Obrázky na stránke
PDF
ePub

into a feeling of respect for the Holy Robe, which was far from being anticipated. Several of them have gone piously to visit the relic, and to touch it with various precious objects. Among the rest, the functionaries of the regency of Treves, and the superior president of the Circle of Coblentz, with all the family of the latter, although Protestants, have gone to kneel before the holy relic; and the Catholic pilgrims coming from distant places are now hospitably received by the Protestants residing on the way.-L' Ami de la Religion.

From a Correspondent-You have, of course, heard of the wonderful doings at Treves during the exposition of the Holy Tunick (La sainte tunique.) The veneration shown to this most holy relic is a thing prodigious in the days in which we live. The thousands and thousands of people, which daily throng the cathedral from all parts of Germany, including I am told both Protestants and even Jews, are incalculable, being estimated at 30,000 daily. The niece of Mgr. Droste the celebrted Archbishop of Cologne, who was paralysed in all her members, was carried into the presence of the relic, and instantaneously healed. I had the fact from a German physician of very high standing who was present, and who is moreover a Protestant. A wonderful revolution appears to have been operated in his mind, for he writes to a friend of mine-"I cannot explain to you the ineffable consolation which I felt at the sight of the holy relic; and, my friend, there is but one real joy--that of being with Jesus!" The venerable Bishop of Treves told another friend of mine that ever since the relic has been exposed, he has been in a sort of “enivrement, impossible a expliquer." The person who related this latter circumstance to me is a German of high rank, a convert. He is certainly rather a highflier, but he maintains that the moment you enter Treves, you feel that you are in an extraordinary atmosphere. Be that as it may, Almighty God is constantly glorifying his holy spouse, the Church.

OBITUARY.

Died, in St. Charles Mo., on the 1st November, of inflammatory bilious fever, in the 38th year of his age Rev. CORNELIUS HENRY WALTERS, Missionary Priest of the Society of Jesus.

Fr. Walters was born of pious and respectable Catholic parents in a small village between Cleves and Nimwegen, on the frontier line that separates Holland from the Prussian Dominions. When he had reached his fourteenth year, his parents, sent him and his twin-brother to the Province of North Brabant. with a view to exempt them from the militia service of Prussia, and at the

same time to give them a Catholic education. They were received by the Vicar Apostolic of Grave, who, after having, instructed them in the first rudiments of the Latin tongue, sent them to the Catholic College near Bois le duc. In 1825, William of Orange, king of the Netherlands, having suppressed the Catholic Colleges they were with about one hundred and forty of their fellowstudents driven from this Institution, and compelled to seek an asylum at the abode of their former Tutor, who sometime after, entrusted them to the care of a worthy Ecclesiastic of his Vicariate, under whose directions they studied Philosophy, and began a course of moral and dogmatic Theology. When in 1829, king William, fearing an outbreak in the southern Provinces of his dominions in consequence of his multiplied vexations of the Catholics, permitted the Colleges and Seminaries to be re-opened, the two brothers entered the Episcopal Seminary of Bois le duc, whence they were after the completion of their Theological studies, sent to Munster in Westphalia to receive ordination from the Bishop of that city. Soon after his ordination, Fr. Walters began to think of leaving Holland to devote himself to the Catholic Missions of North America. In 1833 he took leave of his parents and tore himself from his twin-brother, from whom he had never yet been separated, and to whom he bore so striking a resemblance, that even the parents could scarcely distinguish one from the other. He embarked at Antwerp and on Christmas day arrived in New York, whence he repaired to Georgetown D. C., where he was admitted to the Noviciate of the Society of Jesus. Five months after he was with three of his company sent to Missouri, after the termination of his Noviciate he was appointed to visit the German stations on the borders of the Missouri, and was soon after charged with the German Missions of St. Charles, Darden, and and the vicinity, which he attended till the time of his death. He was a zealons and active Missionary and as he exercised the functions of the sacred ministry not only in German, but also in French and English, his loss will be severely felt by the Catholics of St. Charles county. After a severe illness contracted in his missionary excursions, he departed this life, having received all the consolations of our holy religion.

On 25th of October, at the residence of the Bishop of New-Orleans, the Rev. C. LUNEL, who arrived in this diocese in 1841, a sub-deacon from the diocese of Lyons in France. He completed his studies in the diocesan seminary, and was ordained Priest by the Rt. Rev. Anthony Blanc. The deceased was justly entitled to the respect and esteem of all who knew him; his manners were mild, gentle and conciliating; his piety edifying and constant, and his zeal ardent and unremitting. His career, in the service of his Divine Master, was short, but brilliant; and we may add, that it has pleased the Almighty to extinguish a beautiful light in the sanctuary of the Church in New Orleans.

On the 13th of November, at Georgetown College D. C., the Very Rev. ADOLPHUS LOUIS DE BARTH, in the 80th year of his age and 54th of his Priest

hood. Born at Munster in the province of the Upper Rhine on the 1st of Nov. 1764,he early learned the value of virtue from the example as well as the instructions of his pious parents, the Count de Barth, and Maria Louisa de Rohmer, both distinguished as much for their sedulous attention to their religious duties, as by their station in society. After completing the usual course of Academic studies in the College of Premonstratenses of Bellay in the Bishopric Porentrui, he retired to the Theological Seminary of Strasburg. He had scarcely been ordained Priest, when in 1790 he was forced by the harpies of the Revolution to seek again the protection of his paternal home. He determined then to follow his Brother who had emigrated to the United States, and was welcomed as a seasonable auxiliary by the Venerable Archbishop Carroll, who soon discovered the treasure that providence had thus sent him. By his authority he went as missionary to the lower counties of Maryland, whence after some time he was removed to Bohemia in Cecil co., on the Eastern shore in the same state, from which place he went to Lancaster, Penn. His worth and abilities in the discharge of these missionary duties soon pointed him out as capable of fulfilling those of a higher and holier character. At the death of the Rt. Rev. Dr. Egan, Bishop of Philadelphia, he was appointed Vicar General of the Diocess and administered it in such a manner as showed he was worthy to succeed him. But he sought not for honours, and having twice declined and once sent back the bulls of his appointment, he gladly resigned his high place to the Rt. Rev. Dr. Conwell and retired to Conewago, again to undergo the laborious trials of a country missionary. In 1828 he was called to the charge of St. John's Baltimore. He remained in Baltimore until 1838, when by reason of his advanced age and infirmities contracted by a long and toilsome ministry, he felt himself unequal to the discharge of the numerous duties, that were necessary for the care of a large and increasing congregation. He retired therefore to Georgetown College, that by a more exclusive attention to devotional exercises he might render himself more fit to appear before that God, who is to judge justice itself. And well did he prepare himself for this judgment. Daily, as long as his health permitted, he offered up the holy sacrifice and when his weakness no longer allowed him this consolation, he received the Holy of Holies at the hand of one of the Fathers appointed to assist him. This happiness he enjoyed until the day before his peaceful death.

His Eminence, Cardinal SYLVESTER BELLI, Bishop of Iesi, born at Anagni in 1781, and raised to the Cardinalate on the 12th of July 1841, died of Apoplexy in his See on the 9th of September last. His life was distinguished by the virtues becoming his high station.-R. 1. P.

[blocks in formation]

VENERATION OF THE SAINTS IN THE EARLY CHURCH. Primitive Christian Worship: or the evidence of Holy Scripture and the Church concerning the Invocation of Saints and Angels, and the Blessed Virgin Mary. By the Rev. J. Endell Tyler, B. D.

As the Catholic doctrine respecting the Blessed Virgin and the Saints has recently occupied so much of the public attention, and as so much is still being written on that subject, in connexion with the remains of Chrtstian antiquity, it will not be thought amiss if we devote a few more pages to the additional illustration of the important question: "How far was the present Catholic doctrine on the Blessed Virgin and the Saints developed in those early ages of the Church, to which Anglican controversialists appeal so confidently?"

And in examining this question we have two classes of Anglican divines in view.

The more advanced of the Oxford party are now fully prepared to do justice to the orthodoxy of doctrines and practices once so censurable in their eyes; but they still seem to speak of them as medieval, thus implying their non-existence, or at least their very partial developement in the times of St. Chrysostom or St. Augustine. The less advanced of the party-under which expression we include recent converts from evangelicalism, or high-and-dry orthodoxy; and again, that large and highly respectable body of individuals who talk a great deal, write a great deal, read all the arguments on one side of the question, and think as little as mere physical necessity will compel them-this section of the movement party are as loud and vociferous as ever in denying both the orthodoxy and antiquity of the Catholic belief and practice.

Now we really must put it to the common-sense of mankind, to decide what right the latter class of individuals have to any opinion on the question as to what is not contained in the fathers. Any one who has read even a page of the fathers is entitled to say, "Such or such a doctrine is contained there"; but

[blocks in formation]

it surely stands to reason, that none but a person of the most extensive patristic knowledge, such as is not possessed by any one of the scribblers we allude to, has the least right in the world to say, "Such a doctrine is found nowhere in antiquity."* The utmost indeed that any one but a professed student is entitled to say is, that the writings of the fathers contain propositions apparently inconsistent with Catholic theology. But here again another element comes in, which is perpetually lost sight of by Anglican controversialists; namely, that even for this judgment a considerable knowledge of Catholic theology, whether dogmatic, moral, or ascetic, as also of the history and philosopy of Catholic theology, is absolutely indispensable. Day after day we meet with Anglican quotations from the fathers, as decisive on the controverted subject, to which parallel and equivalent citations might be furnished from the pages of Bellarmine, Petavius, Bossuet, or Fenelon. If we had the time or inclination. for it, it would be easy for us to select most orthodox passages, from the writings of our most approved theologians, as decisively in favour of the Anglican side of the controversy, and to Anglican eyes as inconsistent with the Catholic belief, as any of their citations from the fathers. For, in fact, the great difficulty of all theology, moral as well as dogmatic, Protestant as well as Catholic, consists in reconciling apparent contradictions; every heresy being a strong, but partial, and therefore incorrect, view of one or more truths, which it pronounces inconsistent with other parts of the Catholic system. The most cursory glance at any heresy, ancient or modern, will show this. Such texts, for instance, as "My Father is greater than I," are to the Arian infinitely more inconsistent with the Catholic faith than any of Mr. Palmer's or Mr. Tyler's quotations from the fathers are against the worship of the saints. To a Calvinist, again, St. Paul's strong language on justification by faith, is utterly inconsistent with the doctrine of baptismal regeneration. Yet Catholics know how beautifully the two doctrines harmonize together.

An additional reason why persons should not be so ready to declare an isolated quotation, or set of quotations, from the fathers, inconsistent with Catholic doctrine, is the very great presumption there is of their not having adequately realized the sentiments of their authors. To confine ourselves rigidly to the object-matter before us, we shall instance the use made by Protestant controversialists of St. Augustine's assertion, that the dead are of themselves unconscious of what is done upon earth. "Defuncti per naturam propriam vivorum rebus interesse non possunt." This is a sentiment (and it occurs re

This has been ably pointed out by a writer in the "British Critic," No. 64, p. 410.We must, however, dissent from what the respected writer says about the right of Bishop Bull to his very unfavourable opinion as to the views and habits prevalent in the Middle Ages. We fully concede to Bishop Bull a right to speak about those matters to which he had given so much attention, but he might have carefully sifted every passage in the fathers relating to the Incarnation, or the Holy Trinity, without stumbling on those portions relating to the saints. Indeed is it not certain that the gazing intently on one particular thing is calculated to blind the sight to all surrounding objects, except in the case of very philosophical minds?

S. Augustin, De Cura pro Mortuis, tom vi p. 528.

« PredošláPokračovať »