USA > Alabama > A Catholic history of Alabama and the Floridas Volume 1 > Part 18
USA > Florida > A Catholic history of Alabama and the Floridas Volume 1 > Part 18
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CHAPTER XLIII.
BISHOP BLANC found a most valiant champion in the celebrated Napoleon Joseph, Abbé Perche, who attacked the Bishop's enemies so vigorously and with such cutting logic that they were ultimately compelled to abandon the field. His masterly articles, in the Propagateur, are still read with pleasure. He was also celebrated for his charity to the poor and the sick, and the zeal with which he instructed the Indian and the slave. He was worthy to rank with the old Padres, noble pioneers of genuine civilization, when the love of souls gave more than human power to the Apostles of the lowly.
A fine, life-sized oil painting of Père Antoine adorns the New Orleans presbytery. He is garbed as a Capuchine monk. His snowy beard falls to his hempen girdle. His tonsure leaves but a fringe around his bent head. His habit is of the coarsest brown serge, and his bare feet have wooden sandals. Some affirm that, in this splendid painting, he has the holy aspect of a medieval St. Anthony, while others, we regret to say, could find no trace of sanctity in the lineaments or demeanor of this extraordinary man, as represented on canvas.
In a pamphlet by Messrs Ryan and Augustine, New Orleans (1893), we find the following characteristic anecdote :
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" The good Father having quarreled with the Vicar- General, the latter suspended him. Père Antoine re- fused to obey. He appealed to his parishioners, and they stood by him as a unit. He was reinstated. Later on, the irrepressible old priest again gave cause for censure, and was relieved of his pastorate.
" For a few days, he disappeared from the narrow streets of New Orleans, and the children looked in vain for the white beard, the sandalled feet, the brown habit, and the bag of lagniappe.
"Finally, the good folks became uneasy, and re- solved to find out what had become of him.
" After hunting for their beloved pastor for several days they found him in a cypress swamp, woeful and miserable. He was kneeling beside a tree-stump, deeply engaged in prayer. The people set up a joyful shout, and carried him to the city in triumph.
"They took him to the church and insisted he should say mass for them, . . but he an- swered he could do nothing until the Bishop recalled him to duty. Then they rushed out of the church and poured through the streets towards the old Ursuline Convent, where the ancient Bishop dwelt. Father Antonio was promptly restored to duty; and there- after none ventured to interfere with his spiritual jurisdiction."
Grave are the charges which his Superiors and others made against this Father. But whether they are true, or false, or merely exaggerated, can hardly be ascertained at this distant day. In his later years, he seems to have led a quiet, holy life. And, "if charity covers a multitude of sins," we may surely say of him in the words of the Psalmist : " Blessed is the man whose iniquities are forgiven, and whose sins
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are covered." One who knew him well in his later years, spoke of him as a man who was forever dis- pensing alms, whose hand was always stretched out to the needy. He christened, married, and buried, all who had need of these ministrations, and a friend who saw him frequently, told the writer that Père Antoine could hardly have given in alms much less than thirty thousand dollars a year.
His purse was an immense leathern wallet, hanging from his girdle, filled with clinking coins. Into this, people threw money as fast as he gave it away. He was usually followed by crowd of children, who asked for a gift, with his blessing, and he never refused either.
Some time before his death, Père Antoine left the parochial residence, and lived in a hermitage made of planks and boughs, under his direction, in the small garden behind the Cathedral. Its furniture was a bed of boards, a stool, and a holy-water font. Here, he ate, slept and prayed, and here occurred his last sickness and death.1
Many aged Creoles to whom the writer spoke, of Père Antoine, mentioned him as being indefatigable in conferring the sacraments, and very good to the poor. "He was a kind, holy old man, was the usual verdict. Emigrés from San Domingo said : " He mar- ried my parents over again. They could not get a priest in San Domingo." He was well remembered in New Orleans, when the writer first knew it forty years ago. Some said he never acquired any property,
1 The small garden behind the Cathedral, in the midst of which Père Antoine built the hermitage in which he died, still exists. A flagged passage between the little garden and the presbytery is called St. Anthony's Alley.
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but others thought the hut in which he died, 1829, was his own.
On the day of his funeral, the whole population turned out to do him honor. The newspapers sus- pended publication, there were no plays at the theatres, the courts were adjourned, and the warehouses closed. The City Council passed a resolution by which its members pledged themselves to wear crape on the left arm for thirty days in memory of him.
It was, therefore, superfluous that " the masons of all branches," should, in the daily papers, send a pub- lic invitation to his funeral. It had often been said that he was a member of this body. But if this were so, he must have withdrawn when preparing for death, else his body would not have received Christian burial. Invitations to the funeral are issued in the papers, by the Church-Wardens, and all Editors are re- quested to publish them.
A more urgent invitation is issued by "a number of masons," to " masons of all rites and degrees," who are told to remember that "Father Antoine never refused to accompany to their last abode the mortal remains of our Brethren."
In death, Père Antoine might have said: " Save me from my friends." There were several holy eccles- iastics in New Orleans at that date. There was the saintly De Neckere, who was consecrated Bishop that very year, 1829, and Father Blanc, who became first Archbishop of New Orleans. But no one came for- ward, officially, to send invitations to his funeral but Marguilliers, who were in a chronic state of semi- rebellion against their chief pastors, and free-masons, who may be said to have severed themselves from the Church, while bound by the secret oaths of that
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organization. And his chief eulogist was Edward Livingstone, the free-thinker.
An admirer of the Père, Dr. Castallanas, speaks of "the charges preferred against his ministry as numerous and even now recorded in the archives of the Propaganda at Rome." "Hence the wide divergence of opinion that exists not only among the laity but on part of the clergy at large, as to the verity of the accusations laid to his charge."
The active life of Father Antoine ceased some time before his death, on account of his condition of health. But, in view of all that stands against him, and which was well known in New Orleans, the fulsome eulogies of the papers, of the free-masons, and the free-thinker, Livingstone, were not, to say the least, in the best of taste even if they do not go so far as to remind one of the awful saying of St. Augustine: " Praised where he is not and tormented where he is." Humble fer- vent prayer for his poor soul would perhaps be more suitable to the wishes of the defunct, could he ex- press them. Well may his real friends be grateful that length of days was given him, in which he could make his peace with God, ere death summoned him before the dread tribunal where flattery avails noth- ing.
" Behold he cometh, saith the Lord of hosts, and who shall be able to think of the day of his coming, and who shall stand to see him? Matt. iii.
The closing years of his long and stormy life were devoted to the poor. And, " blessed is the man that considereth concerning the poor and the needy." " For alms delivereth from death, and the same is that which cleanseth away sins and maketh to find mercy and life everlasting."
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Various are the views taken of this singular man. The best and the worst has been said and written of him. But all who knew him agree as to his generosity to the needy. He surely made " friends to himself of the mammon of iniquity." He was " an eye to the blind, and a foot to the lame, and a tender parent to the poor." And so we may leave him to the tender mercies of Him who has said: "I was hungry and you gave me to eat. Sick, and in prison, and you came to Me. As long as you did it to one of these, my least brethren, you did it unto Me. Come, ye blessed of My Father !"
The funeral services were conducted with unusual pomp and magnificence. Three thousand wax candles1 illuminated the Cathedral. The whole military ser- vice of the city, including the far-famed legion, were arranged in front of the square. When the proces- sion took up its line of march through the streets, every church bell tolled the sad, solemn knells. It is further stated, if we may believe tradition and con- temporaneous accounts, that this pageant was the grandest manifestation of a people's grief ever wit- nessed in New Orleans.
Though his death was not unexpected, it seemed a great blow to many. His corpse was laid out, dur- ing three days on a gorgeously decked catafalque, in the centre aisle of the church, attended by a civic and military guard.
Many parishioners in their desire to retain some relic of Father Antoine, had cut into small pieces his humble cassock, and would have proceeded to further extremities but for the exertions of Mayor-Prieur
1 Many of these wax tapers were preserved by Father Sedilla's friends as souvenirs.
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who, in person, promptly restored order in the house of God, and took measures to prevent the recurrence of further disorder.
The public buildings were draped in mourning, and the flags of the foreign ships of the various consulates were hoisted at halfmast. Crape was hung on the doors of hundreds of residences.
In the highest story of the City Hall, in New Or- leans, are preserved the daily journals that mention the death and funeral of Père Antoine. The Courrier, Wednesday, Jan. 21, 1829, says: "In respect to the memory of Rev. Père Antoine de Sedilla, and in order to give those in our employ an opportunity of attend- ing the obsequies, the Courrier will not appear again until Friday, Jan. 23." After more to the same ef- fect, there is a Resolution of the House of Represent- atives :
" Resolved, that they will attend in a body, the funeral of the Rev. Father Antoine de Sedilla, whose death they deem a loss worthy of their sincerest re- gret . .. To honor his memory is to honor virtue, and his remembrance will forever be dear in a country where he saw three generations succeed one another, of all of whom he justly enjoyed the love and respect."
The Courrier mentions Père Antoine as 81 years old, but it is probable that he was much older. No special disease is mentioned as the cause of his death. The Courrier also says that " though a long sickness should have prepared all for his death, yet it was very sensibly felt by all classes of the population."
Early in the morning of the day of the funeral, Thursday, Jan. 22, the Cathedral and its vicinity were thronged by an immense assemblage. At 10 a. m., the religious ceremonies began with a solemn high
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mass of requiem. Abbe Maenhaut delivered a sermon in which he recalled the virtues of the deceased. After mass, comformably to the arrangements made, all the constituted bodies, and all the individuals invited, formed the procession, and marched through the streets indicated by the programme. They returned to the Church where the coffin was deposited in a vault built for that purpose under the altar of St. Francis. It was resolved to build a special chapel for his remains, but this was never done.
The body of Antoine de Sedilla which was carried with so much pomp and circumstance to the tomb, no longer rests under the altar of St. Francis. In a work of excavation which certain necessary repairs required, the Masons were compelled to disinter the remains of the priests buried near the altar of St. Francis, whence they were carried in wheel-barrows to the cart destined to remove them to the cemetery. Among them are the remains of Père Antoine, which now rest in the Priests' tomb in Basin Street Ceme- tery. Those who repair to the Cathedral, " and there are thousands," says the Castellanos, " and kneel at his supposed crypt in prayer and repentance, are victims of deceit. The translation has been kept secret and for this there is no excuse."
Among the visitors to New Orleans in the time of Father de Sedilla was the celebrated English geol- ogist, Sir Charles Lyell. He met, and, of course, was interested in the famous Padre Antoine. He asked some of the New Orleans people for an account of him. The answer he received was: "No one could tell you the details of his life." In his account of his second visit to New Orleans, or rather to the United
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States, Sir Charles calls attention to a curious me- mento of the alms-giving priest :
" Walking through one of the streets of New Or- leans, near the river, immediately north of the Cath- olic Cathedral1, I was surprised to see a fine date- palm, thirty feet high, growing in the open air.
" Mr. Wilde told me the tree is seventy or eighty years old. Père Antoine, a Roman Catholic priest, who died about twenty years ago, told Mr. Bringier 2 that he planted it himself when he was younger. In his will he provided that they who succeeded to this lot of ground should forfeit it if ever they cut down the palm.
Lyell's second visit to the United States, '45-'50., " This beautiful, peaceful memento of Père Antoine has long since disappeared. Pictures of it are com- mon. No doubt it sometimes reminded his friends of the Introit : " Justus ut palma florebit." The just shall flourish like the palm tree : he shall grow up like the cedar of Libanus . . . It is good to give praise to the Lord and to sing to thy Name, O Most High."
1 Sir Charles Lyell says : " Padre Antonio lived to a great age, be- came quite emaciated, and walked the streets like a mummy. He gradually dried up, ceasing at last to move. I asked a Catholic for the Father's history : He said it could never be ascertained. The city Coun- cil, the Legislature, the bench, the learned professions, (even "the masons " whom the Catholic Church excommunicates,) adopted in their several meeting-places eulogistic resolutions, and signified their desire to attend the obsequies of the deceased.
2 Mr. Bringier was a relative of Bishop Dubourg. The family still live in New Orleans.
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CHAPTER XLIV.
WE will conclude our notice of Father Antoine de Sedilla, with the oration of the celebrated Edward Livingstone on the famous Padre :
Jan. 23, 1829. In the court of the first District, yesterday morning, Mr. Livingstone rose and ad- dressed the Court as follows:
" May it please the Court: A Reverend Eccle- siatic has lately departed this life who was endeared to the great mass of the inhabitants of this country by the most interesting recollection of events from the cradle to the grave. He conferred upon them in infancy that title from which they derive their hopes of happiness, hereafter. In this life he united them in the bonds which secured their Conubial felic- ity, and it was he who performed those solemn rites which connect his memory with the reverence due to that of their ancestors. He was the faithful deposi- tary of their most secret thoughts, their consoler in affliction-their resource in poverty, and their confi- dential friend in society. His charity and kind feel- ings were not confined to those of his own Church, and his liberality, both of sentiment and action, were acknowledged by those of a different faith. His holi- ness and virtues would have entitled him to canoniza- tion; and if his title to that distinction were to be tried, as it is said to be in Rome, the advocate of the
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evil one would burn his brief, and despair of showing even one reason why he should not be received as a Saint in heaven who led the life of one on earth. The death of a man of this character is a public loss, and in order to show the respect entertained for the memory of Rev. Father Antoine de Sedilla, I move that the following resolution be entered on the min- utes :
"On the motion of Mr. Livingstone it is ordered that this court will adjourn until Friday morning for the purpose of giving to the Court and the Bar, the opportunity of attending the funeral of the Beloved Father Antoine de Sedilla, a venerable ecclesiastic, whose loss is lamented by the whole community; and that this resolution be communicated to the judges of the Supreme Court and the other Courts in this city, with an invitation to meet in the hall of this Court, for the purpose of attending the funeral, together with the members of the Bar, the officers of the Court at ten o'clock this day.
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CHAPTER XLV.
HELP was given to many places in the South by eleven Jesuits who arrived in Mobile in charge of Father Jourdan, S. J. They embarked in the sailing ship, St. Anne, and reached Mobile, Dec. 12, 1847. Among them was the celebrated soldier-priest, Rev. Darius Hubert, S. J., so well known and so deeply revered during the civil war, a chaplain of the Grand Army of Tennessee. The only members of this fervent band now living is the venerable Brother Ignatius, the well-known co-adjutor of the Provincial house of New Orleans. A larger band of Jesuits (22), left Marseilles in October, 1848, and after an uneventful voyage of sixty days reached New Orleans. During the voyage Mass was celebrated daily, the crew joining in the religious exercises, on board the good ship, Tonka. They were escorted by the Superior, Father Cambiaso, to Archbishop Blanc at the Arch- bishopric, where they were hospitably entertained by his grace for several days. Almost all these priests have been called to their reward. Among the few surviors is the venerable Father de Carrière, in his 89th year, in the novitiate house at Macon, Georgia.
Father Cambiaso, born at Lyons, 1809, was of Ital- ian origin. One of his ancestors had been Doge of Genoa, at an epoch when that free and independ- ent city disputed with Venice the empire of the Med- iterranean.
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There was now little rapid growth of the Church in Alabama or the Floridas. Catholics sometimes came from distant parts, often from Europe. Occa- sionally, they remained, often their stay was brief. A brick church was erected in Tuscaloosa, the capital of Alabama, by Rev. Father Hackett, and dedicated by Bishop Portier, 1845. A Gothic Church was erected at Tallahassee, 1846. In 1850, the fine Cathedral of Mobile was completed. It cost over one hundred and eighty thousand dollars. It was dedicated under the title of the Immaculate Conception of the Mother of God, by Bishop Reynolds of Charleston, S. C. Bishop Portier sang the Pontificial high mass, Bishop Spald- ing of Louisville preached. Archbishops Purcell of Cincinnati and Blanc of New Orleans were present, with Bishop Lamy, Vicar Apostolic of New Mexico
The Apalaches and their country have been fre- quently mentioned in this work. In May, 1857, the corner-stone of a church in Apalachicola was laid, under the invocation of St. Patrick. A church had been built in Montgomery, in 1834, but it had not al- ways a resident pastor. Apalachicola is built on a sand bed. In 1846, it contained a thousand inhabi- tants, one hundred of whom were Irish Catholics, who besought Bishop Portier to satisfy their desires for a resident Pastor. Rev. Father Gibbons was sent to them.
It is said that Bishop Juarez and some priests landed on Holy Thursday, 1527, on this coast of Florida, planted the cross according to custom, and said mass, perhaps on the site of St. Patrick's Church. An Indian tradition declares there will be a church built wherever a first mass has been offered.
The chief cities of the territory which formed the
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diocese of the zealous Bishop Portier were Mobile and St. Augustine. These with New Orleans are, by ex- cellence, the historic cities of the South. St. Augus- tine is the oldest city in the country, and in aspect, it may be said to be, despite the modern beauties of the Alcazar and the Ponce de Leon, the most un-American. Its low houses of solid stone, its ancient Convent, its moorish looking church, its romantic fort, over which floated for centuries the gorgeous colors of Spain, its ruins, which eloquently tell its chequered story, transport one to the ancient cities of Europe in its earlier days, the days of its chivalry.
A truly great man, Pedro Melendez, founded St. Augustine. After his death, 1573, its prosperity de- clined. In 1586, it had made some progress. It had a parish Church and well-cultivated gardens when Francis Drake, in one of his piratical cruises, de- stroyed it. In 1577, Father Alonzo de Reynoso ar- rived with a number of missionaries. They worked with such success among the Indians at Nombre de Dios and San. Sebastian, that converts were soon reg- ular attendants at the Sunday's mass. Rev. Rodrigo Garcia de Truxillo, parish priest of St. Augustine, who was then old and enfeebled by 28 years of labor in that post, and his previous service as Navy Chap- lain.
The Council of the Indies gave free passage to twelve missionaries, with Father de Silvas as Superior, who had already labored faithfully in Mexico. These good priests by their instructions and kindness soon changed the face of the province of Eastern Florida.
The old Franciscan Convent, Santa Elena, was once the cherished home of the missionaries of St. Francis, whence they traveled in all directions to con-
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vert the red men, and prayed, studied, and toiled for the love of Christ and the salvation of souls.
St. Elena was a Mother House for the hard-work- ing Fathers, and a retreat for the Apostolic men of the Peninsula. It was surrounded by broad, airy gal- leries. The Spanish colors waved from the tall flag- staff before the large Convent. Beside this was the bright Hibernian banner, glittering with the Harp of Erin, for the Spanish troops were, for a long time, the Royal Hibernian regiment, with its green stand- ard, and its pastors were long from the land that gave the American Church some of its greatest names. For a moment the snowy standard of St. George was flung to the balmy winds to be lowered when the stars and stripes rose in triumph from the St. Lawrence to the St. Mary.
The glorious old Convent became a barracks under the English, and, later, gave shelter to the United States troops. The first colonists came from Spain more than half a century before the Pilgrims landed at Plymouth. The church of St. Augustine was fully or- ganized at that early period, and had full records of baptisms and marriages from 1594.
The present Spanish inhabitants are chiefly de- scendants of the emigrants who settled in Florida at various epochs. The barracks where a sentinel now paces up and down, was the centre of the Franciscan missioners, from which they daily went forth to visit the Indian villages which then lay on each side of St. Augustine, both destroyed by the English.
When the English occupied the city, the monks with most of the citizens passed over to Cuba. The invaders seized all their property, and made the ancient Catholic Church a Protestant Conventicle, which it still remains.
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It would seem that, in this remote region, the emi- grants took more example from the Indians than the Indians from them. They were unambitious, as they remain to-day-a little garden and some fishery in the bay, supplies all their wants, as in the time of the stern Melendez. They led the calm, easy lives of the peasantry in other lands, "forgetting the world and by the world forgot," as little concerned in the tur- moils of the busy Republic as the Bas Breton is to- day. For a long period Irish priests served the spirit- ual wants of Florida. Father O'Reilly built the beau- tiful Church of St. Augustine, and became a founder of the Visitation Convent at Mobile. Father Michael Crosbie who, like the Irish missionary clergy of his day had studied in Spain, succeeded Father O'Reilly in the Pastorate of St. Augustine, and died soon after jackson took possession of Florida.
Father Crosbie's last entry is May 25, 1821. He was assisted by Father Gomez, from 1807. The great Bishop England, always ready to build up the waste places of Zion, came again to the rescue, and sent to the old city by the sea, an excellent priest, Rev. Francis Boland, who remained till 1825. " Who is weak and I am not weak? Who is scandalized and I am not on fire? " are words of inspiration which must often have been on the lips of Bishop England.
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