USA > New Jersey > Essex County > Newark > History of St. John's Church, Newark > Part 7
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have violated the Second Commandment. Bishop Wigger's antidote for profanity and other bad habits is the quintessence of simplicity. Persons in all the walks of life may practice it with profit to themselves. Let members of the Holy Name Society who may read this History of St. John's recommend the antidote as occasions arise, for its practical application not only will not cost much, but will tend to promote the greater glory of Almighty God.
The officers of St. John's Sacred Heart and Holy Name Society are Father Fidelis, O. S. B., Honorary President and Spiritual Director; Bernard J. Farley, Vice-President; Miles F. Quinn, Treasurer; William J. Hagan, Secretary; and Charles Lounsbury, Marshal. The Sacred Heart League, another society, has a membership of three hundred.
There are other well organized societies in the Parish. The "Sodality of the Children of Mary" is well calculated to promote the spiritual wants of its members. It is composed of young ladies, eighty of whom are enrolled in the ranks; and the officers for 1908 are : Miss Mary Murphy, President; Miss Kath- erine R. Gaul, Vice-President; Miss Susan Barrett, Secretary ; Miss Margaret M. Deegan, Treasurer; Miss Anna L. Sharkey, Sacristan; and Father Fidelis, O. S. B., Spiritual Director. The Living Rosary Society has also a membership of eighty and is composed principally of married women; but there are unmarried women in the ranks. For the children there are two societies-"St. Aloysius Sodality" for boys, and the "Holy Angels' Sodality" for girls. The officers of St. Aloysius Sodality for 1908 are : Francis Moore, President; John Farrell, Vice-President; and Farrell Reilly, Secretary. The officers of the Holy
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Angels' Sodality are: Annette Sharkey, President; Mary Moehler, Vice-President; and Loentine Bosch- man, Treasurer. It is an interesting fact that, of the two hundred and twenty-five Parochial children, only fifteen attend the Public Schools. The census shows a population approximating eleven hundred souls-men, women and children; but all do not reside within the parochial lines of St. John's. Some live within the confines of St. James', St. Bridget's, St. Patrick's, the Holy Cross. They cannot forget their love for the old Church but continue in affiliation with her. St. John's Parish was dedicated to the Sacred Heart of Jesus one year anterior to the dedication of all the other Parishes existing in the See of Newark, then comprising the State of New Jersey.
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CHAPTER XXI
The Sisters of St. Joseph
A History of St. John's without a reference to the work done by the Sisters of St. Joseph would be very incomplete. Since they first came in 1872 from the Mother House in Chestnut Hill, Philadelphia, they have nobly done their part in the Parochial Schools. Day after day, quietly, unostentatiously, yet ever effectually, have they worked, training the little ones, planting the seeds of truth and virtue in their minds and hearts, leading them by their never failing gentle- ness and sympathy, and above all by the example of their holy, self-sacrificing, laborious lives. The sick and the poor love them also, for the good Sisters have cared for them, have comforted them and aided them, have not forgotten them. To all the Parish they have been an inspiration, and it is but meet and proper that they should have their place in the list of the Church's helpers.
The Congregation of the Sisters of St. Joseph had its origin in the city of LePuy, Province of Auvergne, France, in 1650. Its founder was Rev. J. P. Médaille, S. J., who gathered a number of young ladies in the house of a pious widow named LeJoux and organized them into a community, under Rules to which the Right Rev. Mgr. de Maupas, Bishop of LePuy, gave his sanction, and he placed them in charge of his
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Orphan Asylum on October 15th. The lives of the Sisters are contemplative, educational and charitable. In the French Revolution the Congregation met the fate of all the religious orders and communities- desolation and destruction. Mother St. John Fontbonne was Superioress of the Orphanage at Monistrol, when the Revolution broke out. Im- prisoned because she would not consent to kneel at the Mass of an apostate priest, which she was forced to attend, she was sentenced to death, but on the morning set for her execution, she was set free because of the downfall of Robespierre the previous night.
In 1807, Mother St. John was called to the city of Saint Etienne, to resume her work, and on August 7th, the Congregation of the Sisters of St. Joseph was founded anew, and on a broader basis. Ere long a community of the Congregation was estab- lished in Lyons, to which the Mother House was transferred in 1816. In 1834, Bishop Rosati, of St. Louis, Mo., visited Lyons and applied for permission to take some of the members of the Congregation to America. Six of the Sisters sailed from Havre for New Orleans, on January 17th, 1836, and arrived after a voyage of nearly fifty days. From New Orleans they proceeded to St. Louis. The Con- gregation of the Sisters of St. Joseph spread rapidly through the West. In 1847, the Philadelphia Province of the Congregation was permanently estab- lished, when the Bishop* secured a few of the Sisters to take charge of St. John's Male Orphan Asylum, then occupying the building on the North side of Chestnut street-now the site of the Free Library- in which a Novitiate was established. The first *Bishop Neumann.
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Superioress was Mother St. John Fournier, whose first mission was in St. Louis after her arrival from France in 1837. She was recalled to St. Louis in 1850; but at the urgent request of Bishop Neumann she returned to Philadelphia in May, 1853. In 1854 the Novitiate was transferred to McSherrytown, Adams County-a house formerly occupied by Ladies of the Sacred Heart. After four years, the beautiful property at Chestnut Hill, Philadelphia, was pur- chased; and to this place the Mother House with Novitiate was transferred on August 16th, 1858. Bishop Neumann visited the Convent August 21st; it was blessed and named Mt. St. Joseph, August 24th.
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Mon. Savy
CHAPTER XXII
Laborers in the Vineyard
St. John's has sent out her full measure of children into the Vineyard of the Lord. Sisters and Priests in goodly number look back to Old St. John's as the cradle of their birth in the Faith. In her schools they received their first education. At her Altar they received the Sacraments; they turned back at the time of Jubilee with joy in their hearts-rejoicing in her triumph, happy in her glory. Among the
many sons she has sent to God's service in the spread- ing of the Gospel, the most illustrious was His Grace, Most Rev. Michael Augustine Corrigan, D. D., late Archbishop of New York. It was in St. John's Parish that that saintly soul, that prototype of St. Francis de Sales, first saw the light of day and first heard the word of God. It was there that his brilliant mind was first taught the elements of learning; and his heart led him to know and love the beauty of virtue. Throughout his life he ever cherished the old Church -the Church of his childhood, the Church of his father and mother. Two brothers of Archbishop Corrigan, also embraced the Priesthood, the late Very Rev. James H. Corrigan who for several years was Vice-President of Seton Hall, and the Rev. George W. Corrigan, Rector of St. Joseph's, this city. It was the author's privilege to assist in St. John's at the
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first Mass celebrated by Father James H. Corrigan.
Others sent forth from this Parish to preach the Gospel were the late Rev. Martin O'Connor, Rector of St. Mary's Cathedral, Peoria, Illinois, and Chancel- lor of that Diocese; the Rev. Matthew Farley, Assistant at St. Joseph's, Jersey City; Rev. James A. Lundy, Assistant at St. Patrick's, Elizabeth. Daniel G. Durning, a son of Charles Durning and a brother of John C. Durning, who was born, baptized and brought up in St. John's Parish, was the first native of New Jersey who was raised to the Priest- hood. He was ordained by Bishop Hughes, and for some time was the Bishop's Secretary. Father Durning died many years ago. From an old photo- graph which has been kindly loaned, the author is enabled to print Father Durning's portrait.
The late Rev. John Tighe, Rector of St. Paul's, Greenville, Jersey City; Rev. Bernard Moran Bogan, Rector of St. Mary's, Plainfield; Rev. John Callahan, Rector of Help of Christians, East Orange; and Rev. William Richmond, Rector of Our Lady of Good Counsel, Newark, were baptized in St. John's.
Rev. John J. Connelly, who died some years ago when Pastor of St. Mary's Church, Plainfield, and his brother, City Clerk James F. Connelly, of Newark, served as altar boys in St. John's. After St. James was created, the family moved into the' new Parish. Father Connelly began his studies for the Priesthood in St. Charles, Endicott City, Md., but in the early days of the Civil War that institution was closed. He then entered Seton Hall and was one of the early graduates. After his Ordination he was sent to St. Mary's, Jersey City, and when the late Father Senez visited his native land in 1866,
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Father Connelly administered the Parish in the Pastor's absence. From Jersey City he was sent to Plainfield. It is related of him that he was the only ecclesiastic in Holy Orders who had preached in the Churches of St. Joseph, St. Patrick's Pro-Cathedral and St. James, in this city, before his elevation to the Priesthood. Father Connelly was an orator-a family trait. His brother, James F., was a member of St. John's Debating Society. Father Connelly was born in Sussex County, and died at the age of twenty- seven years.
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THREE PASTORS OF ST. JOHN'S.
In Old St. John's in years long past, through many weary day, The first young Pastor preached and pray'd, and gently led the way. And early in his pastorate he made a law and rule That all the children (Catholic) should go to Sunday School. As Pastor he was kind and true, beloved by us all; In sickness and in troublous times was prompt to every call. To gently chide the erring one and turn him from his way, A faithful shepherd watching all, lest one should go astray. Thus active, vigilant and brave, in Newark's little town, Before it was a city named of national renown; The welfare of his people and their sorrows all to know Was the all-absorbing duty of GREGORY B. PARDOW.
Another Pastor of St. John's, I do remember well- The volume should be very large to half his virtues tell- Enlarged the Church and, likewise, built the first parochial school, Where prayer before arithmetic was made a standing rule. He said the conscience should be trained to guide impulsive youth, To set him on a pure career of honesty and truth. Thirty-four years of faithful work, his ever manly course, His controversial tilts at times, maintained with crushing force; His logic clear, sometimes severe, and keenly pointed wit, The adversary would confess to many a happy hit. His whole career, so cut and clear, to mark a noble man, And give characteristic note of the REVEREND P. MORAN.
Anon, another Pastor appears in the old place, An energetic working man, an honor to his race. He preached and pray'd, but set at work to renovate the plant, No idle task, as was foreseen, to compass every want; The Church, parochial residence, the Sisters' house, the schools, To brighten up and beautify in pace with modern rules. This is the way, the very way, to stimulate the mind Of young and old, of maid and man, the all of human kind. Example set !- push on the work, nor ever fear to fail, The breeze, like FATHER POEL's bark, will fill out every sail- Will bear you swiftly on the wave and safely o'er the sea, Until you anchor at the port, from storm and danger free. So here's a toast to old St. John's and to the Pastor new, Whose work and worth and active faith 'tis pleasant to review. Celt.
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CHAPTER XXIII The "New Light Movement "
It will be remembered that what was known as the "New Light Movement" was started in Ireland by zealots of the Established Church of England in the days of the famine, and when Typhus Fever and Asiatic Cholera raged in the land. The "New Lights" were proselytizers. What bribes, the sword, the bay- onet and proscription, the vilest persecutions, could not accomplish, the proselytizers hoped to gain-to reach the soul through the stomachs of the starving and famished people. Provisions and weekly stipends of money were offered as the price of apostasy. The author well remembers those days. As a matter of fact only twenty-three, by actual count, were all that the "New Lights" could muster on the only occasion when a public profession was required of the apos- tates in the vicinity of Abbeyfeale; and there was not a Limerick apostate in the ranks-all came from the County Kerry to attend service in the Episcopal Church located about half a mile from Abbeyfeale, County Limerick.
Ireland has complained of British injustice-that she has suffered the wholesale eviction of her families without cause or provocation-that her children have been robbed and they, the lords of the soil, driven from their homes to make room for pasturing cattle
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-that her Religion has been proscribed-that her Bishops and Priests have been hunted down like wild beasts and a price set upon their heads. Why these persecutions? The answer is twofold: Love of God and Love of Country. Ireland would not apostatize from the faith preached upon the hills of Tara by the Apostle of the Irish Nation. Fidelity to the Church only exceeded love of Country. Indeed these two loves might be said to be so closely entwined in the Irish people as if to appear coexisting in their very nature-that God and Country is the motto indelibly inscribed in their heart and mind. Patriotism without religion is like a body without a soul; and if what an eminent writer says is true- that "the only difference between a noble and a mean creature is the love of freedom," then the Irish race may be called with pardonable pride "God's Own Nobility." Surely there is a just Tribunal before which nations as well as individuals must render an exact account-surely there will be a day of retribu- tion; and on that day when Ireland shall stand in presence of that Tribunal and demand justice for her martyred children, rather would the author be found among the oppressed and the enslaved than be counted with the rulers and the oppressors.
The Irish people still cherish the "Spirit of a Nation"-adherence to Faith and love of Freedom -and although overpowered they have never been subdued-although enslaved they have never con- sented to wear the yoke of the oppressor. They may be dreamers; but they fondly hope and firmly believe that Ireland's day of emancipation is not far distant when Robert Emmett's Epitaph will be written. In
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connection with the "New Light Movement," the following may be found interesting:
On Good Friday, 1849, the author's father died of the Asiatic scourge; and, a few days later, the parson called at our home. He offered mother half a crown a week for herself, a shilling a week for the eldest son, ten pence a week for the second eldest, six pence a week for the third, four pence a week for the fourth; but all that the body and soul of the author, then not five years old, was con- sidered worth to the Church of England, established by Act of Parliament, was two pence a week! The souls of a sister and a fifteen months' old brother were of no value in the parson's sight. Of course the payment of the sums named was contingent upon apostasy from the Faith. The widowed mother, God rest her soul, seized a blackthorn stick and laid it fast and heavy upon the parson's back until he beat a hasty retreat. She has passed away. Her death was sudden; but even for that one heroic act of faith, there is an abiding hope that mercy was shown to her when her soul was summoned to appear before the Tribunal of Justice. The Rev. Mr. Hamilton, the father of George Hamilton, of John Mullins & Son, furniture dealers, Market street, and of the late Colonel William H. Hamilton, who conducted furni- ture stores in Market and Broad streets, Newark, some years ago, was the "rural dean" at that time in the part of Ireland in which Abbeyfeale is located. Colonel Hamilton, a few years ago, assured the writer that his father never favored the "New Light Movement."
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CHAPTER XXIV
Catholic Education
About ninety years ago only a few Irish Catholics were settlers in Newark. They were poor and had but little or no education. Was it their fault? Rather was it not their misfortune? The people of Ireland had been ruled for centuries by aliens who robbed and plundered them. In the palmy days of Anglicanism in Ireland Catholic education was proscribed by Act of the British Parliament, and the penalty for violation of the "law" was death! That Act has never been repealed. It remains still upon the British Statute Book-a monument to the infamy and intolerance of a so-called enlightened nation! The civilization of the Twentieth Century must contem- plate with horror and amazement that a nation which boasts of its superior civilization should attempt to keep a portion of its people in ignorance-retard the march of intellect, the development of the human mind. Bishops, Priests and schoolmasters who dared to discharge their duties to God and their fellow men were hunted down and put to death as if they were public malefactors. What an absurdity is it not for the enemies of the Irish people to accuse us of "poverty and ignorance," when Great Britain is the author of the policies which produced both? When the Irish settlers in Newark came to America,
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+ Rich Luke Concanen First Bishop of New York.
HISTORY OF ST. JOHN'S CHURCH
they were determined that their children should enjoy the privilege of education that had been denied to themselves. The few who had some educa- tion taught their children and the children of others to read, write and figure. These instructions were given at their homes. In the early Twenties, Edward Quinn, a classical scholar, who settled in Newark, gave lessons to children and young men and women.
The Catholic Church has ever shown a consuming zeal in the education of youth. They will never cease to draw a responsive echo from her heart. They have been her watchword in all her struggles for Christian Education. Open the pages of her Councils, and you will find there the loving words of her Master : "Suffer the little ones to come unto me and do not prevent them." This is strongly in evidence in the case of the American Bishops, assembled for the first time in Plenary Council. Those tender pleadings of the Master's voice constitute the warrant for urging everywhere the establishment of Parish Schools. Again, in another Plenary Council of Baltimore the same language-for truth is unchanging-reappears. In the Pastoral Letter, the Bishops give two reasons for sending children to Catholic Schools: First, because of their conviction that religious teach- ing and religious training should form part of every system of school education. The intrinsic reason of their conviction, however, is this: Religion, or God's revealed truth, is like the light of the Sun which sheds its rays broadcast over hill and valley, sea and river. One in itself, its radiance is universal. All nature reflects the splendor of its beauty. So, whatever truth there is in this world, in science or in art, what- ever true progress in humanity, is a reflection of
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Divine Truth and has relations with it; for truth can- not contradict itself, neither can its teachings be at variance. Therefore to exclude religion from education would be like cutting off the air that we breathe, like proscribing the light when we go forth in the sun- shine. To exclude religion from the School, we must banish God from His own creation, so that the course of human events, the product of human thought, shall no longer be necessarily bound up in Him "in Whom we move and live and have our being." Besides this reason, drawn from the very nature of the case, the Fathers of Baltimore affirm that every day's experi- ence renders it evident that to develop the intellect and store it with knowledge, while the heart and its affections are left without the control of religious principles sustained by religious practices, is to pre- pare for parent and child the most bitter disappoint- ment in the future, and for society the most disastrous results. Thus did the Plenary Councils of Baltimore place the seal of approval upon the educational work of the late Very Rev. Patrick Moran.
The Catholics of the Diocese of Newark, as well as our co-religionists of the other Sees throughout the United States, are deserving of the greatest praise for the sacrifices which they are making to promote the cause of Christian Education. This work is being prosecuted earnestly and zealously and successfully but unostentatiously. There is no blowing of trum- pets or beating of tom toms to attract attention. To encourage knowledge, the handmaid of Religion, is regarded as a work of duty and of love. From time to time we read in the daily press of munificent individual contributions made by wealthy Protestants to the endowment funds of non-Catholic Colleges and
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Universities, whose systems are barren of education; and public institutions in which the name of God is rarely if ever mentioned are erected and conducted at the expense of the taxpayers. The gifts of individual Protestants represent sums ranging from thousands and hundreds of thousands of dollars into the millions. But seldom do we read of any wealthy Catholics contributing munificent sums to Catholic Colleges and Universities. While this is regrettable, still the Catholic people are doing their full measure of duty-making heroic sacrifices to keep the lamp of true science burning; and this is strikingly evidenced by the statistics of the Official Catholic Directory for 1908. There are between 30,000 and 35,000 Religious engaged in teaching in this country; and, calculating that $500 a year as about what each should receive for individual services, we have a figure of at least $15,000,000 per annum. This sum, if capitalized at the moderate interest rate of five per cent., makes an endowment fund of $300,000,000 invested to promote the cause of Catholic education in this country; and the figure is conservative. Dr. James J. Walsh, who is one of the most brilliant Catholic minds in America, recently called the attention of the members of the Xavier Alumni Sodality, of New York, to these figures; and, speaking of the progress of Catholicity in the United States during the past century, he said that "every five miles along the Hudson River there is a handsome Catholic institution," and that "the same thing is practically true as regards the Pennsylvania Railroad between New York and Philadelphia."
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CHAPTER XXV
A Most Remarkable Speech by Dr. Woodrow Wilson, President of Princeton University
The most remarkable speech, made upon education during the school year, 1907-8, was given by Woodrow Wilson, President of Princeton University, on the occasion of the Convention of the Association of Colleges and Preparatory Schools of the Middle States and Maryland, held in the College of the City of New York, on November 29th, 1907. Dr. Wilson made this remarkable statement:
"I have been teaching now for nearly twenty years. I have been conducting Classroom Exercises for nearly twenty years, and I don't think I have been teaching any appreciable portion of that time. I have been delivering lectures which I meant to be interesting, and the result has been that my pupils for the most part have remembered my stories and forgotten my lectures. We have just passed through a period abounding in pedagogical theories. We have been doing nothing else but making experiments upon lads and youths for the purpose of testing some new fangled notions, which we put forth more out of intellectual curiosity than of deep conviction. You know perfectly well what the result has been; you know that the children of the past two or three decades in our Schools have not been educated. You know that with all our teaching WE TRAIN NOBODY; you know THAT WITH ALL OUR INSTRUCTION WE EDUCATE NOBODY."
Here is a tremendous indictment against the non-Catholic educational methods in every grade of school, from the Grammar to the University. Throughout his whole discourse the President of Princeton University enforced the proposition with which he had begun. For several decades our great
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Colleges and Universities, he said, have been educating nobody. A vast amount of information has been imparted, but no real education has been accomplished. Dr. Wilson proposed that the way to educate is to have a set of formative subjects : Language and Literature, Science and Mathematics, History and Philosophy. Assign your task to each of these, and as your task becomes easy, substitute something more difficult in the same line. Train the mind, and every faculty of the mind, by exercise in these formative studies, and at the end of your four years of High School and your four years of College you will have an educated man.
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