USA > Maryland > Old Catholic Maryland and its early Jesuit missionaries > Part 3
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It was in the year 1694, that the seat of government was moved from St. Mary's to Annapolis.
Father Andrew White was born in London, it is said, in the year 1579. Little is known of his early years, but we may well suppose that they were passed in the prac- tice of virtue and in severe application to study. The great evangelist of America comes before us at once in history as a priest crowned with a halo of science and piety. We hear of him as a newly-anointed priest at Douay in 1605, and the following year we see him cast
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into prison for the faith, and thence, with forty-six other clergymen, driven into perpetual banishment. He then retired to Catholic Spain and became professor in one of the English or Irish Colleges there. Soon after this he resolved to join the sons of St. Ignatius, and for that pur- pose left Spain and proceeded to Louvain. Of Father White's novice-home we wrote the following brief sketch, a few years ago, for the Woodstock Letters :
Near the Chateau Cesar, or Castrum Cæsaris, Lou- vain, high up on Mont-Cesar, stand three or four private dwellings and a ruined stable. Few, even among the students of Louvain, know that these dwellings occupy the site of the old English Jesuit Novitiate, and that the stable itself was once a part of that hallowed house. When the English Fathers of the Society of Jesus were driven from their own country, in 1607, they rented a house on Mont-Cesar, and used it for a novitiate. This novitiate was opened by Father Parsons, in the same year, with six priests, two scholastics, and five lay-brothers. God gave this novice-home a singular and wonderful benediction- he gave it an apostle and a martyr. While Hugh O'Neill, Prince of Ulster, occupied the Chateau Cesar, near him, in the humble Jesuit novitiate, Andrew White, the future Apostle of Maryland, and Thomas Garnett, a future mar- tyr, were passing their days of probation in prayer, pen- ance and manual labors. As The O'Neill spent several months on Mont-Cesar, and knowing him to be the great Catholic hero of his time, we may take it for granted that he often visited the exiled English priests, and that he often saw the novices, White and Garnett. How proud the old chieftain would have felt had the future destiny of these two young men been revealed to him !
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Father White began his novitiate on the first day of February, 1607. Besides Garnett, Father White had for a fellow-novice the illustrious Father Henry More, the historian of the English Province and the great grandson of the martyred Chancellor, Sir Thomas More. Among confessors for the faith, among the descendants, the near relatives of martyrs, the future Apostle of Maryland laid the foundation of his religious perfection and caught the flame that burned in his great heart as he traversed the forests or sailed the rivers of the New World.
Father More faithfully described White's novice-home as seated on high ground, commanding the whole city ; below was a walled garden, and on the slopes of the hill pleasant walks among the vines, which were ranged in terraces, and the whole, though within the city walls, as quiet and calm as befitted a house of prayer.
Father White, say the Records of the English Province, passed through the usual probationary exer- cises of the noviceship with such satisfaction to his su- periors that, at the end of two years, after taking first or simple vows of religion, he was at once sent back to the labors and dangers of the English Mission. Nor did he disappoint the expectations formed of him, refusing his labors to none, whether instructing Protestants in the tenets of the Catholic faith, confirming Catholics in vir- tue, or administering the sacraments, until he was called by obedience into Spain, to labor in the colleges of the English Province there. He was a man of transcendent talents, and filled the offices of prefect of studies, profes- sor of Sacred Scriptures, dogmatic theology, and He- brew, both at Valladolid and Seville, with great applause, and, as appears by the Catalogues of the English Prov-
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ince, had also filled other various responsible offices of his Order, such as superior, minister, consultor, and confessor. The editor of the Maryland Historical So- ciety's pamphlet adds that he was afterwards professor of divinity, first at Douay and then at Liege. The "Sum- mary " of the deceased of the Province for the year 1656, says of the Father that in these employments he gave proof no less of his talents than of his virtues, excelling, we may truly say, in both.
Inflamed with ardent zeal for the salvation of souls, he again petitioned for, and obtained leave to be sent back to the English Mission, where, by his anxious care in the duties of a missionary, he was preparing himself for a glorious death, so often the lot of the priest in those cruel days of exterminating persecution ; when it pleased God to call him to a more fruitful application of his labors among the Gentiles, and to choose him as the first apostle to carry the Gospel to the New World.
Justly has Father White been styled the Apostle of Maryland. His evangelical career in that State, as well among the white settlers as among the different Indian tribes, may be pointed to by all Catholics as another proof of the divine commission left to their church to teach all nations, as a proof that the spirit that helped and guided the apostles in their wondrous works has ever lovingly abided with her missionaries. Father White had all the grand characteristics of an apostle, of a man sent of God. He was a teacher endowed with vast learning, a priest who had attained a high degree of sanctity. He was undaunted in the midst of labors, pains, dangers, trials and persecutions. At least twice he was seized by cruel bigots and cast into prison on account
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of his devotion to our holy religion. His continual austerities, even while confined in a miserable dungeon, at Newgate, won the admiration and pity of his jailors. His burning zeal knew no bounds, his living, practical charity had no limits. In order to save men, in order to win souls to Jesus Christ, he made himself all to all. He labored among the settlers on the banks of the Potomac and Patuxent Rivers, and down by the Chesapeake Bay, with the same zeal, and fidelity, and joy with which he taught at Seville and Valladolid, or worked for the greater glory of God among the proscribed Catholics who sought his spiritual aid even under the grim shadow of Lon- don's black tower. As a fellow-novice of Father Thomas Garnett, martyred at Tyburn; as a spiritual child of the holy Father Robert Parsons, who knew so many dun- geons for Christ's love ; as a confessor of the faith him- self, he called with power and efficacy upon the Pilgrims assembled in their wigwam chapel to love God above all things, and to cling with reverence and affection to the ancient and holy creed of England. But more especially did this truly great and pious priest give undeniable proofs of the apostolic fire that animated him when he treated with the Indians.
The red men were his favorite children, his chosen peo- ple. The salvation of these he desired with all the love and ardor of his large, apostolic heart. No labors were too heavy when endured for their sakes, no pains were too acute when suffered in trying to lead them from dark- ness to light, from error to truth, from Satan to God. He sought them in their villages and on their hunts, in the depths of their forests, and far out on the stormy waters. He learned their difficult language that he might all the
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better enter into their feelings, learn their errors and their wants, and lead them into the one true fold. He lost no opportunity, no occasion, of instructing them in the prin- cipal dogmas of faith, of preaching to them the Gospel of Peace.
The Annual Letters of the English Province for the year 1656, in recording the death of Father White, state him to have.been a man of many extraordinary virtues, and relate that in his last illness he was for a long time so excessively weak that his death was daily expected, he kept often repeating: My hour is not yet come, nor is St. John the Evangelist's day. This answer he would always give to those who advised him to fortify his de- parting soul with the last sacraments of the church. At length, on the very feast of the "beloved disciple," at his morning's meditation he heard these words interiorily spoken to him: To-day thou shalt be with me. He therefore bade those attending him to call a priest, adding that he must come quickly, for, should there be the least delay, he would be dead before he could receive the last rites. Death, which quickly followed, proved his words true, although when they were spoken there was no more sign of approaching death than there had been for a fortnight before. Father White spent the last years of his life in the family of a Catholic nobleman, and died on December 27th, 1656, in his seventy-ninth year.
The gaoler of Newgate, in which Father White was confined awaiting his trial and probable capital convic- tion, noticing the rigorous fasts of the holy priest, said one day to him : " If you treat your poor old body so badly, you will not be strong enough to be taken to be
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hanged at Tyburn." The Father replied: "It is this very fasting which gives me strength enough to bear all for the sake of Christ."
Father Nathaniel Southwell gives us the following eulogium of Father White: " He was a man no less re- markable for sanctity than for learning; he would fre- quently take only bread and water for his refection, and defer even that meagre fare until evening. So great was his humility that he voluntarily sought out occasion for self-abjection. So patient was he under bodily sufferings that although laboring under a long and most trouble -. some infirmity, yet was he never heard to utter a single complaint, but, as far as was permitted him, he would carry himself as one in good health, and in this point he was an admirable counterfeiter. Finally, in all matters of business whatever, in which he was engaged, there seemed to be a certain air of sanctity inspired, so that grave men were not wanting who declared that if they had ever seen a living saint, most assuredly Father An- drew White was the man."
The Annual Letter for 1639 gives the following inter- esting details : There are in this mission four priests and one coadjutor. All are working in places far distant, with the hope, no doubt, of thus obtaining earlier acquaint- ance with the native language and propogating more widely the holy faith of the Gospel. Father John Brock, the Superior, with a coadjutor brother, remains in the plantation. Metapawnien, which was given us by Maquacomen, the King of Patuxent, is a kind of store house for this mission, whence most of our bodily supplies are obtained. Father Philip Fisher lives in the principal town of the colony, to which the
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name of St. Mary's has been given. Father John Gravenor, lives in Kent Island, sixty miles distant. Father Andrew White is at the still further distance of one hundred and twenty miles, at Kittamaquindi, the metropolis of Pascatoe, having lived since the month of June, 1639, in the palace with the King himself whom they call Tayac.
The cause of the Father's going thither is as follows : We had bestowed much time and labor in the work of the conversion of the King of Patuxent, an event antici- pated by us all, both from our recollections of kind- nesses received-for he had given to the Society a farm, as has been said-and because he was considered very powerful among the barbarians, on account of his rep- utation for wisdom and influence. Some of his people had become Catholics, and he appeared himself abund- antly instructed in the first principles of the faith, when, lo !- in the inscrutable judgments of God-the unhappy man at first procrastinated, then by degrees grew indif- ferent, and at length openly broke off altogether from the work he had commenced. Nor this only; but he also gave indications of an hostility against the whole colony not to be misunderstood. Whereupon the Governor, after prudent inquiries, determined, by the advice of his council, that the Father should be recalled from his position with the King, lest the barbarian might give sudden proof of his perfidy and cruelty against him ; and also, lest this hostage, as it were, being left in the King's power, the Governor himself might find it diffi- cult to revenge injuries, should the Patuxent at any time declare himself an open enemy.
The conversion of Maquacomen being despaired of,
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Father Andrew betook himself to the Tayac of Pisca- toway, who treated him very kindly at the first inter- view, and became so attached to him that he afterwards always held him in the greatest love and veneration, and was unwilling that the Father should use any other hos- pitality than that of his palace. Nor was the Queen inferior to her husband in benevolence to their guest, for with her own hands she was accustomed to prepare meat for him and bake bread, and waited upon him with equal care and attention.
Soon after the arrival of Father White the Tayac was in danger of death from a serious disease, and, when forty conjurors had in vain tried every remedy, the Father by permission of the sick man administered as medicine a certain powder of known efficacy mixed with holy water, taking care to have him bled the day after by a youth whom the Father always had with him. After that the sick man began daily to grow better, and soon after altogether recovered. Upon this he resolved to be initiated as soon as possible into the Christian faith, and both his wife and his two daughters along with him, for as yet he had no male offspring. Father White is now diligently engaged in their instruction, and they are not slow in receiving the Catholic doctrine, for through the light of heaven vouchsafed to them, they have long since found out the errors of their former life. The King has exchanged the skins, with which he was before clothed, for a garment after the European fashion, and he makes some little endeavor to learn our · language.
The Tayac is greatly delighted with spiritual con- versation, and seems to esteem earthly wealth as nothing
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in comparison with heavenly; as he told the Governor, to whom he was on a visit with Father White while he was under instruction, and who was explaining to him what great advantages could be enjoyed from the English by a mutual exchange of wares. " Verily," he said, " I consider all these things trifling when compared with this one advantage-that through these mission- aries I have arrived at the knowledge of the only true God, than which there is nothing greater to me, nothing which ought to be greater." Not long since, when he held a convention of other rulers, in a crowded assembly of the chiefs and a circle of common people, Father White and some of the English being present, he publicly declared it to be his advice, together .with that of his wife and children, that, abjuring the superstition of the country, they should all embrace the profession and practice of Christianity, for that the only true Deity is He Whom the Christians worshipped, nor can the immortal soul of man be otherwise saved from eternal death ; stones and herbs, to which through blindness of . mind he and they had hitherto given Divine honors, being the humblest things created by Almighty God for . the use and relief of human life. Having said this, he cast from him a stone which he held in his hand, and spurned it with his foot. A murmur of applause from the people sufficiently indicated that they did not hear these things with unfavorable ears. Thus there is the strongest hope, that, when the family of the King is purified by baptism, the conversion of the whole country
will speedily follow. In the meanwhile we heartily thank God for the present happy prospect, and are especially encouraged when we daily behold those idols
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to be the contempt of the natives which were lately reckoned in the number of their deities.
To the hope of the Indian harvest are to be added also no mean fruits reaped from the colony and its inhabitants, to whom, on the principal festival days of the year, sermons are preached, and catechetical instructions on Sundays. Our labors are rewarded, for not only Cath- olics come in crowds, but also many heretics, and this year, twelve in all renouncing their former errors, have been reconciled to God and the Church. Our Fathers are daily occupied in their Divine work, and dispense the sacraments to those who come, as often as circum- stances demand. In fine, to those in health, to the sick, to the afflicted and the dying, we strive to be in read- iness to afford counsel, relief, and assistance of every kind.
From the Annual Letter for 1640 we learn the follow- ing facts : In the mission this year were four priests and one coadjutor. We stated in our last letters what hope we had conceived of converting the Tayac, or the King of Pascatoe. In the meantime, such is the good- ness of God, the result has not disappointed our expec- tation, for he has become a Catholic, some others also being brought over with him, and on July 5th, 1640, when he was sufficiently instructed in the mysteries of the faith, he was solemnly baptized in a little chapel, which, after the manner of the Indians, he had erected out of bark for that purpose and for Divine worship. At the same time the Queen, and her infant, and others of the princi- pal men whom he especially admitted to his councils, to- gether with his little son, were regenerated in the bap- tismal font. To the King, who was called Chitomacheu
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before, was given the name of Charles; to his wife that of Mary. The others, on receiving the Christian faith, had Christian names allotted to them. The Governor, together with his Secretary, and many others, was present at the ceremony, nor was anything omitted which could help the display and which our means could supply.
In the afternoon the King and Queen were united in matrimony after the Christian rite; then the great cross was erected, in carrying which to its destined place the King, the Governor, Secretary, and others, lent their shoulders and hands ; two of us in the meantime-Fathers White and Gravenor-chanted before them the Litany of Loreto in honor of the Blessed Virgin. And not long after, the same two Fathers, White and Gravenor, had to bear by no light crosses of their own; for Father White, in performing the ceremonies of baptism, which were somewhat long, had contracted fever from which he only partially recovered, then suffered a relapse, and was ill during the whole winter. Father Gravenor so completely lost the use of his feet as to be unable to stand ; after a little he too got better, though an abscess was afterwards formed, which carried him off in the space of a few days, upon November 5th, 1640. (He died at St. Mary's City, and was buried in the graveyard there.)
A famine about this time prevailed among the Indians, owing to the great drought of the past summer ; and that we might not appear to neglect the bodies of those for the care of whose souls we had made so long a voy- age, though corn was sold at a great price, we considered it necessary to relieve them to the utmost of our power. Amidst these cares, and busied also in settling the affairs of the mission, we passed the greater part of the winter.
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On February 15th we came to Pascatoe, joyfully greeted by the inhabitants, who indeed seemed well in- clined to receive the Christian faith. So that not long after the King brought his daughter, seven years old, whom he loved with great affection, to be educated among the English at St. Mary's, and to be washed in the sacred font of baptism; she is beginning to understand the Christian mysteries. One of his counsellors also, of whom we have spoken before, desiring that the mercies of God which he had experienced in his own case should be ' brought to his people, earnestly prays that his wife and children may be led to seek the waters of salvation, which most pious desire, after suitable instruction, will, we hope, by the favor of God, be gratified.
Another King, chief of the Anacostans, whose territory is not far distant, is anxious to come and live as one of us ; and from this it is evident that a rich harvest awaits us, on which we may advantageously bestow our labor, though it is to be feared that there will not be laborers sufficient for gathering in the abundant fruits. There are other villages lying near, which, I doubt not, would -run promptly and joyfully to the light of the Gospel truth, if there was any one to impart to them the word of eter- nal life. It is not, however, right for us to be too anxious about others, lest we may seem to abandon prematurely our present tender flock ; nor need those who are sent out to assist us fear lest the means of life be wanting, for He who clothes the lilies and feeds the fowls of the air, will not leave those who are laboring to extend His king- dom destitute of necessary sustenance.
Father Andrew suffered no little inconvenience from a hard-hearted and troublesome captain of New England,
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whom he had engaged to convey him and his effects, and at whose hands he was, a little while after, in great dan- ger of being either cast into the sea, or carried with all his goods to New England, a place full of Puritan Cal- vinists. Silently committing the affair to God, he at length safely reached Potomac (commonly pronounced Patemeak). Having cast anchor in this harbor, the ship became so fast bound by a great quantity of ice that it could not be moved for the space of seventeen days. Walking on the ice, as though it were land, the Father departed for the town, and when the ice was broken up, the ship, driven and jammed by the force of its moving fragments, was sunk, but the cargo was in a great mea- sure recovered.
By this misfortune, Father White was detained in his visits as long as seven weeks, for he found it necessary to procure another ship from St. Mary's. But the spiritual gain of souls readily compensated for his delay, since the ruler of the little village, with the principal men amongst its inhabitants, was, during that time added to the Church, and received the faith of Christ through baptism. Be- sides these persons, one was converted along with many of his friends; a third brought his wife, his son, and a friend ; and a fourth, in like manner, came together with another of no ignoble standing among his people. Strengthened by their example, the people are prepared to receive the faith whenever we shall have leisure to in- struct them.
Not long after a young empress (as they call her at Pascataway) was baptized in the town of St. Mary's, and is now being educated there, having already become a proficient in the English language. Almost at the same
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time the town named Portobacco, to a great extent re- ceived the faith along with baptism. This town, from its situation on the river Pamac (the inhabitants call it Pa -. make), almost in the centre of the Indians, and the con- venience of making excursions from it in all directions, we have determined to make our residence ; the more so because we fear that we may be compelled to abandon Pascataway, on account of its proximity to the Susque- hannoes, which nation is the most hostile to the Chris- tians.
An attack having been recently made on a settlement of ours, they slew the men whom we had there, and car- ried away our goods, to our great loss.
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CHAPTER II.
Father White was ably assisted in all his early under- takings by Father John Altham, vere Gravenor, and Father Timothy Hays, alias Hanmer.
Father Altham was a native of Warwickshire, England, and was born in the year 1589. He was enrolled among the sons of St. Ignatius in 1623. Before coming to Maryland he zealously served the missions in the Devon and London Districts.
Father Hays was born in Dorsetshire, in England, in 1584. Being already raised to the dignity of the priest- hood, he entered a Jesuit Novitiate in 1617. For a long time he was engaged in missionary life in London, where he was exposed to a thousand daily dangers.
From the " Annual Letters" we learn many interesting details concerning the labors of the missionaries, and their mode of life. Thus we learn, that they made many excursions, not only by land, but also by water. One of the Fathers, writing in 1640 says : We have to content ourselves with missionary excursions, of which we have made many this year by ascending the river they call Patuxent, where some fruit has been gained in the con- version of the young Queen of the town, that takes its name from the river there, and her mother; also the young Queen of Portobacco; the wife and two sons of Tayac the Great, as they call him, who died last year, and
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