Volume 16 / Part 4 — A Christmas Memory.

God did anoint thee with his odorous oil

To wrestle, not to reign; and he assigns

All thy tears over like pure crystallines

For younger fellow-workers of the soil

To wear for amulets.

E. B. Browning.

No more brilliant party ever assembled for Christmas festivities in Northern Vermont than that which met on such an occasion, very early in this century, at the home of a young lawyer in the beautiful little village of Sheldon, since widely renowned for the efficacy of its healing waters.

The host and hostess were from families who came among the first settlers to Vermont. The company was gathered from all parts of the new and sparsely settled state, with a sprinkling of students who were completing their legal course at the famous law-school of Judge Reeves, in Litchfield, Conn.—of which their host was a graduate—and of young ladies and gentlemen from different places in Massachusetts and Connecticut. Several of these young ladies were passing the winter with acquaintances in Sheldon, and the whole country from the “Province Line” (and even beyond it) to St. Alban's was made merry with a succession of gay parties, sleigh-rides, dinners, suppers, and dances given in their honor. Even the sequestered hamlets of Richford and Montgomery, nestled among their own green hills, did not escape the general hilarity, but were startled from their quiet decorum, and resounded with a merriment which awakened unwonted echoes in their peaceful valleys.

Among the guests at this Christmas festival was a young lady of Vermont, Miss Fanny A——, whose fair form rises before us as we write from the dim mists of childhood's earliest memories—a vision of gentle dignity and youthful loveliness which time has no power to efface.

Though some years younger than the lady of the house, she was her very dear and intimate friend, and was now passing a few weeks with her. Her queenly manners, the silver ripple of her low, sweet voice in the flow of a conversation which held her listeners spell-bound, as it were, by its clear and impressive utterances, bore witness to her familiarity with the most refined circles of city and country society, and the high culture of her splendid intellect.

Other circumstances, as will be seen, combined with her personal charms at this time to make her the centre of interest and attraction wherever she appeared.

She was the youngest daughter of a Green Mountain hero whom Vermont most delights to honor. Her father died when she was too young to realize her loss. Some years later, her mother—from whom she inherited her remarkable beauty and graceful dignity—married a most amiable man, who was capable of appreciating the rich treasure she committed to his charge in the person of her young daughter. Every advantage the country offered was secured to develop and polish the gem of which he was inexpressibly proud, and over [pg 503] which he watched with a solicitude as tender as her own father could have exercised.

At that time, the gay society in New England was strongly tinctured with the species of infidelity introduced and fostered by the writings of Thomas Paine and his disciples, among whom Fanny's father had been conspicuous. Her step-father was not of that school, but he detested the cant and Puritanism of the only religious people he had ever known—regarding them as pretensions of which even those who adopted them were often the unconscious dupes. He had never been drawn within reach of better influences, then exercised only by the Protestant Episcopal Church in Vermont, to rescue intelligent thinkers from the grasp of infidelity. He conducted the education of his gifted daughter, therefore, with the most scrupulous care to avoid entirely all considerations of religion in any form. When her active and earnest mind would peer beyond the veil he had so carefully drawn between its pursuits and the interests of eternity, and send her to startle him with some question touching those interests which he could only answer by evasive ridicule, or an emphatic request that she would refrain from troubling her head about such matters, she would retire to ponder within herself, even while striving to obey her earthly father, the higher obligations imposed by One in heaven. Light and wisdom from above soon illuminated the soul that surrendered itself a willing victim before the altar of eternal truth. She was led by a divine hand, through paths she knew not, to a temple of which she had scarcely heard, and, while still living among those to whom the Catholic religion was entirely unknown, entered its portals to find herself—scarcely less to her own astonishment than to the amazement and horror of her devoted parents—a Catholic, as firmly established and steadfastly resolved as if she had been born and educated in the faith!

The grief and indignation of her parents knew no bounds. They looked upon it as a most disgraceful infatuation. Peremptorily imposing silence upon her in relation to the subject, they determined to suppress it, if possible, until every means had been used to divert her mind from the fatal delusion.

All the wiles and artifices of the gayest and most fashionable circles in various American cities to which she was taken, were exhausted in vain to captivate her youthful fancy and deliver her soul from its mysterious thraldom. In vain the ardent addresses of devoted admirers—who were destined in the near future to be the brightest ornaments the bench and bar of their state could boast—were laid at her feet. In vain were all those worldly allurements, generally so irresistible to the young, spread before her. Her soul turned steadfastly away from each bewitching enticement, to solace itself with thoughts of the humble sanctuary in Montreal, where the weary bird had found a place in which she might build her nest, even within the tabernacle of thy house, O Lord of hosts!

In the autumn preceding the Christmas festival of which I write, the ramblers had returned from their fruitless wanderings. Fanny's parents, discouraged and discomfited, resolved at this crisis to enlist the zeal of a few very intimate friends in their cause, by disclosing to them the great and unaccountable calamity which had befallen their child.

Among those whom they earnestly entreated to aid them in efforts to extricate her from the grasp of the [pg 504] great deceiver, was the lady with whom she was now passing the weeks of the early winter. A Connecticut Episcopalian of the High-Church stamp, she occupied what they playfully called a “half-way house,” at which they hoped she would be able to persuade Fanny to stop. She invited several gay young ladies to meet and enliven Fanny's visit, but took the greatest pains to conceal from them the religious tendencies of her beautiful guest. She entered with great zeal upon every scheme for winter pastimes, in the hope of diverting the mind of her young friend from its absorbing theme. In their private conversations, she exhausted every argument to convince Fanny that the Episcopal Church offered all the consolations for which her soul was yearning. In vain, in vain! She who had been called to drink from the fountain-head could not slake her thirst with draughts from scattered pools, which brought no refreshment to her fainting spirit. Vain also were the precautions used for concealment. Suspicions soon arose among her young companions that there was something wrong with Fanny. A rosary had been partially revealed as she drew her kerchief from her pocket. Worse still, a crucifix had been discovered under her pillow! Here were proofs of superstition indeed, of rank idolatry in unmistakable form, and no one knows to what unimaginable extent! Then it began to be whispered around the admiring and compassionate circle that she had not only taken the first step on the downward road, but was even now contemplating the still more fatal and final one of religious immolation!

It was their apprehension of this direful result which imparted a new and melancholy interest in their eyes to all her words and actions. Though she maintained a modest reserve upon the subjects dearest to her heart, they thought they could discover some mysterious connection with these in every expression she uttered.

On several occasions, the most adventurous of her companions endeavored to penetrate the silence that sealed her lips in regard to her religious convictions, by direct questions, and, when these failed, by ridicule of such “absurd superstitions”; but to no purpose. Her nearest approach to any satisfactory remark was in reply to one of these questions: “It is impossible to convey any clear idea to your mind, in its present state, concerning these matters. Your opinions are founded upon prejudice, and your prejudices are the result of your entire ignorance in relation to them. If you really desire to be better informed, you need, first of all, to pray with humility for light and guidance, and then seek for knowledge. If you do this with sincerity, you will surely be instructed, and ‘know of the doctrine’; but, if you refuse to take this first step, all the teaching in the world will be of no avail. ‘They have Moses and the prophets; let them hear them. If they believe not Moses and the prophets, neither would they believe though one should come to them from the dead.’ ”

She rebuked ridicule with such calm dignity that it was soon abandoned, one of her assailants, a very lively young lady, remarking one day: “It is astonishing to see how terribly in earnest Fanny is! She certainly believes in the Catholic religion with all her heart, though how a person with her extensive information and splendid talents can receive such absurdities is a puzzle to common sense!”

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But her severe trials were in her home. Her parents were unutterably grieved when she persisted in accepting the Catholic faith. This further determination to forsake those who had so fondly loved and tenderly cherished her, and who were so justly proud of the use she had made of the opportunities for improvement which their solicitude had secured for her, was beyond all human endurance.

If she had been the victim of adversity or of disappointed hopes, there might have been some excuse; but that the idol of doting parents should abandon her elegant home to the desolation in which her departure would enshroud it, and turn from all the advantages that wealth, position, and the homage of society could offer—dashing to the ground on the very threshold of life the brilliant prospects which were opening before her—was worse than madness! They complained bitterly to her of her ingratitude and heartless disregard of their feelings and wishes; poured unmeasured and contemptuous reproaches upon her for stifling the modest womanly instincts of her refined and delicate nature, to strike out boldly upon a new road hitherto untrodden by any woman of New England. Remonstrances, pleading, reproaches, and contempt were alike unavailing. Listening only to the persuasions of that “invisible Lover” whose voice had called her to relinquish the seductive charms which surrounded her worldly course, she turned away from them steadfastly to follow him and carry his cross up the steep and thorny paths of penance and self-abnegation, offering herself entirely to him on the Calvary made glorious to her by his precious blood.

Not “immediately,” however, like those whom he called of old, did she “leave the ship and her father, to follow him.” Weary years of waiting and yearning, far from the tabernacles where her soul had chosen its home, did she accord in tender regard for the feelings of those, so truly and deeply beloved, who could not give her up, and who had no clue by which to trace the course her spirit was taking, or power even to conjecture the motives that actuated her.

When at length the time arrived to which they had consented to limit her stay with them, who shall describe the pangs that rent her heart in a parting so full of grief; in severing these nearest and dearest ties, and in witnessing the anguish which overwhelmed those around whom her tenderest earthly affections were entwined?

Alone, but full of peace, “leaning on the arm of her Beloved,” did she tread the painful path. Her parents could not accompany her to witness the sacrifice which prostrated their fondest hopes, nor could they ever bring themselves to visit her in the sanctuary she had chosen.

Her Sheldon friend did so repeatedly, and was amazed to find her radiant with a joy which her countenance had never before revealed—happy in the peaceful home that offered only poverty and an unceasing round of labors in the service of the sick and suffering, with a happiness which the splendors of her worldly one could never impart.

Multitudes of New England people visiting Montreal flocked to the convent, begging to see the lovely young nun of the Hôtel Dieu, who was the first daughter New England had given to the sacred enclosure, and whom they claimed as belonging especially to them through her connection with their favorite Revolutionary hero.

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So continual were these interruptions that she was driven at length to obtain the permission of the mother-superior absolutely to decline appearing in answer to such calls, except when they were made by the friends of former days, for whom she still preserved and cherished the liveliest affection.

By a singular coincidence—or rather, let us say, through tender memories of the gentle nun long since departed from the Hôtel Dieu, and the prevailing efficacy of her prayers—a large proportion of those who were present at the Christmas party at Sheldon, including the mistress of the feast and many of her family, were, from time to time as years flew by, received into the bosom of the Holy Catholic Church.

And so does our gracious and mighty Mother, “ever ancient, ever new,” win her triumphs, one by one, perpetually through all the ages—wins them often in the face, nay, even perforce, of circumstances apparently the most directly opposed to her influence; accomplishes them by means so weak and simple as would seem, according to all human reasoning, utterly inadequate. In countries far remote from her gentle influence, one is called—we hardly know how or why—in this place, another in that, as if the words of our divine Lord found their fulfilment even in this: “Two shall be in the field: one shall be taken, and one shall be left. Two women shall be grinding at the mill: one shall be taken, and one shall be left.”

And every soul thus called to launch its eternal interests upon the ocean of infinite truth must encounter much the same appalling trials, be haunted by the same startling doubts and dark forebodings. Over the sunken rocks of heresy and unbelief along this coast the billows break with a force that affrights the stoutest heart, and many a would-be voyager shrinks back dismayed before their power; but once pluck up heart of grace to pass the foaming barrier, in the mid-ocean all is “peace, and joy unspeakable, and full of glory.”

We cannot more fitly conclude this little sketch of a real event than by a quotation from Montalembert's closing chapter on the “Anglo-Saxon Nuns”:

“Is this a dream, the page of a romance? Is it only history—the history of a past for ever ended? No; once more it is what we behold and what happens amongst us every day.... Who, then, is this invisible Lover, dead upon a cross eighteen hundred years ago, who thus attracts to him youth, beauty, and love?—who appears to them clothed with a glory and a charm which they cannot withstand?—who seizes on the living flesh of our flesh, and drains the purest blood of our blood? Is it a man? No; it is God. There lies the secret, there the key of this sublime and sad mystery. God alone could win such victories and deserve such sacrifices. Jesus, whose godhead is amongst us daily insulted or denied, proves it daily, with a thousand other proofs, by those miracles of self-denial and self-devotion which are called vocations. Young and innocent hearts give themselves to him, to reward him for the gift he has given us of himself; and this sacrifice by which we are crucified is but the answer of human love to the love of that God who was crucified for us.”

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