he fills in innumerable devout hearts which beat in far-off climes, and the influence which he exerts in lands where his presence was never seen. We are able to attest, as a result of personal observation, that on the other side of the Atlantic, and in the bosom of Christian families instructed by his glowing words, his name is a household word, both among young and old. There can be no question here of "personal influence." "If there is any good in me, or any profitable love of God and the Church," said an American priest to us a few months ago, "I owe it in a great measure to Father Faber, and the longer I live the more I feel the debt." It was often enough, in any society of lay American Catholics, to say, "I knew Father Faber," to excite an outburst of grateful sympathy towards him whom they honoured as a common benefactor, and who had long been to many of them a kind of invisible director. And in this there was no sentimental enthusiasm for the poet, but only a profound sentiment of thankfulness to the spiritual writer. In such facts, which might be gathered abundantly in many other countries, we have often been able to detect-and have taken some pains to do so-the most decisive evidence that what the more earnest Christians of other lands chiefly appreciated in Father Faber's books, and most eagerly appropriated, was precisely his exposition of certain truths which, though "portions of our Lord's Gospel," to use his own words, had in a few places become momentarily obscured, to the great injury of souls. Among these were the constant worshipful exaltation of the Most Holy Sacrament, devotion to the Mother of God and the Vicar of Christ, and habitual recourse to that treasury of indulgences of which the Church holds the key, and which she daily unlocks for the satisfaction of our private needs, and the solace of the holy souls in purgatory. We think it cannot be denied that, among Englishspeaking Catholics, Father Faber has been the chief and most efficient agent, not only in recommending such truths and devotions, but in creating an experimental conviction, constantly growing in the hearts of those who have been formed by his teaching, that wherever they are coldly welcomed, all hope of resembling the saints is but vanity and delusion. "We hope," says a distinguished American ecclesiastic, in his preface to one of Father Faber's works, "that the abundant blessing of Heaven will rest on the teachings of such a guide. The most earnest language would but faintly express our sentiments of gratitude towards him. If the power to conceive and convey to others the most sublime, and at the same time the most practical, truths that can interest the human mind, be a title to the homage of men, then has Father Faber established for himself a claim which no length of years nor change of circumstances can efface." And then he adds what Father Faber himself would have considered the most precious eulogy which human lips could pronounce: "Few writers since the days of S. Francis de Sales have made more Christian hearts bow in loving adoration before our tabernacles than the author of "All for Jesus" and "The Blessed Sacrament."* Once more: "Who can withhold the homage due to such a servant of the Church? It may be excess of admiration for genius, learning, wisdom, zeal, piety,—all combined in one noble soul; or is it the depth of our gratitude to the Father of mercies and the God of all consolation, from whom every good and perfect gift descendeth, that sways our judgment when we say that not for several ages past has God given to His Church a teacher, whose thoughts of love and words of light will fall, like Heaven's dew, on a wider extent of that field in which the Son of God Himself laboured and still labours for the salvation of souls ? Who can estimate the salutary influence exercised in our country over a multitude of souls, from the cloistered nun, with her group of gay young worldlings around her, to the aged missionary, with his humble flock, by those two wonderful books, "All for Jesus" and "The Blessed Sacrament"? No one questions it. It may sound to some like adulation; but still we say that in the treatise before us, "The Creator and the Creature,' as well as in the three works that have preceded it, and made the name of Father Faber dear to myriads, there are chapters which re-echo in our day the sweetness of S. Bernard, the wit and erudition of S. Jerome, the eloquence of S. John Chrysostom, the philosophy of S. Augustine." Although it is impossible to add force and energy to such words as these, we ask permission to quote a few lines addressed "to Frederick William Faber, D.D.," in the first page of the same American volume, for a special reason, which shall be stated immediately: Some angel, such as Mercy sends to win All hearts to love, most surely was thy guest, Thy thoughts, thy words inspired: his fragrant wings Friend of the weary heart in search of God! As 'mid life's glittering waste, like joyous springs, The graceful verses of which these form a part bear the signature of Father E. J. Saurin, of the Society of Jesus, and are dated "Loyola College, Baltimore"; and the volume itself is published "with the approbation of the Most Reverend Archbishop of Baltimore." Now Loyola College is one of the great centres of *Preface to American edition of "The Creator and the Creature." religious life in the United States; and no one whose privilege it has been to know that noble institution, and to hold converse with the community by whose labours it is sustained, can doubt either that they are representatives of all which is purest and most elevated in the American Church, or that their judgment would be accepted with acclamation by American Catholics. We are witnesses that the fathers of Loyola College, among whom is found one who resigned the episcopal dignity to labour humbly with the children of S. Ignatius, enjoy the love and respect which such men do not seek but cannot escape; and that the homage which they offer to Father Faber is as precious a tribute as any with which the sympathy of his fellows could attest his worth or adorn his memory. We have quoted with the more satisfaction these testimonies of American priests because we know that they reflect the universal sentiment both of the clergy and laity of the United States. It is surely worthy of observation that in that great Republic, where no traditions of the past contend, as in England, with the anarchical principles which Protestantism has introduced into the world, and where each unit of the vast confederation which calls itself "the sovereign people" claims to exercise an independent judgment on all things human and divine, all who profess the ancient faith, whether nursed from infancy in the bosom of the Church or converted in mature age, are what it is the fashion among ourselves to call Ultramontanes. Never have we heard more tender and filial expressions towards the Holy Father, nor witnessed more ardent sympathy with those doctrines and devotions which Father Faber lived to propagate, than among the free citizens of the American Union. If the zealous and intelligent clergy of the United States were all ministering in the cities and hamlets of Italy, or the congregations whom they serve were all dispersed in the villages of France or Spain, they would have nothing to learn and nothing to forget. They would be as much at home in the churches of Rome, Paris, or Madrid, as in those of Baltimore, Cincinnati, or San Francisco. What people have more lovingly condoled with Pius IX. in all his tribulations, or more generously contributed to his wants, than American Catholics? And these republicans, among whom have already been distributed more than fifty thousand copies of Father Faber's works, would adopt with their whole heart and mind, and repeat with acclamation, from the shores of the Atlantic to those of the Pacific, the solemn words which we now ask permission to quote, both as an example of how Father Faber taught, and of the lessons which such disciples have embraced with thoughtful and deliberate approval: The Pope is the Vicar of Jesus on earth, and enjoys among the monarchs of the world all the rights and sovereignties of the sacred humanity of Jesus. No crown can be above his crown. By divine right he can be subject to none. All subjection is a violence and a persecution. He is a monarch by the very force of his office, for of all kings he is the nighest to the King of kings. He is the visible shadow cast by the Invisible Head of the Church in the Blessed Sacrament. His office is an institution emanating from the same depth of the Sacred Heart, out of which we have already seen the Blessed Sacrament and the elevation of the poor and of children take their rise. It is a manifestation of the same love, an exposition of the same principle. With what carefulness, then, with what reverence, with what exceeding loyalty, ought we not to correspond to so magnificent a grace, to so marvellous a love, as this which our dearest Saviour has shown us in His choice and institution of His earthly Vicar! Peter lives always, because the Three-and-Thirty Years are always going on. The two truths belong to each other. The Pope is to us in all our conduct what the Blessed Sacrament is to us in all our adoration. The mystery of His Vicariate is akin to the mystery of the Blessed Sacrament. The two mysteries are intertwined. And what is the practical conclusion, as freely accepted by men living under democratic as under monarchical institutions, which Father Faber urges upon the men of his generation? "It is no less than this-that devotion to the Pope is an essential part of all Christian piety. It is not a matter which stands apart from the spiritual life, as if the Papacy were only the politics of the Church, an institution belonging to her external life, a divinely appointed convenience of ecclesiastical government. It is a doctrine and a devotion. It is an integral part of our Blessed Lord's own plan. He is in the Pope in a still higher way than He is in the poor or in children. What is done to the Pope, for him or against him, is done to Jesus Himself. All that is kingly, all that is priestly, in our dearest Lord is gathered up in the person of His Vicar, to receive our homage and our veneration. A man might as well try to be a good Christian without devotion to our Lady, as without devotion to the Pope; and for the same reason in both cases. Both His Mother and His Vicar are parts of our Lord's Gospel." Once more. In no region of the earth have the touching words which we are going to cite been pondered with a more intense appreciation than in the United States of America, in none have they produced more enduring fruits. "The Pope is the visible presence of Jesus, uniting in himself all such spiritual and temporal jurisdiction as belongs to the Sacred Humanity. . . . In times when God allows the Church to be assailed in the person her visible Head, sensitiveness about the Holy See will be found to be an implied condition of all growth_in_grace. His office is of the chief way in which Jesus has made Himself visible on earth. In his jurisdiction he is to us as if he were our Blessed Lord Himself." And then, "how touching is the helplessness of the Sovereign Pontiff, so like the helplessness of his beloved Master. His power is patience. His majesty is endurance. He is the victim of all the petulance and gracelessness of earth in high places. He is verily the servant of the servants of God. Men may load him with indignities, as they spat into his Master's face. They may set him at nought with their men of war, as Herod with his men of war set at nought the Saviour of the world. . . . In every successive generation Jesus, in the person of His Vicar, is before fresh Pilates and new Herods. The Vatican is for the most part a Calvary." So that, as he adds, So that, as he adds, " to the eye of faith nothing can be more venerable than the way which the Pope represents God. It is as if heaven were always open over his head, and the light shone down upon him, and, like Stephen, he saw Jesus standing at the Right Hand of the Father, while the world is gnashing its teeth upon him with a hatred, the unearthly excess of which must often be a wonder to itself. But, to the unbelieving eye, the Papacy, like most divine things, is a pitiable and abject sight, provoking only an irritated scorn. For this scorn it is the object of our devotion to make constant reparation."* To which exhortation our American brethren respond, Amen! Perhaps this will be the most suitable place to notice an incident, recorded by his biographer, which is not only immediately connected by its character with what has been just said, but which affords a proof of what we may perhaps presume to call the special favour and approval manifested by Pius IX. towards the author of this sermon. It was translated into Italian, and printed at Rome, by the express command of the Holy Father, who himself condescended to examine the proof-sheets. Among the concluding sentences of the sermon these words occur: "It is a day when God looks for open professions of our faith. . . . The open profession is of little worth without the inward prayer, but I think the inward prayer is almost of less worth without the outward profession." It is surely a significant fact, worthy of religious meditation, that the word printed in italics was erased by the hand of Pius IX., who admonished by this action all the readers of Father Faber's sermon, not only that the doctrine which it taught was approved by the Vicar of Christ, but that the silent devotion of the heart was only a part of the service which he claims from his children, and that his Master requires from us all, especially in this hour of rebuke and blasphemy, the public and fearless manifestation of our loyalty to him who sits in Peter's chair. We are glad to be able to illustrate by another anecdote the feelings entertained towards Father Faber by the great Pontiff, to whom Christians owe the definition of the Immaculate Conception of our Lady. Not long after his death one of the Fathers of the * Sermon on Devotion to the Pope, pp. 12-16. |