Twelve Years in a Monastery/Chapter VIII

by Joseph McCabe

CHAPTER VIII

MINISTRY IN LONDON

From Louvain I was recalled at the close of the first academical year by a revival of my educational functions at London. A new generation of philosophers had arrived, and I had to resume the task of imprinting the conclusions of scholastic philosophy upon their youthful and unsympathetic minds. The theological studies were also conducted at Forest Gate, and all students had to remain under an ‘instructor’ until they were promoted to the priesthood. As I held that position during most of the time I remained at Forest Gate I had ample opportunity to study the formation of priests, for the instructor is responsible for the material and spiritual welfare of those under his charge. Of the innumerable complications with superiors, and a certain kind of inferiors, which my zeal (not always, perhaps, blended with prudence) provoked, I forbear to speak; but when the authorities added the task of instructor to the lay brothers or servants my powers of endurance failed. Enough has been said in the preceding chapters about the life of the students, so I pass on to a fuller treatment of the sacerdotal ministry, in which I was now thoroughly immersed.

In a monastic house, even in England, there are always more priests than in a secular presbytery; more, indeed, than are necessary for the administration of the parish which is committed to their care. Many of these priests, however, are travelling missionaries whose work lies almost entirely outside their convent. It is customary in Catholic churches to hold a mission, or series of services somewhat akin to the revival services of the Methodists, every few years; it consists principally of a course of the most violent and imaginative sermons on hell, heaven, eternity, &c., and really has the effect of converting numbers to a sense of their religious duties. Although Cardinal Manning, who, in writing and in action, shows a studied disregard of the monastic orders, endeavoured to form a band of secular or non-monastic missionaries, it is usually conceded that the desired effect can only be satisfactorily attained by monks. Hence every order has a number of religious specially trained for that purpose, of whom two or three are found in every monastery.

Their life differs entirely from that of the ordinary monk; even when they are at home they are exempt from community services, from which the constitutions release them for three days after returning from and three days before starting for a mission. They frequently travel long distances, especially to Ireland, and are sometimes absent from their monastery for months at a time. They are, as has been said, the great bread-winners of the community; they receive from five to ten pounds per week for their services, and bring home large sums in alms and Mass-stipends—if a smaller fee is offered them they never return to that parish. In fact I have known a Franciscan superior (whose rule forbids him to claim any fee for his services, or to receive any money whatever) maintain a warm correspondence with a parish priest on the insufficiency of his fee. ‘Tempora mutantur nos et mutamur in illis,’ would be an appropriate motto for the friars to substitute for their time-honoured ‘In sanctitate et doctrina’ (which, in its turn, was a usurper; ‘Deus meus et omnia’ was the motto of the simple Francis of Assisi). However, the missionaries have often very severe labours, and many of them work with untiring industry and devotion; they have service every evening with one heavy sermon, an instruction, and a number of fatiguing ceremonies, and I have known many priests to collapse under the constant strain. The enormous number of confessions they hear adds much to their exertions. At the same time there are numbers of them who much prefer the change and comparative comfort of the life to confinement in their monastery; they lighten their task by preaching the same sermons everywhere, and they usually find the presbytery much more comfortable than home—if they do not, the parish priest will ask in vain for a second mission.

Another form of outside work which is less understood is the practice of giving ‘retreats’ to monasteries, nunneries, and other religious establishments. A retreat is a period of recollection in which the inmates of a convent suspend all study and secular occupation, and occupy themselves exclusively with religious exercises; it usually lasts from ten to fourteen days, and is an annual event. The day is spent in profound silence and meditation, but there are a number of common ceremonies, and two or three ‘meditations’—a kind of familiar sermon or causerie—are preached daily. The amiable and polished Jesuits are much in demand for retreats, especially by the equally amiable and polished congregations of teaching nuns, but our friars were entrusted with a large number every year amongst the less aristocratic congregations of nuns. A retreat, after a slight experience, is not at all a disagreeable task, and many even of our professors used to spend their vacation in preaching them. The usual method is to write out a set of meditations (the usual graphic descriptions of the ‘last day,’ heaven, hell, &c.), though cleverer men, like F. David, or men of sincere fervour like F. Bede, make no preparation. The same set of meditations is, of course, used in different places, and five or six sets suffice for a lifetime; for a priest is often invited several years in succession to the same convent, and if the nuns have been particularly amiable and hospitable he accepts. In such cases he must have a new set of conferences, for nuns have long memories, and will look up maliciously if he drops into a passage of one of his former sermons. Besides receiving the usual five or ten pounds, the priest can always rely upon a warm welcome and tender and graceful hospitality from the good sisters during his residence in their convent; and as the convent is very frequently in a pretty watering-place or other desirable locality, it is not surprising that the work is much appreciated.

Then there are minor functions which bring grist to the conventual mill and afford the friars some diversion from the dreary monotony of home life. The secular clergy take annual holidays, and hire a friar at one pound per Sunday to conduct their services for a few weeks; in fact our friary at Manchester took up the work with such zeal (for its missionaries were not appreciated) that it earned the title of the ‘Seraphic Cab-stand.’ Special sermons, also, are frequently asked, and chaplaincies are sometimes offered to the friars. A neighbouring convent will always demand their services, and even country families often prefer to bring a friar down every Sunday for a couple of guineas than to have a chaplain haunting the premises all the week.

With so many external attractions of a lucrative and congenial character the friars are sometimes tempted to neglect their own parish, which is, or should be, their principal care. The superior of the monastery is always rector or parish priest,^[1] and several of his inferiors act as curates; as a rule there is about one priest to every thousand people, less in older and larger parishes—at Glasgow we had six priests to attend to 16,000 people—and more in growing congregations. The work, however, is usually confined to the week end. On Saturday confessions are heard, for it is necessary to confess before approaching the sacrament, which is usually received on Sunday morning. On Sunday the priest has usually a long and very fatiguing day’s work; he must, as a rule, say two Masses, an early one for communicants and a late sung Mass at which also he preaches. On account of the obligation to remain fasting, so stern that not even a drop of water must pass his lips until the end of the last Mass, the work is very exacting, especially to a priest who is single-handed. The section of theology which treats of this peculiar fast is interesting; the careful calculation what fraction of a tea-spoonful of water, or what substances (whether flies, cork, glass, silk, cotton, &c.) break the fast, affords serious pre-occupation to the casuist. In the afternoon there are numerous minor ceremonies, baptisms, catechetical instructions, &c.; and in the evening another long sermon with Vespers and Benediction. Speaking from experience I may say that for one man it is as severe a day’s work as can be found in any profession.

Here, however, the monastic clergy have the advantage of numbers. Indeed to the ordinary priest it is not so serious a hardship, seeing that, as will appear subsequently, he has six days to rest in from his one day’s labour, but to monks even the Sunday is not very formidable. Of the six friars in our community there were never less than three at home on Sunday, so that the work was fairly distributed; one sang the last Mass, another preached at it, and a third preached in the evening, and the remainder of the work was proportionally divided.

The Sunday activity of the priest is patent, however, and curiosity is more frequently manifested with regard to the manner in which he spends the rest of the week. It may be said in one word that the daily life of a clergyman is much the same in every religious sect; family relations apart, the Catholic priest occupies himself in a manner very similar to his Anglican brother (or whatever degree of kindred they may ultimately decide upon). The friar, of course, is understood to follow out a very different and much more serious ‘order of the day,’ but here again theory and practice have few points of contact. The rule of the friar, who, in a missionary country like England, is unfortunately compelled to take charge of a parish, is simple and reasonable: he must assist at the community devotions which have been previously described, and the remainder of his time must be divided between study and the discharge of his parochial duties. In the morning from eight to twelve he is supposed to study, from three to seven he must visit his parishioners, from eight to ten he must occupy himself once more with study or prayer.

Such is the edifying theory, but the fact is that the more agreeable task of attending to their parishioners absorbs most of the priests’ time. There are few friars who, after they have once entered upon parochial duties, give more than a sporadic and careless attention to study. They say that they do not find any advantage for the better performance of their duties in study, and, since most of their ‘duty’ resolves itself into visits to the sick and chattering with ladies over afternoon tea, their contention is plausible enough; although there are many cases in which their unfamiliarity with modern literature and its great problems brings them into contempt. I have been asked by wives or sisters in the confessional to visit men who were understood to be wavering in faith; I referred them to their parish priests, and was answered that they had so low an estimate of their parish priests that they refused to discuss with them. And where they do meet a Catholic who shows an interest in and acquaintance with modern literature, they are suspiciously forward in urging the restrictions imposed by the Index. If they are not prepared to prime themselves with current literature—and a not unintelligent colleague of mine once frankly admitted that he could not read even the pellucid essays of Mr. Huxley—they take care that their flock does not outstrip them. Indeed, I once heard a professor of dogmatic theology contend that even the ‘Nineteenth Century’ is on the Index, and should be forbidden to Catholics; theoretically he was right, yet so curious is the ‘economia’ of the Church that it was reserved for a Catholic writer to procure it, by his contributions, a place in the distinguished gallery of the condemned. At any rate a priest who is not studiously inclined finds ample justification for literary tyranny in the elasticity of the Church’s policy.

The manner in which they exercise their usurped responsibility is trying to the patience of the ordinary layman. The priest, especially the friar, has very little acquaintance with fiction, still less with science or philosophy, and very wrong ideas of history; and, since the majority of condemned books are not ‘nominatim’ on the Index, but simply involved in the general censure of, ‘against faith or morals,’ he has to exercise a judgment of an unusually delicate character. The result is confusion and tyranny. One priest is delighted with ‘The Three Musketeers’ and permits Dumas—sweetly oblivious of the fact that Dumas is on the Index ‘nominatim.’ Ouida is much disputed—even amongst the Jesuits; the pure and high principled works of George Eliot are condemned unheard—she was an Agnostic and lived with Lewes; Marie Corelli is dangerous, anti-sacerdotal, so are Mrs. Grand, Rider Haggard, Thomas Hardy, &c., &c.; indeed, the poor Catholic is perplexed before the list of modern novelists. So it is with science and philosophy; the best English and German exponents are heterodox, and when the priest pays his visit and sees their works lying about, he not infrequently demands that they be destroyed.

And his conversation is rendered insipid and uninviting by the same dearth of knowledge and narrowness of judgment. On Biblical criticism, sociology, and a host of prominent questions, the priest is either painfully dogmatic on points that the educated world has long since ceased to dogmatise about, or else he is just as painfully confused. But even on a number of questions on which the world has formed a decided opinion years ago, he is strangely timid and conservative. Rome itself showed much caution in responding to an inquiry about hypnotic phenomena, and such eminent modern theologians as Lehmkuhl and Ballerini seem convinced that in its more abstruse phenomena it embodies a diabolical influence. Even table-turning, of which Carpenter gave a lucid explanation ages ago, is gravely called in question by the Roman decree and the casuists, and, naturally, by the majority. In fact, the author whom I was directed to use in teaching philosophy, Mgr. E. Grandclaude, a widely popular modern author, gravely attributes the more curious manifestations of somnambulism to the same untiring and ubiquitous agency. In every question the priest is found to be ignorant, antiquated, tyrannical.

Hence it is natural that the conversations with their parishioners which occupy most of their time are of a very desultory character. In the morning the friar rarely visits, except in case of sickness, but he is much visited. In every monastery there is a certain section marked off near the door, usually the hall and a few small parlours, to which ladies are allowed access; in the monastery proper, women (except the queen, who cannot be excluded) are never admitted under any circumstances whatever, even to visit a dying son or brother, under pain of excommunication. In these parlours, which, I hasten to add, are fitted with glass doors, the friars are much occupied in the mornings. The rest of the forenoon is spent reading or preparing sermons in their cells, or chatting together in each other’s cells, or in the library, or over the daily paper, all of which is illicit but unavoidable. After dinner and early tea they exchange their brown habits for ordinary clerical attire and proceed to visit their parishioners. They are directed to return to the convent at seven, but it is usually much later when they arrive.

Apart from the care of the sick and dying, and the occasional necessity of reproving wandering sheep, the duty of ‘visiting,’ which is almost their only function on the six appointed days of labour, is far from laborious. The parish is divided into districts of which one is committed to the care of each priest, and he is directed to visit each family once in three months. The object is, of course, to strengthen the bond between clergy and laity and to secure individual fidelity to the Church. Naturally, however, what really happens is that a few agreeable families are selected for frequent visits, which differ in no respect from the visits of ordinary unconsecrated people (in fact the priest would hardly be welcome who paraded his profession too much); sometimes they are unusually generous benefactors, sometimes mere families of ordinary social attractiveness. In any case, the poor and the uninteresting are forgotten, the favourites are visited weekly or oftener, and the visits sometimes protracted to two or three hours; much jealousy ensues amongst the favourites (who watch each other’s houses just as they watch each other at confession), and counter visits, teas, dinners, parties, &c., have to be accepted. Thus the week is easily and not uncongenially absorbed, and a priest often finds that he is scarcely able to prepare a sermon for the Sunday.

Since most of the visits are paid in the afternoon and on week days, it follows that they are almost exclusively to ladies; one result of which is that our English friars are found to be much less misogynous than their Continental brethren who have no parishes to superintend, and indeed many Protestant husbands forbid the admission of a priest into the house in their absence. Much discretion is, however, shown by the priest in visiting, and an excellent control is exercised over all by a comprehensive system of jealousy; the priests are jealous of each other when they intrude in each other’s district or parish, the ladies honoured with a visit are jealous of each other, and a numerous non-Catholic population is jealously surveying the whole. In the Franciscan rule besides the vow of chastity there is a special grave precept commanding the avoidance of suspicious intercourse with women, and it is not uncommon for a superior to publicly denounce an inferior for that fault. Two or three cases happened at Forest Gate, but the accusation clearly sprang from jealousy on the part of the superior. In private, of course, mutual accusation, especially of frequenting by preference the society of young women, was very common; there was certainly much truth in the accusations, though why it should be made a ground of accusation is not clear. Another rule may be mentioned in this connection: all letters were to be given open to the superior to be forwarded, and he was supposed to read all letters which he received for his inferiors.

There was also a rule, the only one in our constitutions that imposed a grave moral obligation, forbidding us to take any intoxicating drink within the limits of our own parish. The rule led to curious incidents and many transgressions. One old Belgian friar who was afflicted with chronic thirst and did not find the monastic allowance sufficient, used to take the tram regularly to some hotel just outside the limits of the parish. A dispensation could only be obtained by calling together the elders of the community and asking their collective permission. Like all other rules, it was susceptible of many ingenious interpretations, and, finally, the opinion was started that the whole of the constitutions were invalid.

The mutual intercourse of the friars was limited, in theory, to the hour’s recreation after dinner. Wine was only granted by the constitutions about once per month, and whisky was entirely prohibited. In point of fact there were friaries in which whisky was given almost every day, every Saturday and Sunday evening, and sometimes three times per day. At Forest Gate, partly from greater sobriety, partly (and very much) from greater poverty, and partly on account of the presence of students, we only drank three or four times per week; whisky was discountenanced, but one friar found port to injure his tonsils, another complained of liver, another of heart, &c., so that it usually crept back to the table. Smoking also was prohibited in the monastery, but it was not very difficult to obtain a medical recommendation to smoke, and the local superior could always distribute cigars when occasion arose.

The nature of the recreation has been mentioned in a previous chapter. We sat and talked over coffee for half an hour, then discoursed peripatetically in the garden for half an hour. In some monasteries dominoes, bagatelle, &c., were introduced to escape the necessity of conversation; cards were forbidden, and chess was discountenanced (with complete success) on the ambiguous ground that the friars had no cerebral tissue to waste on intellectual games.

The conversation only merits description on account of the curiosity which is evinced with regard to it. Politics had the largest share in it, for all the friars were keen politicians, though they dared not openly manifest any political sympathy; they were all Liberals, but for the sake of argument one or other would attack or defend some point in a desultory fashion for an hour or more. Casuistry, too, gave them much food for discussion; and points of ritual and canon law were often discussed. In some friaries there would be one friar of a higher type who would start questions of living interest, but then the conversation was apt to degenerate into a pedantic and not very accurate monologue. But a vast amount of time was spent, as has frequently been suggested of them, in the most painful puerilities. Their sense of humour seems to have undergone an extraordinary degeneration; the more rational of them frequently express their disgust at the character of their ‘recreation.’ There are one or two powerful characters who habitually tyrannise over the friaries in which they are found, and even contrive at the elections to keep near them one or two less gifted brethren whom they may bully and banter at will. As they are men of high authority and influence, their victims find it expedient to submit patiently to their constant flight of rudely fashioned shafts for a year or two; in the end they usually find themselves elevated to some position to which their intrinsic merit could hardly have aspired.

For throughout the length and breadth of the Franciscan Order (and every other order) ambition and intrigue of office is the most effectual hindrance to fraternal charity. All officials are elected and frequently changed, so that the little province is as saturated with jealousy and intrigue as an American Republic. Every three years a general election is held at which the General from Rome is supposed to preside. The usual course is for the General (whose real name is ‘general servant’ of the fraternity, but it is usually preferred in the abbreviated form) to send a deputy to the province which is about to hold its elections. The deputy or visitator visits all the monasteries in succession and affords each friar an opportunity, in private conversation, to submit his personal grievances or his knowledge of general abuses. Of the former, however, the visitator takes little notice, referring them to more immediate superiors, and he is usually quite powerless to correct any general abuse. One of our English friars was deputed to visit the Irish province on the occasion of its election a few years ago. He did not disguise his intention of making a special effort to check the flow of whisky in that province, which he regarded as the source of all evil in monastic life; his own particular vanity was port. We were not a little surprised on the return of our zealous crusader to find that he had been himself converted to the seductive ‘usquebaugh,’ and only the too openly manifested delight of his numerous enemies—whom he had persistently denounced at Rome for ten years as ‘whisky-drinkers’—prevailed upon him to return safely to port.

When the visitator has completed the circuit of the province he invites the members of the higher council, or definitors, to the monastery where the election is held. The superiors, or guardians, of the various monasteries then send in their resignations, together with a declaration on oath by their priests that they have fulfilled their duty to their community (the paper is sometimes minus a few signatures) and a full account of their financial transactions. The guardians themselves arrive the following day and proceed by a secret ballot to the election of a new provincial and his council of five definitors. The guardians then disperse and the newly-elected council proceeds to appoint new guardians with their subsidiary officers. Everything is conducted with the utmost secrecy, the voting papers being burned and pulverised in presence of the voters, and every friar present being put under oath not to reveal the proceedings. Public prayers are also commanded for weeks in advance, and the election opens with a solemn High Mass to the Holy Spirit: an oath is also taken by the electors that they will choose those whom they consider the most worthy.

Such is the admirable theory of the election: its actual course is usually after this fashion. Before the solemn imploration of the light of the Holy Spirit on the election morning the whole scheme has been practically settled. The province is really an oligarchy, not an elective democracy. A few abler men—and better men some of them—form the Definitorium, and there is a sufficiently clear understanding^[2] between them and the guardians to insure that the guardians will re-elect them and they, in their turn, will re-appoint the guardians. There is a slight struggle from one or two young Radicals, and perhaps a new aspirant to a place on the council, but changes rarely occur. The old definitors are practically sure of reelection, and so on the night before the electors arrive they have arranged all appointments under no more spiritual influence than that of a cigar and a glass of whisky.

For the highest position of provincial—a quasi-episcopate—the intrigue runs much deeper. Votes are practically bought by minor appointments and other bon-bons, years in advance, and the province is really severed into factions headed by the different candidates. There are, of course, some who revolt from such proceedings—though they are more common in ecclesiastical spheres than in any civil polity in the world—but others use them unscrupulously. I took one to task once for his indulgent treatment of a notoriously unworthy official, and he answered frankly that the man had a vote—and he proceeded to explain how necessary it was for the good of the fraternity, &c., that he himself should take the helm at the next election, however reluctant he felt to do so.

When such facts are considered, in addition to the natural jealousy which arises in connection with preaching, penitents, and the esteem of the laity generally, it will be understood that life in a friary is not one of paradisiacal monotony. Open conflicts are, of course, rare, but the strained relations between rivals and their followers frequently manifest themselves in conversation and conference. In fact the constant suspicion and caution sometimes leads to very unexpected phenomena. Thus, a colleague of mine seemed to me in uncomfortable relations with a large number of friars, and of one of them he told me a strange story. He had entered his cell during the friar’s absence and found a revolver, which he abstracted and destroyed: he even added that he kept a secret lock on his own bed-room door at night, for the ordinary lock is open to a superior’s master-key, and the friar in question was a superior and a priest of high reputation.

Besides the triennial election, called a chapter, there is a half-chapter every eighteen months in which many changes take place. The friars do not, however, as a rule, appreciate the variety which is thus afforded them, for they soon find attachments in a mission which they are loth to break off. But quite apart from elections a friar is liable to be ordered off to a different monastery at any moment. It is related of the celebrated Duns Scotus that when he received the order to go from Paris to Cologne he happened to be away from the Paris monastery. He at once set off on foot for Cologne without returning even to bid goodbye to his brethren. The modern friar is not so precipitate. His ‘obedience,’ as the formal order to remove is called, allows three days to reach his destination; so that the friar has ample time to collect his luggage (for in spite of his vow of poverty every friar has a certain amount of personal property), and, perhaps, elicit a testimonial from his pious admirers.

Needless to say, the friar no longer makes his journeys on foot as his pious founder intended. There is a precept in the rule forbidding ‘riding’ under pain of mortal sin, and, in their honest endeavours to discover its application to more modern means of locomotion, commentators are much at a loss. The horse is still gravely prohibited—to ride, that is to say, for in Belgium we more than once had the pleasure of eating it; the ass and the camel are not to be patronised without necessity; a ship may be entered when the friar has not to pay for his sail; even the railway is a matter of serious doubt, but the majority are of opinion that it may be used when necessary—which is a very convenient solution. In point of fact the friar takes his cab, or bus, or train, without a thought of his rule. He has a holiday of two or three weeks’ duration, at least once in three years, and frequent runs to the Forest or Southend or Brighton. He cannot, however, leave the country without special permission from Rome.

The ‘obedience’ or formal order to travel is also a mark of identity for the friar on arriving at a strange convent. For he is always bound to seek hospitality from his own brethren if they have a convent in the town, and the superior’s first care is to demand his obedience, on which his destination is marked. This is enjoined as a precaution against apostates and especially against frauds. For even monastic hospitality has been taken advantage of by impostors. In Belgium some years ago the imposition was attempted on a large scale at one of our friaries. A bishop and his secretary presented themselves for a few days’ hospitality, and were received and treated by the friars with the courtesy and attention which befitted their rank. There was nothing unusual in the occurrence, and the friars were always glad to receive so flattering a guest. His lordship said Mass daily with correct episcopal ceremony, and had all the requisite paraphernalia. After a time, however, a suspicion was aroused, and when his lordship had casually mentioned the name of the cardinal who had consecrated him, a telegraphic communication was made with Rome, with the result that the impostors were handed over to the civil authority. At London we had visitors from all parts of the world, and it would be difficult to detect an impostor. I remember one whom we turned out of the monastery after a few weeks’ hospitality, and no one knows to this day whether he was a genuine friar or not. He was a Spaniard, an old man with our brown costume in his possession, who represented himself as a lay-brother from our province of Mexico. He hinted that a secret Government commission had brought him to London. He spoke French fluently, and was a most interesting conversationalist, representing that he had at one time been a private secretary of Don Carlos and an active figure in Spanish politics. However, Fra Carpoforo’s business in London seemed unduly protracted, and our suspicious superiors politely recommended him an hotel in the city.

Impostors find great difficulty in penetrating into the order as novices in modern times, for there are numerous formalities to comply with. Not only are his baptismal certificate and a letter from his bishop necessary, but inquiries are made as to whether there is any hereditary disease, or insanity, or heresy in his family, whether he is single, legitimate, and a host of other qualifications. In olden times anybody who presented himself was admitted to ‘the habit of probation’ without inquiry, and it is a well-known fact that women have thus obtained entrance into the monastery and remained in it until their death.

An amusing case of imposture occurred at Forest Gate a few years ago. A young man of very smart appearance presented himself at the monastery and intimated a desire to enter the order as a lay-brother. He had no credentials, but mentioned casually one or two friars in other monasteries ‘whose Masses he had served.’ He represented himself as a cook, saying that he had been at Charing Cross Hotel and other places. Without a single inquiry he was received into the monastery, where he remained for three weeks, cooking for the brethren and maintaining a very modest and satisfactory demeanour. On the third Sunday, however, he vanished with the whole of the money which had been collected in the church on that day and a quantity of clothing, &c., which he had borrowed.

1. In reality all priests in England are merely missionaries, from the point of view of canon law; the bishops are the only real parish priests. Beyond the fact that they are thus transferable at the bishop’s pleasure, the irregularity does not make much practical difference.
2. The following extracts from a letter written by one monastic superior to another may be instructive:
       ‘. . . they are trying to force me to do what I don’t think fair or just to my successor . . . but I will not do anything that I deem in principle mean or unjust to my successor. I say mean, for I deem it such when guardians to please their superiors send them gifts which the papal Bulls call bribes, and which several Popes strictly forbid. But I absolutely refused until compelled by obedience to do such. Of course I was threatened by the “powers that be,” that I would pay for it, &c.: but I told them over and over again, “I fear only God and my conscience.”'
       Unfortunately there were many who had not the firmness, honesty, and deep religious spirit of the writer of that letter.