious question, whether as a woman doctor she would win acceptance among the con- servative Catholic folk, he had answered that to be a Cathohc is worth anything. Just as he was starting for America he had written to Dr. Lamont who was then working in wild places of New Zealand, how glad he was that she knew how to combine the duties of motherhood with baking bread, looking after wounded settlers and sick Maoris, and now he could see for himself the sight of natives at Communion, and what problems were set by a town so full, as Durban was, of Indian, Chinese, and Japanese non- Christians, as well as of Zulu and Basuto natives.

SOUTH AFRICA 213

Tears ran down his face when he saw the native converts at their Mass. He was happy to have a Cathohc doctor, M. Fran(;ois, to attend him, and lay for hours looking at the view from his verandah which to him seemed no less beautiful than the Bay of Naples, which he called God's own cinematograph. To a visit from the Natal Advertiser, who was anxious to know whether there would be another course of " society sermons," he seems to have talked of little else save the splendour of the sunset and the stars. However, he reverted after a space to his favourite themes, but yet again returned with ever renewed affection to his memory of the natives at Communion. I have no doubt at all that when Fr. Vaughan spoke of his '' brothers " or " sisters " among the sick or the slighted, that is exactly how- he felt towards them.

When he left Durban in the middle of May, he attended the procession at the Cathedral in honour of Our Lady, and since it was felt tliat hundreds would be disappointed if they heard no word from him, he was persuaded to speak for a moment from the pulpit after the sermon. Even from this httle sermon he could not exclude a reference to the African sunlight and the stars, but on the whole he dwelt on the will to suller which must be theirs who have the wish to love. Thus was concluded his life's course of Mary-sermons, which had begun at the foot of Our Lady's statue long ago at Stony- hurst. Certainl\- Fr. Bernard Wiughan had been the very faithful and knightly servant of God's Mother.

214 LIFE OF FATHER BERNARD VAUGHAN

From Durban Fr. Vaughan returned in the Windsor Castle to Port Elizabeth, where he was met by the Rector of St. Aidan's College, Grahamstown, to which he was on his way. He remained there for a few days, guest of the parents of one of the boys of that college, and then went on by sleeping car to Grahamstown, finding the journey very tiring. He was glad to be back in a house of his fellow- Jesuits, and really rested at last. His health visibly improved. He talked little, but drove to many places and was received with much honour at the Rhodes University by the Chairman of Senate and the professors. He also attended a concert given in the Town Hall by the very fine Cape Town Orchestra then on tour, and to his great pleasure the conductor, Mr. Theodore Wendt, was presented to him. All denominations were anxious that he should give an address at the Town Hall, but he had to insist that his doctor had absolutely forbidden any such thing. But he spontaneously offered to address the St. Aidan's boys in the college chapel, and spoke very quietly, and the more impressively, on the unique friend that Our Lord can be to those who will accept that privilege.

One characteristic incident occurred after a drive to Fort Brown, once a military and now a police outpost some sixteen miles from the town. He, with the rest of the St. Aidan's community, went on some way beyond the Fort to picnic by a river. A Kaffir woman came down to draw water. Fr. Vaughan, ignorant of, or ignoring, the conventions, insisted on taking down cakes and tea to the good

SOUTH AFRICA 215

womiin who could not sj)eak 11 word of English, " and who must have been considerably astonished at this unwonted attention from a white man. Th<' chauffeurs were agape at the sight." Well, he would have said, first quite simply and then, I daresay, defiantly, slie was his sister. " If only," he had said to a reporter, " we would treat them as human beings, witli a handful of love thrown in."

Visitors, from the Deputy Mayor downwards, thronged to see Fr. Vaughan, who tired himself too much with the courtesy of his response, and as usual told story after story to the dchghted, yet anxious community. The effort did indeed exhaust him. He should have stayed longer at Grahams- town, and done much less. He left evidently but little better, and by Port Elizabeth went soon afterwards back to Cape Town, and established him- self in the Sea Point Sanatorium already mentioned. While he was there he WTote the following letter to the mother of a friend, who was suffering from a very painful illness and much distress of mind, li is characteristic, and is the last I shall have to quote :

The past is dead and buried : don't dig it up. The future is not yet bom ; don't anticipate it. Live in the living present and don't spend the time in worrying about yourself, but in thinking about God. You shall have five Masses that when you are relieved of your Cross you may have a non-stop flight for

The Crown. Make trust your cxpre^ion of love.

Strange mingling of the deeply-felt and genuine sympath}', with the sincere terseness of epigram, the terrible worn-out metaphor, meant even at its

2i6 LIFE OF FATHER BERNARD VAUGHAN

freshest for journal or for platform, the generous will to offer spiritual help, and the one touch of profound conviction at the end.

While he was here, he called on General Smuts at Groote Schuur, the residence left by Cecil Rhodes to future Prime Ministers of the Union. There he had a long and interesting conversation, of which, natu- rally, there is no record. Still, he must have been fascinated by the quaint house, with its mingled air of Holland and of Africa, its white-pillared verandah, ornate gables, and twisted chimneys, and by the amazing view — the Devil's Peak, or the Winberg, " Wind-Mountain," as the early settlers called it, a tall cone visible through pines from the stoep at the back of the house, and Rhodes's favourite view. He cannot but have been enchanted by the Mountain of which the first blue-and-silver vision from the sea so thrilled him, and which he at last had time to contemplate, as it rose, all " mellow browns and greens and dazzle of silvery trees " from " the feathery yellows of grassy undergrowth." This harmony of orange, brown and gold, with its silvery shadows, rose into a sky at whose blue he never ceased to marvel.

It was regrettable that he consented to address a public audience in the City Hall before leaving Cape Town. The arrangements were made by the Catholic Federation, and the enthusiasm was amaz- ing. At least three thousand filled the Hall, and hundreds could not find room. The reports were kind in their comments — as usual, the text of the speech had been supplied to them beforehand. But

SOUTH AFRICA 217

it remains tliat only those who sat right forward could licar what Fr. Vaughan was saying. The moment he came upon the platform, it could be seen that here was an old man, obviously exhausted. The Cape Argus describes him as follows :

Immediately behind the Mayor he came, an elderly, nionk-Uke figure, with more than a hint of austerity about his clean-shaven face, alive with sharp edges and clean curves ; he was wearing a black skull cap, sombre clerical coat buttoned tightly straight down the front, and his long hands were tightly clasped in front of him. There was a burst of applause, then a standing welcome. With hands still clasped the old man bowed in courtly fashion to the right, then to the left, and then, turning, behind to the people on the platform. With an impassive face he took his seat. Then out over the expanse of faces roved his eye. He was " taking in " the audience after the manner of the experienced speaker, searching, it seemed, section by section, sensing it, " listening in " to it.

His face is alive with character. The old painters loved such a type. They would have rejoiced to bring out ever}- line in it, every deep curve, every rich fold. The forehead is well rounded, with cur\'ing furrows across it, and an un- common cleft down the centre. Large blue eyes look out from under arched eyebrows. The passionately' moulded, rather sharp nose has the dilated nostrils that reveal the high-strung temperament. The mouth is large and mobile. Jaw and chin are large, square and finnly set. A hard man to move out of a line of action when once he has made up his mind. Tremendous rigidity of purpose reposes in that jaw. In repose the face is mild. When a smile ripples over it the wrinkles twinkle. The eyes laugh, and the sensitive mouth quivers with feeling. Like a monk he may appear at times, but he is a vorv hnm.m monk.

The speech, which was on MaiTiage, lasted for lialf an hour.*

♦Before be left, a taleuted member of the South .\frican clergy sent to

2i8 LIFE OF FATHER BERNARD VAUGHAN

The return voyage on the Gloucester Castle was a time of suffering, and he had Httle or no sleep till he arrived in London. Yet he preached a short sermon to the passengers who, on their side, were of the utmost kindness, and if at any time it was known that Fr. Vaughan was trying to sleep, word was passed round and all noise ceased.

Such then had been his rest-cure. It is certain that he had been accepted in South Africa as a public man : his advent had been cabled beforehand ; reporters and photographers dogged his steps ; eminent persons called on him. Certainly, too, he came as a rehgious. His clothes were deplorable —he brought only one pair of trousers, and when these were torn, he had to remain perdu while a brother mended them. He had had his hat dyed, and this had made it shrink so much that his rector at Grahamstown had to buy him another. Had he pictured himself as due for some foreign mission ? Frankly, I wish that had been what he experienced in South Africa. It was much to have found, here too, the great Cathohc fraternity, and to have received so fine a hospitality due, in the long run, just to that Catholic fellowship ; but I wish he could have gone, behind the fiat and the pointed mountains and the feathery yellow grass and the marigolds, to that Kasaka, that " impenetrable bush," where

the Southern Cross a most ingenious " chronogram " :

renoVatVs tibl Vigor IWent VsqVe aqVIlae 95 noVo IgnesCIs Igne, soCI Ignatll - - 212

gaVDet afrorVM teLLVs - - - 1615

1922

SOUTH AFRICA 219

others of his confreres were digging wells and teach- ing the nati\'es io build walls of churches. I wish it might have been the native Zambesi mission he had seen, and I believe that the joy he felt when he watclied the Catholic and patriotic wcjrk so well done at St. Aidan's would have been redoubled by what he might have seen beyond Dunbrody and among the Matabele of South Rhodesia and in Mashonaland and awav with the Batonsra.

II

THE NURSERY

WHEN Fr. Vaughan arrived, on July 19th, at Tilbury, it was evident that he was again very ill. He spent but a few hours in London, and then left for the Jesuit house for convalescents at Burton Hill, Petworth. A taxi- collision en route agitated him, and by now the microbe of activity had so fastened itself upon the mind of the sick man that the silence and the soli- tude (save for a few companions ill like himself) became intolerable to him. Nothing could be gained by keeping him where he was miserable, and he left for London once more on August 7th. He passed one night there only, and then took refuge with his very faithful friends at Derwent Hall. He arrived there wretched about himself and certain that he could not sleep. He patrolled the house and, as had been noticed on his last visit to Courtfield, could not stop still, but kept entering and re-entering the rooms where he would find company. He slept, or dozed, of course, more than he thought he did ; still, he was haunted by the terrible fear of a com- plete collapse of brain. " Unless you and your community get me sleep," he wrote to the Poor Clares, " I shall be following Connie. It may be that God wishes this ; if so. Blessed be His Will. But insomnia cannot be carried on without armfuls

THL NURSERY 221

of grace. See what can be done — end or mend. Bernahd Vaughan." He dragged his foot a Httle, but not more really than before, and I am told that he should not be described as having had a stroke. Still, he became too timid to say Mass, even on Sundays, and willingly consulted doctors, who, though by no means hopeless, ended by advising a removal to the nursing home at Sheffield which is kept by the Sisters of Mercy. He appeared then to be suffering from paralysis agitans, and on August 26th he was given the Last Sacraments. None the less, he was able to be moved to the Jesuit College of Mount St. Mary's, near Chesterfield, not far distant.

Yet even among the many kindnesses of that house, he began-to feel that he wanted, as he put it, to get back to the " nursery," and on September 3rd, he travelled up to London in an invalid coach, and thence went, with his nurse EJrother Bavister, to Manresa House, by ambulance. Through his long life, he had had affectionate hospitahty shown to him in how many houses : yet it was best of all. he found, to have now come home.

A long gallery runs from end to t-nd of Manresa House ; the windows down one side of it look into the quadrangle by which \ou approach the door ; on the other, staircases take you up into the house itself. To the extreme left, doors on either side of the gallery lead into the chapel and into two small rooms respectively, and between tlu-se doors is the glass one at the end of the gallery by which you go out into the grounds. To Fr. Vaughan was given

222 LIFE OF FATHER BERNARD VAUGHAN

the first of the two small rooms, so that he could easily be taken out into the chapel and the garden. Indeed, he could sit just outside his own door, and look straight across the gallery into the chapel and see the altar. " This," he said, " is the best house in the Province, and this is the best room in the house." Yet the room is white-washed, has no carpet and no curtains, and contains only such furniture as is strictly needed. It is about sixteen feet by twelve. Into such narrow limits the life of Fr. Vaughan had now confined itself.

On the first evening he asked for the novice-master, Fr. Peers-Smith, to visit him. " I want," he said, " to be received here as a novice, and to be treated as such in every way." More than once he asked, " I am a novice, am I not ? " and would not rest until he had been given an order of the day, that he might keep it and know that the spending of each hour was ruled, not by his choices, but by obedience. The " order " was very simple : it consisted of cer- tain prayers to be said with his brother-nurse or with the novice-master himself — the Rosary, the Litany of the Holy Name, and the Litany of Our Lady in the evening. Naturally he adhered to his life- time's practice of daily Confession, and received Holy Communion every day. Sometimes he could assist at Mass in his wheeled chair ; and during October was several times wheeled to the place where special devotions to Our Lady were being offered.

During the day he was glad to associate himself with the novices in every way he could. " I wish

THE NURSERY 22'

_»

I could do ' indoor works ' for you," he said to the novice who was wheeling' him back to his room ; and when he was asked if the noise made by the novices in their quarters over his head did not dis- turb him, " Oh, no," he answered, " 1 hke to hear the feet of my brother-novices tramping about doing the work of God." And again, when the\- were all coming out of the chapel after their evening medita- tion. " Listen to them," he said. " I love to hear the feet of my brothers who have given themselves to God and are serving Him so well. It is music to me." At first, when he could not sleep at night, he would ask to be wheeled into the chapel, and remained there for an hour or so, " talking to Him about my brothers that they may do His work better than I have done."

Those who have read the Life of Cardinal Vaughan may have been struck to see how he too passed from the affectionate solicitude of Derwent Hall to Mill Hill, the house to which he gave his early priestl\ love, leaving London lina]l\' to one side. They will be more profoundly moved to know that, like the Cardinal, Fr. Vaughan experienced in this last chapter of his life, a spiritual agony. No doubt the character of his illness predisposed his mind to something of the sort. But this was a far deeper thing than that. It had nothing now to do with the anxious restlessness that had made first one place, then another, companionship, and then lonehness. so irksome to him. To the Cardinal, in those ail-but latest hours, faith became a dream, and hope impossi- ble. Life had run wasted in illusions. The Cardinal

224 LIFE OF FATHER BERNARD VAUGHAN

triumphed over that fear, disgust, and grief. And Father Bernard, in similar hours of derehction, would listen with docility to what was said to comfort him, but would answer : " Yes, how often have I said that to others ; but I feel nothing of it now myself." Then he would recover himself and say : "I take your word for it entirely, Father ; Our Lord will never leave me." " You have had a great career," said one to him. " You have done much for Our Lord." " Full of faults," he answered. "Yet I hope I am in God's favour." " At least," said another, perhaps more wisely, " you have not been silent about Our Lord's goodness to souls. And he who has confessed Him before men, him shall He too confess before His Father who is in heaven." In this he found much help. " Indeed I have not been silent," he replied. " And He has been grand and wonderful to me." Yet to a visitor whom he trusted, he owned that his life had been a " martyr- dom."

We need not dwell on this. Something of this sort must surely be the Purgatory — the purgatorial ex- perience persistent perhaps, and please God, through life — of one whose vocation has been to work very hard and to produce much that is external. Even while doing it, he may have a loathing for his work ; his visible and audible efforts may be dust and ashes to him — ^less, perhaps, because he is himself tempted to think that his own work counts (for who, that had any vision of the reality of God could yield to that illusion ?) than because he sees it is what others notice, and that to them his life seems to be made

THE NURSERY 225

up of that, and laudable for that. Father Vaughan, in his humility, could not but be tempted to fear that they might after all be right, that there had been nothing else, that he had indeed built up a life of stuff proved already unenduring, that had ah-eady shrunk into ghostliness and vanished, with- out even waiting for the verdict of its Judge.

That is why it became so glorious for him to feel that now at least there could be no more to do or say ; that there could be no more of the world's great cheat. Life had witlidrawn itself from lure of invective or duty of controversy, from requests to organise or to amuse ; from the innumerable faces that had so thronged him round ; from the dangerous zones of royalt}* and the almust too easily won, the certainl}' no less lovable love so richh^ given by the disinherited ; from the traffic and the towns, from the glitter and the lies of London, from the journeyings hither and tliither across continents. With extreme rapidity the perspective had closed in. Four narrow white- washed walls simt all the visions out. The false transhgurations of reality had gone, and left him willi " Jesus only." Every- thing else had now ri-liutiuished liim, and just a good death remained now to be died by him.

Therefore the Crucihx that Pius X had indul- genced for him, was rarely out of his hand ; and the centre of his da}' became the Communion hour. All his life he had had, for favourite devotion, short " visits " to the Blessed Sacrament. At Manresa, he asked how he might make them better. It was suggested to him that he should often make a

226 LIFE OF FATHER BERNARD VAUGHAN

Spiritual Communion, and unite himself to Our Lord as often as he could, to make up for the Mass he could no more say. At once he answered : ** This is what I do. Do you approve of it ? I say just this — I believe ; I hope ; I love ; I grieve ; I trust. Then Corpus Domini lesu Christi custo- diat animam meam in Vitam Aeternam. Amen. And as thanksgiving, the Anima Christi.'' He also said : "I offer the wound and torment of Our Lord's right hand for the Church and for all who work for souls. I offer the wound and torment of His left hand for all who pray for me or help me in any way, and whom I ought to help and pray for. I offer the wound and torment of the right foot for the poor sufferers in Purgatory, and those of His left foot for poor sinners and for those in danger. I offer His wounded Heart in gratitude to His Father and there I leave myself."

An external consolation was that he found at Manresa his very old friend, Fr. de Zulueta, in whose loving counsel he had confidence ; also, the letter that reached him a few days before his death, from the English Assistant of the Society in Rome, con- veying to him the sympathy and encouragement of the Father General, as well as a picture of St. Ignatius on which His Paternity had written : " Father Bernard Vaughan. God bless you," and had signed his name. " How consoling for His Paternity," Fr. Vaughan then said, " to be able to find so much good in me." And he affirmed that there was one memory in which he could take happiness now. " Never, so far as I know, have I shown any resent- ment to criticisms that I was theatrical, affected,

THE NURSERY 227

or insincere in the {)ulpit. And tliey have never kept me from doing work that Our Lord seemed to want me to do."

The first sign, 1 hear from Manresa, that he was really weakening was tliat he could no longer see the novices who went twice daily to his room at 12-15 and at 4-45 to read short passages of the Imitation and of the New Testament to him. He had genuinely looked forward to their visits, and would often add a few words of encouragement before they went away. Thursday, October 26th, was the last day they came ; the passage to be read was never deliberately chosen ; but that night the novice opened the New- Testament at St. Luke xxiv, the story of the journey to Emmaus, and the last words actuall\' read were : ** But they con^strained Him, saying : Stay with us, for it is towards evening and the day is far spent. And He went in with them." On Sunday, 29th, it was thought better to anoint liim again, as he had expressed the wish for this himself. His state of recurrent coma then grew more pronounced, though for a few moments at a time he would be himself. The novice-master went into his room that evening as usual, and found him very tired. " The end seems far away," he said. Then he clasped his crucifix and said fervently : " My Jesus, mercy."

On the Monday he received Holy Communion as usual at 6-10, and then he was fully conscious, pray- ing and raising his arms a little as he often did. At mid-day he had been transferred to his couch, and when the novice-master came back, he recognised him, repeated his name several times, and then said :

228 LIFE OF FATHER BERNARD VAUGHAN

" I really don't know where I am, spiritually or bodily. I don't even know what day or what time it is." He was reminded that it was the feast of St. Alphonsus Rodriguez, patron of the lay-brothers of the Society. " A beautiful Saint," he said, lifting his hands. " A beautiful day." He was asked if hq were in any pain. " Weary, all over," he said. ** I really don't know where I am." " You are in Our Lord's Heart." " Yes, I trust Him. That is all." He was helped to repeat the aspiration : " Heart of Jesus, I trust in Thee." This had helped him more than anything throughout his illness. He repeated it with the greatest simplicity and love.

He was unconscious that night at the hour at which he was accustomed to receive absolution, but when on Tuesday morning the Blessed Sacrament was taken to his room, he was praying to himself and seemed fully conscious. But when the ciborium was carried to his bedside, his eyes and mouth remained closed. " Will you not let me give you Our Blessed Lord ? " the priest asked. " Certainly I will," he answered very gently. But the request had to be repeated a second and a third time before he actually received the Blessed Sacrament, which he did with great reverence, and he at once drank up the little glass of water that his infirmarian offered him.

About ten minutes later the novice-master was fetched back, as the last change was beginning. The prayers for the dying were said and other prayers, till the bell rang for Mass at 7-5. He remained living till the end of Mass, and just as the novice-master, who had celebrated it, was beginning

THE NURSERY 229

his thanksgiving, the brother fetched him back once more to give him a last Absolution, and Fr. \'aughan died then very jieacefully.

Before night came, London seemed placarded from end to end, to the exclusion of all other news, with the announcement of this death. But to the room where his bod>' was laid out, very few came, and they, not the potentates of this world. But some very poor people came, and one old woman walked almost shoeless from Westminster to say goodbye to the priest who had been kind to her and to her child. To the Requiem at Farm Street on November 3rd, royalties came in plenty ; but they brought no better crown. The Absolutions were given by the Cardinal Archbishop, and the Mass was celebrated by Dr. Herbert Vaughan, Father Bernard's nephew. The funeral took place that day at Kensal Green, and despite the heavy rain, a great crowd came to it. Especially dear to Fr. Vauglian must have been the fidelity, there, of Manchester.

Ill

EPILOGUE

TO study Fr. Bernard Vaughan has meant to study a method and a personaUty. Few saw beyond the method, for even considerable intimacy might fail to enable you to reach the real, shy man who shrank behind his many masks.*

As for the method, I have said that it was quite deliberately adopted. In What of To-day ? he has a whole chapter on Advertising, the transcript, I think, of an address given to those whose business advertising was. With the utmost frankness he declares his intention of advertising his wares in every legitimate way. But notice, he is clear that no amount of advertising will avail the man whose wares are worthless. Advertising was simply the arresting of attention and the telling of men where best to get what most they want. He knew quite well that there were many sorts of work he could not do ; but advertise he could, and determined to do it. He knew also that there were many who hated any advertising : all placards appeared to them vulgarity. WeU— there were others. There were a good many whom advertisement did reach when nothing else would : if they were vulgar, so for their sakes would he too be. (Not but what he could be indignant with those who superciliously looked down

♦Despite all challenges, I am not going to compare Fr. Vaughan with Savonarola, Bossuet, or Spurgeon.

EPILOGUE 231

on folks as " vulgar." Yet you may imagine how bitter it was to his very strong sense of breeding when he knew that people were deriding his " vul- garity." Despite the pointed tearing teeth, he persevered with the " vulgarity " that, he hoped, would save.)

Nor will I forget that he was quite aware that often his advertising was not the best, even, in its line. He saw with sick disgust, his failures. He was most easily depressed — the very sight of empty chairs, at a sermon or speech, upset him, and it was a kindness to have them taken away. He fully expected Our Lord to say to him : " X'aughan, you're poor stuff. But you've done your best for Me." And so he had, consistently, for many very long years.

Does this mean he did not enjoy himself, at his work of advertising God ? Of course he enjoyed himself, whole-heartedh'. He seemed to me always, when not just a child, a noisy boy, romping in God's presence. He loved the uproar, the fun even of the fight, the dressing up. the hot theatric air. And ii is to me a pleasure to find that a distmguished pre- late has written tt) me almost this very thing.

With all his ways, Father Bernard \v;is never anything but a ehild, a child playing a part, conscious of his onnti short-comings, discovering as he went on that he could make up for want of talent by anotlier power which was all his own, never afraid to acknowledge the gifts of others and to use them — the famous Manchester lectures are a case in })oint — and never for a moment deceived by the flatter}' of men. He described himself as " the big dnmimer," and said that others must play the instruments. His so-called

232 LIFE OF FATHER BERNARD VAUGHAN

acting — so-called because even for himself it was an evolu- tion ; he played at playing a part — and his so-caUed power of repartee were a discovery rather than a natural gift ; he did what he did because he found it worked for the glory of God, and he had the humility to put on motley before the public, and play the big drummer at the church door. This I think can be shown from that ease and simphcity with which he could put it all aside when alone, like a schoolboy undressing in a greenroom. Were I to write the life of Father Bernard I think I would arm myself against the judgment that he was " a born actor," and would make much of his likeness to St. Francis of Assisi in that he deliberately adopted this garb as his means of serving God. " Stultus propter Christum " ; a motto which needs a hero.

That Fr. Vaughan never erred in his chosen task, who would be so silly as to say ? Doubtless at times he was piqued to have, so to say, the spot-light off him. The champion entertainer that he knew him- self to be, deserved the centre of the stage, took it unthinkingly, and was surprised if the attention of the audience wandered. That merely is to say that a perfect equilibrium is hard for a human creature to preserve, especially if he indulges in acrobatics. The acrobatics of the philosopher lend themselves to lost equilibrium quite as much as Fr. Vaughan's sort did. A Hildebrand is sometimes sure to be hard, and the sons of consolation now and again may weaken. What I cannot admit, is, that for any appreciable time, he played false to his very high ideals. Even his mannerisms were sincere. They were not unnatural, since they had become a second nature. To take the comparison that sug- gests itself to me at the moment. I have always felt sure that De Profundis was a sincere book ;

EPILOGUE 233

and Aubrey Beardsley, had lie lived to draw Saints, as he hoped to do, and had drawn them like Salome, would still have been sincere. It is nervous work to make these two comparisons : the point is, that Fr. Vaughan shouted because he felt hke shouting, and also because he had found that when he shouted people hstened. So he did it for those two reasons, and not, for example, because he thought people paid to see him go through his paces, and that it was expected of him to shout at least twice per sermon. " He was," writes a careful critic to me :

So thoroughl}- natural and unaffected and so unlike there- fore most other people. If one had got his sj'mpathy and attention — he was very absent-minded and " wandering " — one found one had received a real opinion from the mouth of a babe in heart though not in years. He was so sur- prising in never "having grown up — or left the nursery', to which he said he was glad, at the end, to return. We met tor the last time in Hyde Park. He was stalking along with stately gait — like Parson Tralliher — " like a goose only he stalked slower." Had he stalked faster or found fewer distractions on the way, I would have taken him to the statue of Peter Pan in Kensington Gardens, and said, " That's j'ou, though you are seventy years of age and a Jesuit at that."

Enough. The world is unsatisfactory, and also, it contains all sorts of people. Impossible to treat them all in the same way. Impossible to treat the unsatisfactory ones in the ideally satisfactory way. Therefore, said ho in effect, if by my queer way of behaving 1 can help some unsatisfactory persons, in that way shall I behave. I am myself unsatis- factory. But 1 do m\' best. I have the approba- tion of mv conscience, of small children, of numbers

234 LIFE OF FATHER BERNARD VAUGHAN

of unhappy people, of my Provincial, and my General, and of the Holy Father. Good enough. Let us proceed in peace.

So much then for the method. A word on the man. Let us assume that a selfish man cannot be great, nor really good, nor certainly humble nor lovable. It has been said to me roundly : " Fr. Vaughan was not lovable. Number One preoccupied him to the exclusion of everything else." I cannot admit it. I think that he was humble, lovable, and had in him elements that were great.

How, if he were not lovable, was it that children, as we have heard, so loved him ? A small boy, in service at Mount Street, refused to take his after- noon off, simply to see Father Bernard come home, I know not whence. And another spent four shillings, saved from wages, so as to frame Father Bernard's photo worthily. And I have found another who was quietly buying up photos and even pam- phlets written by the priest he believed in. I have mentioned how beloved he made himself by the lay- brothers, whose honourable service and tedious life too often may go unnoticed, and how shy young men, passing through Mount Street, would always find him come up to them and display the keenest interest in what they were doing and thinking, and never would he talk about himself and his own doings till they had said their say, and, as was bound to happen, asked him about himself. He had a true devotion to the " under-dog " : who less in sym- pathy with " modernism " than he ? yet to the end

EPILOGUE 235

he preserved his affection for Fr. Tyrrell, and would never speak harshly of him. 1 know it was a pain to him that in America and in South Africa he could not display the sympathy he felt for the coloured races as he would have wished. He had a great liking for the tale of the negro who complained to the Lord that time after time he had tried in vain to get into a certain fashionable church. " Never mind, Sambo," answered He. " For years I have been trying to get into that church Myself ! " His genialitv was impervious, almost always, even to that rudeness which may be worse than insult. He did not mind the rough chaff of two Protestant pitmen in some train, who began by jeering at him as a Jesuit. " Haven't you horns and a tail ? " they said. " Well, no," he replied. " I am a freak. But you should see the others ! " It ended by one of the men offering him half-a-crown, for charity, as " from a pal," and asking for "a prayer for me and for the kid that's sick." Only once have I heard of rudeness being quite too much for him. That, too, was in a train, and a passenger by his conversa- tion had exasperated the whole carriageful. WTien he dismounted Fr. Vaughan put his head out of the window. " Sir. you have left something behind," he said. The man came hurrying back. " W'liat ? " he asked. " Merely," said Fr. Vaughan. " a bad impression."

Humility demands that you should not only see yourself in perspective, but that you should not fear to own up, when suitable, to the shortcomings that you thus discern. Fr. Vaughan saw- his sermons

236 LIFE OF FATHER BERNARD VAUGHAN

thus, and, when he was not sure of himself, or felt his inspiration dwindling, would ask for help. Es- pecially was this so, as I have said, when deep theo- logy was involved, and thus it came about, as I have been reminded, that the late Fr. Maher, a deep and careful thinker, could say after listening to a Sermon of Fr. Vaughan's on the Eucharist, that never had he heard a better exposition of that mysterious dogma. But also in his quite popular sermons he would ask for help. When preparing one of the sermons in the course. Society, Sin and the Saviour, he found himself hung in mid-air. Not another word could he put down. He sought out one of his fellow- Jesuits in another house, and begged him to do it for him. His confrere read the manuscript, and found that it had reached the point where iambic metre usually began, — and so composed a rhapsody as like Father Bernard's perorations as he could. The next Saturday he went to Mount Street, entered Father Bernard's room, drew himself to his full height, pitched his voice at its highest tenor, and proceeded to declaim. Father Bernard instantly realised what was happening, leapt from his chair, pursued his visitor round the room, and finally sat him down with a cigarette and made him re-read the peroration, which he duly accepted. It is printed in the book, but is so indistinguishable from the rest of the sermons, that the true author declares he cannot now remember which page is his. Another time, when making his retreat at Beaumont, he wandered into the room of another confrere, who asked him if he knew Browning's Prospice. He took

EPILOGUE 237

it away, brought ii back, and, " Thai ^ a ihk thing," he said. " Koad it. Read it aloud." The young man, with tear and trembhng, did so. Fr. Vaughan walked to the window, rested his arms on the sill, and stared out towards the Beaumont beeches. " Read it again," he said when it was finished ; and after the second reading exclaimed : " That's fine ! Splendid ! I'll use that in my Easter Sunday sermon in the Cathedral. ' Fear death ? To feel the fog in my throat, the mist in my face. ... I was ever a fighter, I ; So — one fight more.' " Years later, this same friend, then a priest, and on the eve of going to France as military chap- lain, was visited at Mount Street by Fr. Vaughan. Both were feeling grave — twenty other Jesuit chap- lains had left the da}' before. Fr. Vaughan sat down on the bed — no chairs were left vacant in the littered room. " Well," he cried, " Isn't it splendid ? What would Father Ignatius have thought of it ? " And suddenly he passed, with complete simplicity, into a talk about Our Lord.

I think that in this simplicity I am right in seeing a sign of greatness. At least, a man who is not at heart simple, cannot be great. Though Fr. Vaughan's sheer delight in size and intensity does not by itself show a genuine appreciation of great- ness, I think that coupled with this simplicity, it does. His very rlietoric — his naive devotion to phrases like " this mammoth metropolis," " I raise a clarion call " — meant that he liked the words because they corresponded to a real state of mind. He would have liked to run down streets cr>*ing :

238 LIFE OF FATHER BERNARD VAUGHAN

" Isn't it grand to be a Catholic ? " " Isn't the Catholic Church splendid ? " Splendid and grand were words very meaningful to him. Yet all he asked to be, in heaven, was Our Lady's errand boy. WHien he could, he made off to a Poor Clare Convent the other side of London, and laughed to think how near he was to the fuss and the talk, and yet how utterly lost to all that side of life. He had a niece there as abbess, and liked to call the nuns his " thirty nieces." " How many nieces have I now ? " he would ask on each visit. The first time he went there, to give the nuns a retreat about the Passion of Our Lord, he genuinely thought that the nuns would ask him to observe the rigorous fast that they did themselves, and arrived charged with tins of distressful fish paste and with bloaters. When he found he had ordinary meals, he sent his food-stuff into the Enclosure. Nearly every day he used to go out and buy herrings, which he brought home for the Community dinner, and helped to cook them himself in the extern sisters' little kitchen. Once he found there a sick Sister who ought, he judged, to lie out in the garden. But there was no shelter ; so he went home and fetched, heaven knows whence, a large tent, and put it up himself. He always met the Sisters once at recreation, and kept them, as he so well knew how to do, in fits of laughter with his stories till, no one knew quite how, he found himself talking what they agreed to be " the highest spirituality." This power of just being spiritual served him for sheer argument. A convert lady once asked him to explain to her the rosary and other

EPILOGUE 239

matters. He was stayinjL,' in a country house at that time, resting', and they sent him for a motor drive with her. He simply said the rosary along with her, meditating aloud, and, she says, " my difficulties vanished just by stating them to him."

His patriotism was of this simple sort : he was enthusiastic about England, but he quite well saw her faults, and certainly announced them. Such, too. was his devotion to the Society to which he belonged. In many ways so seemingly " ex-lex " a man had a hard time in it. He was often misjudged and knew it, and could well account for it, and even speak of it, but never with bitterness. He acted as he thought St. Ignatius would have acted— and this meant that, obedience well attended to, one should go ahead without troubling what even one's friends might think, if but the course seemed right. Also, he had none of the pettiness which seeks to draw everything to one church, or to one set of men. You cannot imagine, in his case, any mean rivalries, as between secular and regular, or between this gioup of regulars or that. " To my thinking," he wTote, " a great deal too much is made of the ^^'here — it does not matter where we are, but what we are. If you like to be a Child of Mary at Farm Street, well and good. If not, still well and good. I can't imagine our dear and blessed Lady much caring where you please her, but how you do it." " Life." he kept repeating. " is not a piece job, but a love affair."

It was. frankly, in this spirit of child-like love that he went about his work for God. He saw sin itself

240 LIFE OF FATHER BERNARD VAUGHAN

as dreadful because love had been offended. A girl, brought up in a convent, had married a non-Catholic and in a Protestant church. He had tried des- perately to avoid the disaster, but in vain. " Alas," he cried, "it is too late. Jesus of Nazareth has passed by. Save Me from My friends will be the cry of Christ. A convent girl ! " And in this same light he saw suffering, his own included. " I know from what Hand I am receiving all this pain and affliction," he wrote. "It is from Our Lord's wounded Hands, and, you know, a wounded hand can't really hurt you much." Not to all might that turn of phrase appeal. But be sure that to him it was no mere " conceit."

It will not be forgotten that Fr. Bernard Vaughan daily cleansed his soul in the Sacrament of Penance, and that the favourite devotion of his life was to visit, briefly, but often, the Blessed Sacrament. With this, went the practice of constant spiritual Communion, and in 1912 he circulated a leaflet with a prayer about it, asking, too, for prayers in view of his imminent journey to America.

During this Year of Grace, I promise our dear and blessed Lord that I will live my life from visit to visit to Him in His Tabernacle Home, on the Altar. There I will unite myself with all the Masses that are being said in different quarters of the globe. Moreover I will beg our divine Lord to allow me to make spiritual communion at each one of them, pleading with Him to fill my soul with all the graces needed to make me as pleasing as I may be to Him here, in exile, so far away from the Face-to-Face Vision in my Eternal Home. This practice of uniting myself with Holy Mass and of receiving Spiritual Communion I will make constant use of during the day. It will be my best prepara- tion for daily Mass and daily Communion.

EPILOGUE 241

And one December 25th, "Gift-piving Day," he concluded a " Message " to a Catholic journal thus :

Dearest Jesus, on this gift-giving da}' I offer myself with all that I am and have in life and death to be entirely Thine. I give Thee my work — do Thou give me rest. I give Thee my sorrows — do Thou give me comfort. I give Thee my sufferings — do Thou give me support. I give Thee my trials — do Thou give me triumph. I give Thee time, do Thou give me Eternity. But above all things what I want is Thy promise that I shall hear from Thy sacred hps when I am called from exile to Home, from earth to heaven, the only word that can satisfy me — " I am thy reward exceeding great. For what have I in heaven, and beside Thee what do I desire on earth ? Thou, God of my heart, and my portion for ever."

These words of Father Bernard's were sincere. That is how he felt about his life, and how he hoped to feel when he should die. It has been hard, here and there, not to appear to be writing an " apolo- gia " ; and again, I may have been mistaken for a contemptuous critic. Certainly the temptation has been strong to exaggerate, and say harsher things than anyone else is likely to. And it has been diffi- cult to foriret that there are manv who dislike even what, in him, has been praised. It remains that man\- thousands of souls, thank (lod, could see m Fr. Bernard \'aughan a noble-hearted man, simple as a child, very wearied by the world, and yet on fire to help it, in such ways as he knew, for the love of God and of our Lord. Xor shall 1 think, hence- forward, of East London or of any of the vast sad areas of life, without seeing in them a tiny figure, Fr. Vaughan, going to and fro with his bell and calling aloud that God loves His children, and that he loves them, too.

INDEX

Aberdeen ; 98.

Accession Declaration ; 118.

Africa, South ; B.V's. visit to, 210-219.

African millionaires ; South, Their architectural enthusiasms, 75.

Aidan's St. ; College at Grahams- town, 214.

Alaska ; 173.

Albert Hall ; Mme. Patti's concerts at, 135, 136.

Anglicanism ; 59, 185, 186.

Aristotle's Ethics ; 43, 44.

Art and Morality ; 1 1 1.

B

Bazaars (' Rome in Manchester ') ;

47. 48. Beaumont College ; B.V. Master at,

30 ; Sub-minister at, 31-33. Benedict XV ; 183. Benson ; Mgr. R. H., 168. Beuno's ; St., B.V. Theologian and

ordained at, 30-31. Birth Restriction ; 192-195. Blackpool ; 99. Boston ; 162. Boulogne ; 10, 25. Bradford ; 97. Brown ; Mgr. W., 105. Browning ; Robert, 236. Buffalo Bill ; 49. Bums ; Mr. Tommy ; pugilist, 138.

Cambridge ; 108.

Campbell ; Rev. R. J., 162.

Canada ; visits to, 149-157 ; 164-

165; 172. Cannes ; Sermons at, 63. Cape Town ; 211-212 ; 215-218. Cathechism ; in East End, 126. Catholic Boys' Brigade ; 134. Catholic Women's I,eague ; 1 13-1 15.

" Character " ; lecture on, 118, 148, 152, etc.

Chicago ; 157.

China ; 178.

Children ; B.V's. devotion to, 127, 135. 139. 158, 203, 204, cf. 234.

Clare ; Fr.. 21, 25, 27.

Colimibus ; Knight of, 157, 170.

Conscience ; Nonconformist, Delic- acy of, 48, 52, 56, 102, 138.

Courtfield ; 2-5.

Denver ; 170.

Derwent Hall ; 220.

" Dialogues " in Church ; 140-145.

Drury Lane : Sins of Society at, 119.

Dubberley ; Fr., 51, etc.

Dublin ; visits to, 148.

Durban ; 212.

East End of London ; B.V's. work

in ; XX, 121-146 ; 185. Edison ; Iklr., doubtful immortality

of, 161. Edward VII ; King, 63. Egress ; The ambiguous, 48. Empty Cradle ; The Menace of the,

192. Epping ; Excursions to, 139. Eucharistic Congress of Montreal ;

149-153-

Faber ; Fr. F. W., 10, n. Farm St. Church ; 75, 76. Food ; adulteration of, 91, 92.

Gambling ; B.V. denounced for denouncing, 85 ; denounced for not denouncing, 56.

Glyn ; Mrs. Elinor ; see Mrs. Ella Wheeler Wilcox, 71.

Grimsby ; 97.

INDEX

243

H

Hall ; Our Lady's. 123 ; 136-138. Holy Name Church (Manchester),

39-41 ; Hall of; 47, 50-51 ;

B.V's. work at, 45-74. Hortou ; Dr.. 56, 84. Hutton ; Richard Holt, 31, 32.

I

Ireland ; the Vaughan's property in, 22, 147, visits to, 147-149.

I.L.P. (York) ; 106-107.

Iroquois ; B.V. made member of tribe of, 155-156.

Italians at Chicago ; 158.

Japan ; 177-178.

Jiiigo-isra ; accusations of against

B.V., 196. Joan of Arc ; 81, 117. 118, 159, 189-

192, etc. John Bull ; 82, 119. Jubilee; B.V's. Sacerdotal, 183.

Klondike

K _

173. 174-

Lamont ; Dr. M., 212. Lang ; Andrew ; 1 89- 192. Leeds ; 97.

Leo XIII ; encyclicals of, 95 ; views on B.V's Vesuvian qualities, 62. Limelight ; proper use of, 138. Liverpool; Orange-men at, 118. Living In ; 93, 94. Lucas St. E. ; 122.

M

Manchester ; B.V. at, 39-74 ; 91. Manning ; Cardinal, 19, 134. Manresa House ; noviciate at, 27,

28 ; last days at and love for,

211-229. " Marriage " ; subject of B.V's. last

great speech, 217. Mary and Michivl's; SS.. 85, 121-122;

124-125 ; Mission at, 140-143. " Mass the Soul of Religion " ;

sermon at Montreal, 151. Mathew ; Fr., 122. Montreal; 149-155. Moorhouse ; Bishop, 51 ; 58. Motor Mission; the, 110.

N

Natalie; Queen of >«-iw.i. ■-, J40. Navarro ; Mme dc ,Mary Anderson),

135-

New York ; 158 sq., 167 sq.. paradise- like slums of, 159.

Newcastle ; Henrietta, Du. ^t :

50. 73. 139- Niagara ; 1 50.

Nonconfuniiists ; B.V's. friendly

relations with, 59. Norfolk; Henry I>ukc of, 134, 14^,

201.

O'Connell ; Daniel, 122. O'Keefe ; Mr. Pat. 138. Open-air preaching in T

134 ; with Motor 1 . Oxford ; 109, 162.

127- 116.

Patti ; Mme., 80, 81, 135-136.

People's Palace ; The. 135, 204.

Peter the Painter ; 146.

Petworth ; 220.

Pius X ; 81.

Poor Clares ; The, 238.

Portugal ; H.M. King Manuel of,

O4, 146. Purbrick ; Fr. E. I.. 28, 30.

liing ; Canon T., %'ii, 134, 135, 137,

M4. M5- Rock The : libel action against, 77-80. ' Round Up ' at Pendleton, Oregon ;

171.

San Francisco ; advertisement of

retreat at, 171. Shangh.\i ; 178. Sheflield ; 90.

Stns oj Socirty : The, Si-89. Slang ; use of. 14 1-142 ; misuse of

176. Smuts; General, 216. Socialism ; lectures, etc. on, 106. loS,

159. 167-170 ; 17S. Sociaiism from the Christian stand-

point. 16S. Society, Sin, and the Saviour ; 89-90. Stage ; The. and the Catholic Stage

Guild, 103. 112.

244

INDEX

Stony hurst ; at School there, 15-26 ;

with the ' philosophers' there,

28-30. Suffragism ; 113, 165, 170. Sweated Industries ; 95-96.

Tokyo ; 177. Toronto ; 154, Trade-scandals ;

155. 164, 91-96.

u

165.

United States ; visits to, 157-177.

Vanutelli ; Cardinal, 149-150. Vaughan ; family record of the

family, 2-3. ; Clare, Dame, O.S.B. ; i, 39,

209. ; Clare, sister of B.V., 11-12,

13. 25. • ; Ehza {nee Rolls), mother of

B.V., 5, 7-9. ; Gwladys, sister of B.V., 8,

11, 25.

; Herbert, Cardinal, 2. 9, 10,

12, 49, 64, 65, 125, 126, 134, I45n, 146.

; John Francis, father of B.V.,

5-7, 9, 10, 13, 20. ; John (Bishop of SebastopoUs),

21, 22. ; Mary (nee Weld ; second wife

of J. F. Vaughan) ; 10, 13, 27.

; Mary, sister of B.V., 10, 24.

; Teresa, sister of B.V., 13.

Vaughan, Bernard John ; boyhood

at home, 1-14 ; 23-26 ; influence

of his father, 5-7 ; of his mother,

7-9- Boyhood at school, 15-23. In the Noviciate, 27-28 ; earlier

years in the Society, 28-30 ;

Ordination, 30 ; early priestly

work, 30-36. At Manchester ; 39-74. At Farm

St., 75-120 ; 181-205. In the

East End, 121-146. Abroad,

61-64 ; 81 ; 147-180 ; 210-219. Last days ; 220-229. His spirit of prayer and devotion

to the B. Sacrament, 72, 120,

225-226, 228, 239, 240, 241 ;

cf. 163 : to the Blessed Virgin,

19, 81, 213, 222.

His personal poverty ; 104, 105, 218.

His extreme kindness, especially to those less able to repay hirn ; 13-14. 43. 53. 88, 89 ; see chapter on East End ; 106, 177 ; 212,213; 229; 234; 235; 238. etc.

His docility, himiility and child- likeness ; his knowledge of his limitations ; 71. 73, 81, 87, 94, no, 222-229, 230-232, 233, 236, 237.

Elocutionary talent and develop- ment ; 6, 17-18, 29, 32 ; 34 ; cf- 35-36.

Sermons (coiurses of) ; 41, 81-90, 117-118, 162, 167, etc.

Sensationalism ; only inter- mittent ; 68, 69, 81, no, and uses of publicity, 67, 103-104, 168, 230.

Interest in social topics; 41, 51, 54, 56, 91-103, 111-115, and see under Socialism and War- work.

Sport ; his views on, 22, 23, iii, 112, 138.

Refusal to write personal memoirs ; 188. Victoria ; H.M. Queen, at Beau- mont, 32, 33.

w

War-work ; 195-205.

Weld ; Thomas, donor of Stonyhurst

to the Jesuits, 15.

; John, of Lulworth, 10.

Westminster Abbey ; War-time

pilgrimage to, 202. What of To-day ; 198, 199. Wigan ; panegyric of, 54. Wilcox ; Mrs. Ella Wheeler, 71. Wilkinson ; Rev. G. H., 83. Winnipeg ; 156. Wiseman ; Cardinal, 18. Women's role in the Church ; 166 ;

see C.W.L.

Yukon ; The, 172.

z

Zambesi Mission ; Collection in United States for, 162.

PRINTED IN GREAT BRITAIN AT THE BOWERING PRESS, GEORGE STREET, PLYMOUTH.

i \

BX 4705 .V35 M3 1923 SMC

Martindale, C. C. (Cyril Charlie). 1879-1963. Bernard Yaughan, S.J. /

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