USA > New Jersey > The Catholic Church in New Jersey > Part 24
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The first assistant was given to Father von Schilgen in 1893 in the person of Rev. George H. Mueller, at present pastor of Mendham, N. J. In 1894 the Rev. Michael Rumpel was ap- pointed assistant, and during seven years helped the pastor in his zealous work for the welfare of the parish.
In July, 1901, the Rev. Andrew J. Schonhart became the assistant of Rev. H. J. Behr, D.D., and has been constant and zealous in the discharge of his duties.
Not only has St. Michael's Church worked through its people and rectors for the welfare of the flock, but she has been the mother of other and now flourishing congregations in Elizabeth.
First, St. Patrick's, Elizabeth, is her child, and it is a case in which the child has grown more famous than the mother.
Secondly, the Sacred Heart congregation was organized by the rector of St. Michael's.
Thirdly, the Holy Rosary congregation held service in St. Michael's Church in the beginning, and its rector lived with good Father von Schilgen.
Fourthly, the present Italian parish has used the old church of St. Michael's now for over twelve years, free of all obligations; so that, though St. Michael's congregation may not do overmuch boasting, her works speak eloquently for her.
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The Diocese of Newark. Its First Bishop,
JAMES ROOSEVELT BAYLEY.
AFTER the death of Bishop Connolly, February 5th, 1825, the See of New York was vacant two years, and meanwhile it was administered by the Very Rev. John Power, who had been ap- pointed vicar-general by Bishop Connolly. The Rev. John Du Bois, president and founder of Mount St. Mary's College, Em- mettsburg, Md., was consecrated second Bishop of New York, Sunday, October 29th, 1826. Bishop DuBois, born in Paris, August 24th, 1764, was educated in the College of Louis le Grand, and among his fellow-students were many who figured prominently in the historical records of their day-among them the Abbé MacCarthy, the Abbé Le Gris Duval, Robespierre, and Camille Desmoulins. Bishop DuBois was one of that illustrious band of zealous, holy, and learned priests, who, driven from their own country by the fanatical hatred of their countrymen, seemed des- tined under God to come hitherward to build deep and solid the foundations of Catholicity in this virgin field. Letters brought by him from Lafayette secured for him a welcome among the most distinguished Americans of that day-James Monroe, the Randolphs of Roanoke, the Lees, the Beveridges, and the illus- trious orator Patrick Henry. He lost no time to familiarize him- self with the language of the country. He was brimming over with that charming activity, a peculiar attraction of his race, was cour- teous, polite, and in a marked manner sympathetic with children, with whom he readily made friends, and through them not infre- quently with their parents. While studying English with Patrick Henry he did not neglect his priestly office, but visited the Cath- olics in Richmond and Norfolk. In 1794 Archbishop Carroll en- trusted him with the Frederick mission, as the pastor at that time, Father Frambach, exhausted with the labors of his active mission- ary life, was no longer able for the work. The sphere of Father DuBois's activity was not confined to Maryland, but extended into Virginia. Despite the grave apprehension of the flock of Catholics in Frederick, he determined to build for them a church. It was built, and by his thrift and zeal paid for. Soon other churches and chapels appeared in his missionary field which tested to the utmost his endurance.
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On the suggestion of the Abbé Dubourg, he determined to open a preparatory college at Emmettsburg, and in 1808 he had the satisfaction of inaugurating an institution with seven pupils that was to furnish great names not only to the Lord's vineyard, but in civil and political life. He became associated with the Society of St. Sulpice December 6th of that same year, but, after some eighteen years, he withdrew from it while still holding the esteem and affection of its members.
About this time Elizabeth Bayley Seton, a distinguished con- vert to the Catholic Church, was chosen by Bishop Carroll to establish at Emmettsburg a foundation of the Sisters of Charity, and from that little log-house on the mountain has developed an institution which down to the present has been a benediction to thousands-on the battle-field, in the hospital, in the orphanage, and in the school-room. While the new community adopted the rules of St. Vincent de Paul, still much had to be done to adapt them to the times and the altered conditions of society. His ex- perience with the Sisters of Charity in Paris and in their asylums for the insane made Father DuBois a most valuable guide and adviser. But what he did and how the little band suffered is best told by the Rev. John McCaffrey in his eulogy of Bishop DuBois in 1843:
Bishop Brutè declared that Bishop DuBois was the true father of that institution (Sisters of Charity) from the beginning. When Mother Seton first came to Emmettsburg he gave her a home on its hill. He freely shared his limited means with the nascent community ; he supported them when other support they had none. He was their confessor and director during the first years of their existence. To him Archbishop Carroll entrusted.all that related to them. He instructed, trained, directed, formed them all. He initiated them into the practice of the rules laid down by St. Vincent de Paul. He consoled, encouraged, and sustained them amid trials and difficulties which would have shaken souls less generous than theirs or his, and from the scanty stores of his own poverty he supplied them with bread, when but for him they had no alternative but to abandon their undertaking and disperse or perish for want of food. That was true heroism then exhibited in St. Joseph's vale, when this man of God taught that delicately reared and softly nurtured mother and her little band of resolute associates to suffer without complaint day after day, month after month, the gnawing pains of hunger, confident that He who feeds the ravens would not forget them, and in the hope that they might yet grow up into a community and one day be able them- selves to feed the hungry, to rear the forsaken orphan, to nurse the destitute sick, to throw themselves like tutelary angels between
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the raging pestilence and its trembling victims. That hope has been realized! Yes, departed benefactors of the poor, DuBois! Seton ! thousands of orphans, rescued from want and misery and death, or worse than death, have raised their grateful hands to heaven, imploring blessings upon you-a thousand orphans will remember you in their prayers.
Among the gardeners who aided Father DuBois in clearing the forest and tilling the farm was young John Hughes, whose extraordinary ability did not escape his keen eye, and who was one day to succeed him as fourth Bishop of New York. Bishop DuBois's life in the field of his new responsibilities was not a rose- strewn pathway, but his indomitable will, his courage, and his faith carried him safely through the troubles of the trustee sys- tem and the barriers which his nationality had raised against him. His zeal brought him to every part of his diocese, and many times did he visit the northern section of New York -- travelling at one time over three thousand miles-to dedicate churches, to admin- ister confirmation, and to bless cemeteries. There is a tradition that he visited Elizabeth and blessed a portion of the Episcopal cemetery of St. John's, that the French families might lay away their dead in hallowed ground. The pages which precede this narrative speak eloquently of his interest in this part of his dio- cese in sending zealous and faithful priests to build the foundations of the majestic edifice we now behold. When he took possession of his cathedral, there were about 25,000 Catholics in New York City, who owned three out of the seventy churches. But the commercial panic in England and the famine in Ireland in 1826 brought thousands of immigrants to our shores. Unfortunate Ireland, oppressed by her rulers, afflicted by the hand of God, desolated and decimated by famines from 1826 to 1848, was to see her population disappear and her fields and hamlets deserted. The tide of emigrants from the Sacred Isle still flows on. What were the horrors from which our forefathers fled only those who were eye-witnesses can portray. The famine of 1831 was one of the worst, and in his appeal in The Avenir for funds to send to the distressed, Montalembert gives these harrowing details:
The inhabitants of a vast parish in one of the remote counties of Ireland, completely deprived of food and reduced to the last ex- treme, are mere shadows, and calmly await death to put an end to their pangs and their misery. The priest would not abandon his flock, and died with them of hunger. When he saw there was no hope of relief, no sign of succor, he went from cabin to cabin,
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always with the same message: My dear children, in this terrible hour let us not forget our Lord, the Lord God who gives life and takes it away.
Obedient to his voice, five hundred spectres dragged them- selves to the chapel and dropped on their knees; the priest tot- tered up the steps of the altar, and there stretching out his shriv- elled hands over the heads of the dying, he tells the litany of the agonizing and recites the prayers for the dead. This agony of a whole people is the agony of a martyr, and in the yawning graves into which this people is falling like the leaves in the autumn, hell will not have a single victim .- Avenir, June 13th, 1831.
The appeal was not in vain; $16,000 was forwarded to Ire- land to relieve the sufferers.
The English Government seemed helpless or indifferent to stay the ravages of a peril ever recurring and which was losing to them millions of their subjects. This truth the London Tablet of that day confesses :
The worst feature of Ireland's condition, in the minds of Englishmen, has been for a long time its hopelessness. It seemed past help and past hope. . . . It is almost heartbreaking to think of Ireland. God, no doubt, tempers the wind to the shorn lamb, but of a truth it requires a stout heart for any minister that has to front the perils of the next twelve months. As it is, we know not what effort can be made successfully, nor how it is possible "to feed an entire nation that stretches out its hands for food " (1846).
Dark, indeed, were the scenes they left behind them and sad their memories, but who can portray the horrors of that passage over sea? The human freight was packed away in rotten hulks, tyrannized by brutal masters and mates, who held human life- especially Irish human life-cheaply. Becalmed at times and wrapped in fogs at others, imprisoned in these floating storm-cen- tres of disease, of mutiny, of riotous and brutal conduct, how many a thrilling tale has been told of life aboard these "coffin " ships! One of them was wrecked off Cape Cod, and of the hun- dreds aboard only thirteen were saved by the hardy fishermen. The captain's trunk was washed ashore, and in it was found a letter from the owners guaranteeing him a new command should he succeed in sinking the wrecked ship.
But what people can point to a nobler record of self-sacrifice, of filial piety, of intense Catholic faith than these penniless Celts, who, according to Lecky, in the twenty years ending with 1863,
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sent not less than one hundred millions of dollars to their rela- tives in Ireland (England in the Eighteenth Century, ii., 343), and who, furthermore, supported themselves, reared families, and built up the Catholic Church in the United States ?
These were the hosts which demanded the care and attention of the spiritual heads of our Church, and worried them in their anxious efforts to make provision for their spiritual welfare. With the limited means at their disposal this was simply out of the question, and hence the leakage so much to be deplored and regretted.
Feeling the burden of his office too great to be borne at his advanced age, Bishop DuBois intimated to the bishops of the third Provincial Council that he would be pleased to have a coadjutor, and asked for the appointment of the Rev. John Hughes. The bull of his appointment reached Bishop Hughes in November, 1837, and he was consecrated in St. Patrick's Cathedral, New York, by Bishop DuBois, January 7th, 1838. For twenty-eight years he dominated public opinion as a priest and a patriot, up- lifted a weak and timid flock, infused enthusiasm and courage into the hearts of priests and people, maintained their rights and dignity, defended by word and pen the dogmas and practices of holy Church, and gave Catholicity an impetus which has not yet been stayed. He swept away the tyranny of trusteeism, and scotched, if he did not kill, the strident hostility of that evil brood which attacks the Church on the plea of defending and protecting the Constitution of our country, and was in his day known as Native Americanism. His fertile mind never failed in an emer- gency.
When the Native American party in 1844 had elected one of their party Mayor, who was also the publisher of Maria Monk's infamous book, a meeting was called by them, whose object was murder and arson. Bishop Hughes sought advice with reference to the liability of the city under the laws of New York for damage done by the rioters. A lawyer assured him that there was no legal redress. Then the bishop said, "The law intends that citi- zens shall defend their own property."
An extra issue of The Freeman's Journal contained the follow- ing: "If, as it has already appeared in Philadelphia, it should be a part of Native Americanism to attack the houses or churches of Catholics, then it behooves them, in case all other protection fail, to defend both with their lives. In this they will not act against the law, but for the law. . . . But in no case let Catholics
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suffer an act of outrage on their property without repelling the aggression at all hazards."
This warning had its effect. The cowards balked. Posters appeared revoking the call for the meeting. A terrible disaster was averted, for a powerful Irish society, with branches in every section of the city, had resolved in case a single church was at- tacked, buildings should be set afire in all parts, and the great city become a prey to the flames (Shea, The Catholic Church in the United States, iv., 106).
On another occasion, when the rumor came to him that certain public men contemplated disfranchising Catholics, he said :
If there be any intention among the public men of this coun- try to disfranchise Catholics-to abridge them of their rights-in the name of all that is honorable, I would say, let it be done by a manly, noble declaration to that effect. If Protestantism cannot thrive in this country unless it have some one or more denomina- tions to degrade and trample upon-as in Great Britain and Ire- land-let it speak out and candidly make known the fact. If defamation in aggregate and detail can accomplish it, the Catho- lics of this country will soon be degraded enough in the minds of their fellow-citizens .- Metropolitan, May, 1855.
With such forcible, manly rebukes and statements he com- manded the admiration of the intelligence of the country, and the fair-minded, justice-loving public were soon all on his side. Of him Cardinal McCloskey said in his funeral oration that he was a providential man, and his life and the fruits of his laborious career fully justify the statement.
Father Hurley, the able and eloquent Augustinian of Philadel- phia, became acquainted with Bishop Hughes while he was still a seminarist in Mount St. Mary's, discharging, likewise, the duties of teacher, and expecting soon to be raised to the diaconate. Father Hurley wrote to young Hughes in 1825, advising him before ordination to prepare sermons to last at least six months, assuring him that he would find this forethought to be an advan- tage. He would then be ahead of his work, whenever called upon to perform it. The wisdom of this advice either did not appeal to the seminarist or he did not have time to act upon it. On his way to St. Augustine's, Philadelphia, where he was to begin his work, Father Hughes met Bishop Conwell on the visitation to the western part of his diocese.
Taking a fancy to the young priest, he invited Father Hughes to accompany him, and, arriving at the church, requested him to
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preach. Instead of having twenty or thirty sermons, Father Hughes had but one, and was sorry for it. However, he preached
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RIGHT REV. JAMES R. BAYLEY, First Bishop of Newark.
that sermon and preached it well. But at every church on the circuit he received the same invitation and responded with the
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same sermon, very much to his dissatisfaction. After the visita- tion was over, Bishop Conwell said to him, "That was a very good sermon, but I think I know it by heart." He became, indeed, a great preacher, ready, forcible, and eloquent, and both himself and Father Ryder attracted crowded churches even in the heat of summer.
Bishop Hughes had witnessed the almost seven-fold growth of Catholicity in the Diocese of New York since his appointment as coadjutor. Two-thirds of a vast tide of emigration settled either in the city itself or its environs. Realizing the impossibility of administering personally to their wants, and convinced that the . time for establishing new centres of the faith had arrived, he asked and obtained the division of his diocese and the creation of the new sees of Brooklyn and Newark. This important event carried with it new honors for himself, for he became the first Archbishop of New York in 1853. Early in the month of Octo- ber, 1853, the bulls appointing him first Bishop of the Diocese of Newark, which was to embrace the entire State of New Jersey, were received by James Roosevelt Bayley. The bishop-elect, at the time secretary of Archbishop Hughes, was born in New York City, August 23d, 1814. His lineage was illustrious, and in him were combined the best elements of his ancestry. Nor pen nor language can do full justice to his character. In him were blended the Celt and the Dutch, the Gaul and the Briton, and his was their perfect fruitage without their blemish. We see him, as we saw him in our childhood, noble, dignified, gentle, winsome, a man among men, even as Saul, towering head and shoulders over all, attracting by his kindliness the lowliest, twining himself deep into the affections of his priests and compeers, and com- manding by his virtues the respect even of those who differed radically from his views.
His early school-days were spent in Mendham, and afterward in Mount Pleasant, near Amherst. Here in his youth he gave that vernal promise which, ripened in maturity, made him idolized by all whose privilege it was to know him. This will appear from the following letters of two of his old classmates, written after death had ushered him to the eternal reward of a well-spent life and reft the Church of a wise counsellor and a zealous prelate.
(From the Brunswick, Me., Telegraph, October 12th, 1877.)
It is erroneous to say that Bayley was educated at Washington (now Trinity) College, Hartford, Conn. He was graduated from
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that institution, but he entered Amherst College in 1831, and passed his freshman and sophomore years in that institution, leav- ing, we think, at the close of the sophomore year. In the winter of 1832 we bade our classmates farewell, and with none did we part with more sincere regret than with James R. Bayley, between whom and ourself had sprung up the warmest friendship-a friend- ship which neither time nor long absence has served to check.
In a cold and dreary night of the month of December, 1832, a few good friends came to the hotel to say good-bye, as we entered the stage-coach, the sole passenger to be jolted over the hills of Pelham and on to Worcester. Since that hour James R. Bayley and we have never met; but we have not forgotten each other in the many years that have intervened. Correspondence at inter- vals has been kept up, and a letter received from him within two years expresses all the warmth of boyhood's hours, all the gener- osity of a nature singularly loving and lovable. There was a heartiness, a courtesy about our deceased classmate that won him many and esteemed friends, whose good-will was never impaired, however widely they may have differed from him politically and religiously.
In Amherst College Bayley sustained good rank as a scholar, though we know not the rank which he held at the time of his graduation. He possessed decided talent, a fact evident in his great and almost sudden elevation to place and power in the Catholic Church. .
We happen to know that when he was appointed Archbishop of Baltimore, a Protestant gentleman of that city expressed his gratification with the appointment, as the community would be sure of having a gentleman to fill the office.
LETTER OF JOHN CODMAN TO The Brunswick Telegraph, OCTOBER 19TH, 1877.
MY DEAR TENNEY: I was much pleased with your paper this morning. You have done justice to the memory of our old friend, James Roosevelt Bayley, and no more than justice, for his character could not be too highly estimated. In talking of him with Beecher [Henry Ward Beecher] the other day, he said: "The commodore was a sincere Christian in his line, and did more good in it than he could have accomplished in any other way. He was ' bigoted' only as all of us are in sticking to our principles."
Do you know how he came by the title of commodore? It descended upon him before we entered college, when we were schoolmates at the Mount Pleasant Classical Institution. He then had a great fancy for the sea, and actually obtained a com- mission of midshipman in the navy. When he appeared before us in his uniform preparatory to leaving school, I well remember our admiration and envy of the naval hero. But upon mature consideration he reconsidered the matter, packed his uniform
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away, and devoted himself to his studies more earnestly than ever.
At the time there were two hundred boys at Mount Pleasant, and I do not remember that the commodore was ever counted in when there was a quarrel, for he was everybody's friend. In fact, I never knew one who in all his boyhood and manhood steered so clear of all damage from collision among all sorts and conditions of men. Like you, I have maintained an acquaintance and intimacy with him till his death. He never obtruded his religious ideas upon those who differed from him, and his charity embraced all mankind.
We Mount Pleasant boys still keep up our reunions every five years on the old grounds at Amherst. The commodore's duties have not allowed him to meet with us, but he was always there in the spirit of his boyhood, as his letters on those occasions so cor- dially testify. If there is any truth in the Catholic dogma of the "intercession of the saints," I am sure that you and I with all his old chummies can count on a good word from the commodore in the quarter where he has influence.
To this testimony may be added that of Monsignor Doane, who was associated with Archbishop Bayley almost from the day he undertook the government of the Diocese of Newark.
"I was with Bishop Bayley 'quasi ab incepto,' and learned to know him and to love him well. He was a noble model of a Christian bishop. Duty was paramount with him, and his delight was to be at his work building up the kingdom of God on earth. He was constantly studying the wants of the diocese then strug- gling into existence, establishing new parishes, new schools, in- creasing the number of the clergy, preaching, giving confirmation, and attending to all the multifarious details of a Catholic bishop in temporals as well as spirituals. . .. Bishop Bayley was a most delightful companion. He was endowed with a most retentive memory, had read much, and seen men and things, and after a long life I can recall no one more delightful to be with and to hear talk than he. He seemed animated with the spirit of St. Francis de Sales, full of zeal in the episcopal office, and of kind- ness and charity to all mankind; not only relieving want, but speaking well and thinking well of everybody."
In harmony with this is the language of Senator Smith, on the occasion of the "Laymen's Celebration of the Golden Jubilee of the Diocese ": " Bishop Bayley was one of the noblest, grandest characters I have ever known. He was noble in form and feature. One had only to look at his grand face to be convinced of his nobility of character, kindness of heart, and fervent piety. I do not hope to look on his like again." And what would the poor,
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the lowly, the humble-the innumerable host of dumb admirers -say, were it possible to gather into one encomium the verdict of their unerring judgment? Their tribute is weighted with bless- ings, and to-day among the old folks Bishop Bayley is still spoken of as if the Diocese of Newark, instead of four, had had but one bishop.
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