We give up Aston Hall - Students sent to Rome - Death of F. Austin Edgar.
The year 1855 was not remarkable for many events of even domestic importance, the chronicles gravely recording the building of a green-house, in one place, the stoning of a priest in another, some ceremonies in another and the abandonment of Aston Hall.
Even unto the present time opinions are various amongst the brethren as to the expediency of this last move. It was the cradle of the Congregation, the first house of observance, the residence of Fr. Dominic and the nursery of those native Fathers who then lived. The Bishop, (Dr. Ullathorne) has not forgiven us yet for what he considered a false step and tradition exists among the people that we will come back at some future day and settle amongst them. We left the place about the beginning of this year.
Hitherto the teaching of our students had to be done by Fr. Dominic and Fr. Eugene, at least in the important parts of Theology. These were professors who had taught many years in Rome and when placed in higher offices, were obliged to take the lower charges for want of promising priests who could do so. Four young students were ordained in this year. Frs. Paul Mary, Sebastian, Osmund and Alban and there were five or six more in Broadway. These (FF. Alphonsus and his companions) could not be taught in this country, without serious inconvenience so it was resolved to send them to Rome. To Rome accordingly they went towards the end of the year.
The home or foreign training for the priesthood has each its advocates. The matter has been often discussed, since the days of the contention between the "freshwater and salt water" clergy of the last century.
It is a sound principle that clergymen, of every description, should get the best general education, as well as the best technical, which lies within their reach. The opinions which seem to conflict can be easily reconciled by keeping this distinction in view. The home training gives the best general, the foreign as a rule, the best technical.
In all our colleges, in England, Ireland and Scotland, students come up with their provincialisms, if not barbarisms, of dialect and accent and come to have them polished off and a uniform decent pronunciation of the English language grated in their place. Then, a course of sound English literature for a boy who has been ploughing his way through the ancient classics, is almost indispensable, if he is not to go forth a pedant. Elocution and the practical application of its theories require some attention. These things never can be done in a foreign college; and if they be not done in college they never can be done at all. A student who goes to Rome from the wilds of Derry or Donegal and comes home a priest, although he may have carried off prizes in Propaganda and speak Italian or Syrochaldaic like a Greek Archimandrite, is so rude of speech in English that he would shock
a common schoolmaster. A Lancashire boy sent to the English college in Rome comes home as ignorant of the existence of the letter 'h' or the sound of the letter 'u' as if he never left the smoke of Wigan or the screaming whistles of Warrington. What is the use of a theological bundle of human bones out of which nothing can come except solecisms and barbarisms. He may be as learned as Cardinal Wiseman, but a collier will shake his hand and crack his joke with him, finding him a fine vulgar fellow like himself.
Again the foreign training gives too much attention to introversion and bodily propriety, whilst it leaves the play of talent unfed and the play of muscle undeveloped. Look at the sickly 'camerate' of American, Irish or German students as they take their quiet walks in the vicinity of Rome. Their pace has to be a slow and minced as a young lady who is about to be introduced to the Queen. Their eyes seem to measure the length of their coffins from before their toes. They are swathed in soutanes and sashes enough for the embalment of an Egyptian mummy. Cut the tail of their soutanes, let them have a fine race over the Campagna, take of their coats then and join in a hearty game of ball against the blank sidewalls of some deserted palace or monastery, jump over every five-bar gate of Roman propriety they meet, have a boat race down the Tiber and laugh at the rueful faces of scandalized 'abbati' as they pass. That is the way to bring up theological students. Until the Romans do that they will kill or maim the health of all the students sent to them.
We have learnt the woeful consequences of sending students to Rome, by sad experience. Of the first batch only one was good for anything. He had a good physique and still survives. Of the rest, some are dead and the survivors have been living on medicine and indulgences in the way of food since they came home. The second batch we sent fared better. Two died, one came home half alive, another became so holy that he had to leave us, and there is one living at this present writing of whose future we cannot speak.
The lack of a little muscular christianity hath lost many a fine priest to these countries. When a man is ordained, when his physique is formed, when his mind is prepared to take in the treasures of pagan and christian lore which surfeit the schools of Rome, then is his time to spend a few years in the Eternal City and come home a fine scholar indeed. No student should go to Rome under the age of 22, unless (he) wish to come home an invalid or become useless to the mission or the work of his future in these kingdoms.
These little events are diversified by two others. Some discontented members left our Congregation and befouled their nests, as usual, in the presence of some gullible bishops who sent their diatribes to Rome. Some of our own faithful adherents, foiled in strokes of ambitious policy, did the same. The General, a few old Cardinals and some other old women became alarmed, climbed the back stairs of the Vatican and disturbed the slumbers of the amiable Pontiff by a tremendous report that the Passionists in England had lost 'the spirit' - 'lo spirito'.
This was done at the time Fr. Pius was sent over to make a visitation (in every sense of the word) and it was now being renewed. It may be going on still and continue producing visitations till the end of the world for all we know or care, but it only stirs up the embers and begets a new flame of charity. The reformers generally turn out like a notorious reformer of a branch of the Franciscans. The Rule of St. Francis, as then observed, was not hard or severe enough for his reverence. He made a new one, kept it for a time, then took to himself two concubines and died in a miserable squabble in Bohemia.
The other incident was the death of Father Austin Edgar. He was of a very respectable Scotch family, born in Glasgow on the 26th April, 1816. He became a convert in 1836 and five years afterwards entered our Congregation in Ere, Belgium. His mother and sisters followed his example in entering the Catholic church and one of his sisters wrote a book called 'John Bull and the Papists' and another called 'Geraldine', a tale of conscience. His life as a Passionist was a very singular one. He was absentminded to such a degree that some intelligent laybrother was always chosen to serve his Mass, in order to tell him whether he had gone through some important portions of it or not. He spent several years of his religious life in trying whether he could, with a safe conscience, ask for his dimissorial letters or not. He found that no system of theology justifies the apostacy of a Religious, even though it be only to become a secular priest. He was something of a poet and various are the squibs, in English and Latin which he left behind him. He had one failing, which leaned indeed to virtue's side. He was imprudently kind to the poor. He would beg, borrow and steal for the poor, he would sit down and cry if he had nothing to give a poor man who might be imposing upon him. His mother was pretty well off and he was continually drawing upon her resources to help his beloved poor. He had to be watched continually or the intended dinner of the brethren would find its way to the poor. When he became sick unto death (and he caught his death-sickness in an act of charity) he could not forget his poor. They gathered into the church to pray for his recovery and those who survive the day will never forget the bitter wail of orphanhood which went up to heaven when his death was announced. It was a Sunday. No sermon could be preached that day, no voice could be heard from the sobs and crying of the people. The prayers of the poor followed him to the grave and the love of his companions still survives. He was very amiable amid his drolleries, and very religious amid his vagaries. His remains are alid in the graveyard at St. Wilfrid's.
After the students were sent to Rome the Noviciate - with one novice - was transferred to Broadway where it has continued to be ever since. This novice (the late Fr. Joseph Carroll) was soon professed and sent to Rome to join the class of philosophy and the Noviciate sat solitary without an infant novice to lisp the alphabet of our life.