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MEMOIRS OF ZI PRE' 
 
 EDMUND M/±>UNNE, D.D 
 
 >l 
 
 Bishop of Peoria 
 
 'osr*^* 
 
 ST. LOUIS, MO., 1914 
 
 Published by B. Herder 
 
 17 South Broadway 
 
 FREIBURG (Baden) 
 GERMANY 
 
 68, Great Russell Str. 
 LONDON, W. C. 
 

 Copyright, 191% 
 
 by 
 
 Joseph Gummersbaoh 
 
 All rights reserved 
 Printed in U. 8. A. 
 
 VAIL-BALLOU COMPANY 
 
 BINGHAMTON AND NEW YORK 
 
 $C £ZL- Hff < 
 DEC 10 1914 
 
 CI.A388782 
 
FOREWORD 
 
 The present booklet treats of a few doctrinal 
 points unavoidably omitted in a former tract 
 bearing the title of " Polemic Chat/' When 
 these Memoirs began to appear serially in the 
 Peoria Cathedral Calendar, a friendly critic 
 remarked : " The Bishop is utilizing his paro- 
 chial experiences among the Italians ' to point a 
 moral and adorn a tale.' " Precisely. Our 
 chief aim in the present chronology of events is 
 to instruct the people, " to preach the word in 
 season and out of season, reproving, entreating, 
 rebuking in all patience and doctrine." 
 
 Several anachronisms as well as changes in 
 the names and occupations of the characters have 
 been purposely introduced, so that the ingenuity 
 of even a Sherlock Holmes might be baffled 
 should he attempt to identify them with certain 
 individuals of the Italian colony. 
 
 Some may deem Pasqualino too clever for his 
 tender age. Unusqiiisque abundat sensu suo. 
 Please consider, friendly or hostile reader, as 
 the case may be, that our youthful polemist had 
 completed three years of classics with unusual 
 success before encountering his adversary. The 
 
FOREWORD 
 
 children of sunny Italy develop much earlier 
 than those of northern climes. Youthful prodi- 
 gies bud forth occasionally in the realm of litera- 
 ture, poetry, painting, music and mathematics. 
 Why should they not blossom also in the field of 
 polemics? Besides, were Pasqualino a youth of 
 mediocre talent, his utterances would not be 
 worth recording. At any rate it is upon them 
 and not upon his personality that we wish to 
 focus your attention. 
 
 Pasqualino's father represents indeed no par- 
 ticular individual, but rather the composite em- 
 bodiment of reprehensible traits which Zi Pre' 
 had ample occasion to reprove among the male 
 members of his flock. The exemplary Christian 
 virtues of the mother have not been overdrawn. 
 The most elaborate portrayal of maternal solici- 
 tude and self-sacrifice falls, as a general rule, 
 immeasurably below the reality. 
 
 The tactics of Evangelical zealots to wrest 
 Italian children from the One True Fold, are 
 melancholy facts familiar to the hundred or 
 more Sunday School teachers of Guardian Angel 
 Mission. The conversion of the proselytizer, 
 his subsequent public reparation and edifying 
 death are true in every detail. 
 
 The Author. 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 CHAPTER PAGE 
 
 I Italian Quarter i 
 
 II Italian Customs 13 
 
 III Proselytizers 19 
 
 IV Pasqualino 28 
 
 V Early Training 39 
 
 VI Misnomer for a School ...... 49 
 
 VII Confirmation 60 
 
 VIII School Days 7 2 
 
 IX At the Zoo 82 
 
 X Pseudo-Reformers 92 
 
 XI Unity . 102 
 
 XII Sanctity . . . .109 
 
 XIII Catholicity 118 
 
 XIV Apostolicity 125 
 
 XV Visible Head of the Church .... 133 
 
 XVI Infallibility 143 
 
 XVII Veneration of Sacred Images . . . .152 
 
 XVIII Veneration of Relics and Invocation of 
 
 Saints 162 
 
 XIX Extreme Unction 171 
 
 XX Indulgences 178 
 
 XXI Purgatory 185 
 
 XXII Immaculate Conception 194 
 
 XXIII The Rosary 205 
 
 XXIV Fasting and Abstinence . . . . . 212 
 XXV Christian Ethics 220 
 
 XXVI The Awakening ........ 231 
 
MEMOIRS OF ZI PRE 
 
 j 1 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 ITALIAN QUARTER 
 
 ON the south side of Forquer Street, Chi- 
 cago, and nearly midway between Des- 
 plaines and Halsted, there stands an unpreten- 
 tious brick structure with a Romanesque fagade 
 surmounted by a Roman cross. It is the Chiesa 
 deirAngelo Custode. The mellow tints of sea 
 and sky in the decoration of the interior from 
 vestibule to sanctuary are unmistakably Italian. 
 The stained-glass windows of St. Michael, St. 
 Raphael, and of the Guardian Angel, carry the 
 thoughts of the onlooker back to the basilicas 
 of Rome and Florence and cause him to murmur 
 the names of Italian masters. The statues of 
 San Vito, Rocco, Lucia, and Sebastiano, recall 
 vividly to mind those Christian martyrs espe- 
 cially dear to the Italian heart, while Raphael's 
 Madonna della Sedia tenderly clasping her Di- 
 
 1 Zi Pre' is an abbreviation of Zio Preute meaning 
 "Uncle Priest," a familiar title given the clergy in 
 Southern Italy. 
 
 I 
 
2 MEMOIRS OF ZI PRE' 
 
 vine Bambino seems to look down with maternal 
 solicitude upon the congregation gathered in rev- 
 erential attitude to assist at Holy Mass and hear 
 the word of God in their native tongue. 
 
 The sacred edifice and its humble surroundings 
 are redolent of Italy. Forquer Street is an in- 
 significant, narrow thoroughfare jutting east 
 from Canal, making a slight jog at Halsted, and 
 terminating west in Blue Island Avenue. It 
 might easily pass for any one of the crooked 
 lanes in lower Naples. In fact, when the visitor 
 hears the itinerant peddlers shouting: " Ecco 
 donne, le palate I i cavoli! le cipolle!" it requires 
 quite a mental effort to realize that he is in the 
 heart of Chicago and not upon an Italian border 
 of the Mediterranean. Guardian Angel Parish 
 comprises emigrants from nearly every province 
 of the Italian peninsula as well as from Sicily. 
 The representation from Modena, Milan, Pied- 
 mont, and Genoa is rather small ; but the natives 
 from Naples, Salerno, Bari, Basilicata, Abruzzi, 
 Calabria, Catanzaro, le Marche, Lucca, Messina, 
 and Palermo, are as plentiful as the English 
 sparrow. A parish averaging annually over a 
 thousand baptisms cannot be even remotely sus- 
 pected of race suicide. The Northern Italians 
 are generally well educated, while their brothers 
 of the South are quite illiterate. For fully one- 
 half of the latter the confessor is obliged to re- 
 
ITALIAN QUARTER 3 
 
 cite the Atto di dolor e and have them repeat it 
 after him. Yet even these are not so ignorant 
 of religious truth as might be inferred from their 
 inability to recite a set formula of prayer. One 
 individual who could not decipher his name in 
 letters two feet long on a sign board was told 
 that he could not communicate on a certain 
 morning. The priest did not wish to delay the 
 Mass by hearing his confession. 
 
 " E perche non si puo communicare ? " he de- 
 manded. 
 
 " Perche non ci sono particole in numero suf- 
 ficiente," replied the priest. 
 
 " Potete f rangerle," persisted the poor fellow. 
 Needless to say his confession was heard. 
 
 The Southern Italians compensate in their 
 working knowledge of the Ten Commandments 
 for what they lack in secular education. They 
 are honest, industrious, and temperate, pure in 
 their domestic lives and law-abiding in their 
 civic relations. Some of them are generous 
 even beyond their means and imbued with a 
 deep sense of gratitude. The Socialists among 
 them are few but ferocious. At heart they are 
 really anarchists. It is characteristic of the 
 Latin races that they are never content with half- 
 way measures. The Southern Italians have a 
 keen sense of right and wrong. They are 
 scrupulously faithful in keeping their word. 
 
4 MEMOIRS OF ZI PRE' 
 
 Abortion, the limitation of the size of families 
 by unlawful practices, deliberate murder for lust 
 or gain, are crimes practically unknown among 
 them. Black Hand tactics were unheard of 
 among the inhabitants of the West Side colony 
 until that travesty on justice in Omaha where 
 the kidnapper was acquitted. His success has 
 apparently encouraged blackmailers of all na- 
 tionalities throughout the country. 
 
 The idea prevailing among not a few Ameri- 
 cans that the chief occupation of Italians consists 
 in pushing a banana cart, selling peanuts, or 
 grinding an organ with monkey obbligato, is li- 
 belous. The street musicians hail with few ex- 
 ceptions from Senerchia, and seldom mix with 
 the rest of the Italian colony. Occasionally the 
 Italians may get excited over a game of morra 2 
 or boccia, 3 but it is rarely serious. The vast ma- 
 jority of the men are manual laborers. They 
 are engaged in excavating, grading, mining, or 
 sweeping the streets. The women make chil- 
 dren's clothes which are sold in the department 
 stores. The boys sell newspapers or polish 
 shoes. The latter have Italianized their occupa- 
 
 2 Morra is a popular game in which the contestants 
 usually gamble for the drinks by guessing the number 
 of fingers the opponent throws out. 
 
 3 Boccia is a pastime in which the players roll wooden 
 balls along the ground and the one bowling nearest to 
 a given ball is declared victor. 
 
ITALIAN QUARTER 5 
 
 tion and style themselves shinatori. Very few 
 of the men are fond of whiskey. Many of the 
 railroad laborers return in the Fall to the city 
 where they spend the winter in enforced idle- 
 ness. Some of them pass this period in drink- 
 ing, carousing, and slashing one another, which 
 of course benefits neither soul nor body. Many 
 a family produces its own wine. This was im- 
 pressed upon the pastor's memory in a rather 
 unforgettable way. He had been preparing a 
 young Italian couple for First Holy Communion. 
 The parents of the bride kept a fruit store near 
 the church. One evening while strolling by 
 their door the priest dropped in to pay them a 
 visit. The family happened to be quietly cele- 
 brating a birthday of one of the members. All 
 arose in deference to " Zi Pre' " or Uncle Priest, 
 as he is familiarly called by Southern Italians. 
 The mother hastened to procure him a glass of 
 the wine they were drinking, and assured him 
 that it was very pure because home-made. As 
 the priest was unfamiliar with the wine-making 
 process, the good woman sought to enlighten him 
 on the subject, and remarked incidentally: 
 " Abbiam f atto chisto vino dalle uve che non si 
 potevan vendere, perche comminciavano gia a 
 guastare. Ecco ! " It was the first and last 
 time " Zi Pre' " irrigated his thorax with home- 
 made wine. 
 
6 MEMOIRS OF ZI PRE' 
 
 It has often been observed that at High Mass 
 the congregation is composed mostly of men, 
 whilst at the early Masses the women are in the 
 majority. Undoubtedly more men than women 
 emigrate from Italy to America. Most of the 
 mothers cannot go to High Mass, because they 
 must attend to domestic duties, look after the 
 small children, prepare the dinner, etc. 
 
 Italian bishops and priests should try to dis- 
 suade husbands from emigrating unless accom- 
 panied by their wives. Whilst in some instances 
 " absence makes the heart grow fonder," and re- 
 mittances are kept up regularly for a certain 
 period, with an alarming number it becomes a 
 case of "out of sight out of mind." The divi- 
 sion of the family usually proves disastrous. 
 Everything here in America seems to conspire 
 against the Italian immigrant so as to render him 
 oblivious of both God and family. Ignorant of 
 the language of the country, he is handicapped 
 from the very moment of his arrival. 
 
 Poverty, poor crops, and excessive taxation 
 drives him here, like the Irish, German, and 
 Slav, to better his condition. The others came 
 with their clergy; the Italian did not. Anxious 
 to secure employment, he easily falls a prey to 
 the schemers of his own nationality. They bat- 
 ten upon his ignorance and inexperience. Once 
 a poor fellow came to " Zi Pre' " for a letter of 
 
ITALIAN QUARTER 7 
 
 recommendation to the Mayor in order that he 
 might obtain work in cleaning the streets. " I 
 don't want to ask so-and-so, a saloonkeeper and 
 ward heeler," he said, " because if he gets me the 
 job, I shall have to pay him so much a month. 
 Failing to do so, he will have me ' fired ' in 
 order that some other unfortunate may be 
 fleeced." Work is promised him perhaps with 
 a section gang, but on condition that he pay the 
 labor agent five or ten dollars for the privilege. 
 It is aggravating to hear flippant individuals 
 speak of " the lazy, shiftless Italian." His first 
 and consuming desire is to get work not only for 
 himself, but also for every member of his family 
 able to become a wage-earner. Many of the 
 Italian children are remarkably bright, and if 
 only allowed to pursue their studies might be- 
 come prominent in professional, commercial, and 
 political life. Nobody will question the neces- 
 sity of a child labor law. Those enforcing it, 
 however, should be endowed with discretionary 
 power. The Illinois statute regarding child 
 labor has apparently done more harm than good 
 in its application. The requirements, calculated 
 to prevent all possible deception, closely re- 
 semble the measurements employed in the Ber- 
 tillon system. One might infer that the factory 
 inspector was dealing with criminals rather than 
 with the offspring of honest parents. The only 
 
8 MEMOIRS OF ZI PRE* 
 
 thing lacking in the demands is that of a wax 
 impression of the applicant's hands and feet. 
 To state the age and sex of the child may pass, 
 but when it comes to defining the color of his 
 complexion and hair, his weight, stature, and 
 other peculiarities of his body, the requirements 
 of the labor certificate border on the imperti- 
 nent as well as ridiculous. To be thoroughly 
 appreciated, this law, fathered and promoted by 
 the much-advertised social uplifters, must be 
 seen in action. A poor Italian widow, the 
 mother of four children, came to the rectory one 
 day seeking a labor certificate for her oldest boy 
 of sixteen, so that he might continue unmolested 
 at his work. He was the sole support of the 
 family. His employer told him he would have 
 to quit unless he obtained an affidavit from the 
 Board of Education. We repaired to the Juve- 
 nile Court thinking to obtain there the necessary 
 permit. The judge's heart went out in sym- 
 pathy to the unfortunate mother, but he was 
 powerless to act. He could only give an affi- 
 davit as to the boy's age. That alone would not 
 suffice. The boy should furthermore have an 
 affidavit from the Board of Education, which 
 positively refused to issue a certificate to any 
 child unable to read and write the English lan- 
 guage! This the youth could not do, as he was 
 only a few months in the country. What relief 
 
ITALIAN QUARTER 9 
 
 then was in sight for this unfortunate family? 
 None. The mother could be sent to the poor- 
 house, the younger brothers and sisters might be 
 placed in orphanages. The oldest boy was too 
 big for the orphan asylum. Nothing was left 
 for him but to beg or steal. He should not dare 
 to earn his living by the sweat of his brow be- 
 cause that was illegal! When a law forbids 
 work to those who are eager to work and forces 
 them into pauperism, " white slavery," or other 
 disreputable methods of gaining a livelihood, the 
 sooner it is repealed or radically amended, the 
 better for all concerned. 
 
 Near the church lived an old man who had be- 
 come violently insane. One morning he tried to 
 slit his niece's throat with a potato knife. She 
 ran across the street to the rectory for protec- 
 tion. A half hour later the affrighted niece and 
 her demented kinsman in the custody of two 
 policemen were conveyed in a patrol wagon to 
 the detention hospital, while the priest proceeded 
 thither in a street car. The occupants of the 
 patrol wagon breathed a sigh of relief upon 
 reaching their destination, for their trip was far 
 from being a " joy ride." All the way the un- 
 fortunate man had kept up a rambling denuncia- 
 tion of everybody in general and of " Zi Pre 5 " 
 in particular, whom he designated as the prince 
 of devils. After the maniac's commitment, the 
 
io MEMOIRS OF ZI PRE* 
 
 judge, having another Italian case on the docket, 
 requested the priest to remain and act as inter- 
 preter. A clean-shaven, intelligent-looking man 
 of about thirty, and dressed as a waiter, had been 
 arrested in the loop district for having expec- 
 torated in a lady's face! The prosecutor main- 
 tained that the waiter was a dangerous para- 
 noiac who imagined that all women were trying 
 to ensnare him. This he vigorously denied 
 when questioned by the priest. " It is only that 
 painted street- walker," he exclaimed ; " she has 
 visited the restaurant repeatedly. Yesterday she 
 kept dogging me with her importunities in a 
 crowded thoroughfare, and to show my disgust 
 I tried to spit in her face. Unfortunately I 
 missed her and struck someone else. The 
 officer allowed her to escape and arrested 
 me. 
 
 " Are you a Catholic ? " asked the priest. 
 
 " Yes," he replied, at the same time producing 
 a rosary from his vest pocket. His answers to 
 the queries convinced the judge of his sanity 
 and he was released. He fared much better 
 than another Italian who spent eleven months in 
 a federal prison for supposed complicity with a 
 gang of counterfeiters. He might yet be lan- 
 guishing in jail, had not his pastor in the old 
 country become interested in his case. The 
 granting of a bonus for every conviction is not 
 
ITALIAN QUARTER n 
 
 always free from the danger of flagrant injus- 
 tice. 
 
 Shortly before the completion of Guardian 
 Angel Church the priest was summoned to at- 
 tend a poor Italian named Giuseppe Lio, who 
 was shot down in cold blood by a murderous po- 
 liceman. Some teachers of the Polk Street 
 School had complained of the side-walk being 
 obstructed by Italians. Giuseppe was seated 
 with a couple of companions on a garbage box 
 in front of his boarding-house. The policeman 
 ordered them to move on. Giuseppe pointed to 
 the lodging-house and tried to explain that he 
 lived there, and then the shooting followed. 
 Immediately after, this uniformed assassin was 
 seen by several witnesses to enter a hallway and 
 close the door. A few minutes later he emerged 
 with his coat all slashed, evidently for the pur- 
 pose of creating the impression that his unfor- 
 tunate victim had assaulted him with a stiletto! 
 Giuseppe carried no weapon of any kind. Noth- 
 ing was done to this guardian of the peace. He 
 was simply transferred to another precinct. 
 Such injustices could be easily avoided or at least 
 greatly diminished in number by appointing more 
 Italians on the police force. At the time of the 
 above-mentioned occurrence there were but two 
 Italian policemen in the City of Chicago with an 
 Italian population of about sixty thousand! 
 
12 MEMOIRS OF ZI PRE 9 
 
 Many Italians are prevented from joining the 
 force because unable to pass the physical ex- 
 amination. Surely something more than girth 
 and stature is required in an efficient policeman. 
 What some of the Italian aspirants to the force 
 lack in physical measurements may be counter- 
 balanced by intelligence and courage. Petro- 
 sino, the New York detective, who was assas- 
 sinated a few years ago in Sicily, was in the 
 front rank of his profession. 
 
CHAPTER II 
 
 ITALIAN CUSTOMS 
 
 THE peculiar custom of having both a civil 
 and religious marriage ceremony in Italy 
 causes many bridal couples to fall easy victims 
 to the wiles of justice-shop solicitors who prey 
 upon their credulity and their supposition that 
 the marriage laws of this country and Italy are 
 practically the same. Are the justices of the 
 peace in collusion with these individuals? Are 
 the latter paid a commission for deceiving Ital- 
 ian immigrants? We are inclined to think so. 
 Why should they drum up trade for a justice of 
 the peace unless there be some remuneration in 
 sight ? Some of the " runners " speak Italian 
 and have very persuasive methods. It is among 
 the Italians that they reap the most abundant 
 harvest. " Wouldn't you like to be married ac- 
 cording to the laws of the state the same as in 
 Italy ? " they ask of the prospective bridegroom 
 and bride. u It only costs $3.50, and for an 
 extra half-dollar you will receive a beautiful 
 marriage certificate with a picture of the Bible 
 
 13 
 
14 MEMOIRS OF ZI PRE' 
 
 and the matrimonial bark drawn by two im- 
 maculate swans. This you can frame and hang 
 up for an ornament over the domestic hearth." 
 Che bellezzal Many Italian couples, like unsus- 
 pecting geese, are thus deluded. Even were 
 they aware that the civil ceremony is not re- 
 quired in this country, it does not take much to 
 persuade them that returning to Italy with a cer- 
 tificate only from the priest, the Italian govern- 
 ment will not recognize their marriage as valid. 
 The imposition usually succeeds with the rela- 
 tives of the bride, and they insist upon the per- 
 formance of the civil ceremony before a judge. 
 When upbraided for their folly by the priest, 
 they reply that they were simply following the 
 Italian custom. He tells them that, being now 
 in America, they should follow American and 
 not Italian customs. In Italy no marriage is 
 considered legal unless a formal ceremony be 
 performed by a state official. In America the 
 state grants the same authority regarding the 
 marriage ceremony to priests, judges, and jus- 
 tices. Bridegroom and bride require only a mar- 
 riage license from the County Clerk, who exacts 
 a nominal fee for his trouble. They should 
 bring this document to the parish priest who is 
 authorized both by Church and State to marry 
 them. Within thirty days after the ceremony 
 he is obliged in Illinois under penalty of a hun- 
 
ITALIAN CUSTOMS 15 
 
 dred dollars' fine to fill out the license and return 
 it to the County Clerk for record. If the Ital- 
 ian peasants could only be induced to follow this 
 counsel, they would save themselves a great 
 amount of annoyance, expense, and ridicule, 
 and, above all, they would avoid the commission 
 of a sacrilege. 
 
 In spite of the blunders occasionally made 
 anent civil marriage, the Southern Italians cling 
 tenaciously to many of the old-country customs 
 which emigrants of other nationalities might do 
 well to imitate. Chief among these customs is 
 the good old-fashioned practice of chaperoning 
 their daughters. Seldom do you hear of an 
 Italian girl going astray. Italian maidens are 
 never permitted to attend evening entertain- 
 ments, balls, or receptions, unless accompanied 
 by their parents. When the daughters reach the 
 age of seventeen or eighteen, it is difficult to 
 keep them under restraint. The parents prefer 
 then that they marry, and be under a husband's 
 care and protection. 
 
 The misinterpretation of Italian names is 
 something awful, and largely due to the negli- 
 gence of American school-teachers, who seem to 
 be totally indifferent whether or not they grasp 
 correctly the names of their pupils. Vincenzo, 
 Vincent, a young Italian boy, assured me that his 
 name was Jimmie. Assunta or Assumption, the 
 
16 MEMOIRS OF Zl PRE' 
 
 name of an Italian girl, was erroneously ren- 
 dered Susie. In the Sunday-school Lucy was 
 falsely given for Leontina; Charlie for Egidio, 
 Tom for Domenico; Gus for Costantino; and 
 Mike for Pasquale! The pastor once encoun- 
 tered the keeper of an ice-cream parlor who pre- 
 sented his card with the inscription: Sullivan 
 N — . " What is your baptismal name in Ital- 
 ian? " asked the priest. " Salvatore," replied the 
 man. It took a long argument to convince this 
 usurper of the Hibernian title that the English 
 equivalent of Salvatore was not Sullivan, but 
 Salvator or Saviour. Italian children are usu- 
 ally named after the feast day on which they are 
 born. Hence when you hear them called Na- 
 tale, Pasquale, Annunziata, Assunta, or Con- 
 cetta, you may safely presume that their birth- 
 days fell respectively on the feast of Christmas, 
 Easter, Annunciation, Assumption, or the Im- 
 maculate Conception. 
 
 It is not unusual to see infants wearing ear- 
 rings and bedecked with jewelry when brought 
 to the church for baptism. Like the rabbit's 
 foot with the " darkey," the ornamentation of a 
 Neapolitan bambino would be incomplete with- 
 out a charm of coral to protect it against the 
 malign influence of the jattatura, or evil eye. 
 
 The Southern Italian is passionately fond of 
 music and pyrotechnics. Within its boundaries, 
 
ITALIAN CUSTOMS 17 
 
 Guardian Angel parish can boast of at least forty 
 incorporated benevolent societies named after 
 various titles of the Madonna or after some saint 
 held in special veneration by the members. 
 
 A lamentable feature of the societies is that 
 most of them hold their meetings Sunday morn- 
 ing. Every society celebrates annually the feast 
 day of its patron with a Solemn High Mass and a 
 panegyric. The latter to be effective must in- 
 variably conclude with a fervent prayer invok- 
 ing the protection of the heavenly patron upon 
 all the members of the society from every imag- 
 inable evil, temporal as well as spiritual. " Zi 
 Pre' " fancied that upon one occasion he had de- 
 livered a very masterful discourse on the Blessed 
 Virgin; to be precise, it was the feast of the 
 Madonna di Monte Viggiano. He was, how- 
 ever, speedily disillusioned by the caustic criti- 
 cism made by a poor woman upon leaving church 
 at the end of the Mass. " Cosa ve ne pare?" 
 she was asked in regard to the sermon. " Ne- 
 manco una preghiera," she replied. " Not even 
 a prayer ! " 
 
 The church function is preceded by a parade 
 with a brass band and fireworks. The hiring of 
 a brass band is an indispensable feature of every 
 society. We recall the case of a laboring man 
 who retained membership in five organizations. 
 He had five brass bands at his funeral. The 
 
18 MEMOIRS OF ZI PRE' 
 
 cost of those five bands of music might have 
 paid the house rent for his widow for at least a 
 year. The brass-band habit will of course 
 eventually die out as the people grow more en- 
 lightened. A still more lamentable feature of 
 these societies is the fact that they are occasion- 
 ally controlled by the very worst element in the 
 Italian colony. We remember one organization 
 bearing the name of a saint, and having for pres- 
 ident an adulterous saloon-keeper who aban- 
 doned his wife and children in the old country, 
 and raised a second family in America. A 
 Sicilian society, the largest of its kind in Chi- 
 cago, had for its leader a most notorious scamp 
 who spent two years in jail for counterfeiting. 
 The amazing part of it all is that even when such 
 characters are imprisoned, no matter what their 
 felony may have been, they do not forfeit their 
 membership in the society. It is high time that 
 these poor people be taught more self-respect, 
 and not allow themselves to be guided by such 
 miscreants. 
 
CHAPTER III 
 
 THE PROSELYTIZERS 
 
 THE sects which infest the Italian district 
 strain every nerve to wrest Italian immi- 
 grants and their children from the Church. 
 The men are decoyed into the sectarian dens of 
 these human spiders under the pretext of being 
 taught the English language. The little girls are 
 enticed by various trinkets and the prospect of 
 learning how to sew. As a sedative to the un- 
 suspecting a very Catholic-looking cross is 
 placed over the entrance of the establishment, 
 whilst upon the interior walls may be seen pic- 
 tures of our Lord, the Madonna, and of those 
 saints most popular among the Italians. Need- 
 less to say, these pious images are not intended 
 for the veneration of the faithful, but for the 
 purpose of deception. Such underhanded meth- 
 ods of proselytizing are most reprehensible. 
 Instead of elevating, they degrade. They fur- 
 nish a powerful incentive to dishonesty. Is it 
 not a greater crime to bribe a man to change his 
 religious convictions with the alluring bait of 
 
 19 
 
20 MEMOIRS OF ZI PRE 9 
 
 material gain, raiment, house-rent, or employ- 
 ment, than to purchase his vote with a few dol- 
 lars in time of election? The best plan for 
 these misguided soul-chasers is to expend their 
 energy upon themselves and leave the poor Ital- 
 ians to the maternal care of the Catholic Church 
 to which they belong. For twenty centuries her 
 bishops and priests have been conducting the 
 work of civilization among all the nations of the 
 globe. One of the great problems confronting 
 us at the present day is how we are to amalga- 
 mate that immense tide of immigration daily 
 pouring in upon our shores from Southern 
 Europe, Italians, Poles, Bohemians, Slovaks, 
 and Slovenes, Croatians, Hungarians, Lithuan- 
 ians, and Ruthenians. Here they annually flock 
 in thousands, totally unfamiliar with our lan- 
 guage, laws, and customs. They iurnish the 
 brawn and muscle of our industrial centres. 
 They have supplanted the Irish in our factories, 
 mines, and workshops. The latter are superin- 
 tending the factories, running the railroads, and 
 the country generally. They have invaded the 
 professions and are devoting their attention to 
 law and medicine, police and politics. The 
 Catholic Church alone, whose faith is not cir- 
 cumscribed by national boundaries, can fully 
 realize the motto of our glorious country — " E 
 pluribus unum," one composed of many. She is 
 
THE PROSELYTIZERS 21 
 
 the best qualified to weld into one democratic 
 brotherhood, one great American citizenship the 
 children of various climes, temperaments, and 
 conditions. In every diocese throughout the 
 length and breadth of the United States these 
 poor foreigners have cooperated most gener- 
 ously with their clergy in the erection of churches 
 and schools where both young and old are taught 
 to revere the laws of God as well as those of 
 their adopted country. 
 
 Scarcely a year after his arrival in Chicago 
 Archbishop Quigley opened at least a dozen 
 churches exclusively for the Italians, to say noth- 
 ing of the many he caused to be erected for other 
 nationalities. To neutralize the pernicious ef- 
 fects of proselytizing zealots among the West- 
 Side Italians, provision was made not only for 
 the young in the way of a Sunday-school, sodal- 
 ities, and sewing-circles, but also for the adults 
 by means of a night school. The self-sacrificing 
 zeal of the hundred-and-twenty Catholic young 
 men and women coming weekly from every part 
 of the city and even suburbs in order to teach 
 catechism to the Italian children will furnish a 
 lengthy chapter to the history of the wonderful 
 growth and development of Guardian Angel Mis- 
 sion. Great credit is due the Catholic public- 
 school teachers who conducted a night school in 
 the basement of the rectory during the winter 
 
22 MEMOIRS OF ZI PRE 
 
 months. It had an average attendance of about 
 two hundred Italian workmen. They came with 
 the sole desire of learning and were dreadfully 
 in earnest. Hence the order and discipline of 
 the school were excellent. One young fellow 
 with an abnormal thirst for knowledge wanted to 
 learn reading, writing, and bookkeeping inside 
 of a week, so that he might obtain promotion at 
 his place of work. He was a teamster on South 
 Water St. for one of the commission houses. 
 
 The basement of the rectory having become 
 altogether inadequate to the rapidly increasing 
 needs of the night school, the classes were trans- 
 ferred to the Dante Public School located diag- 
 onally across from the Guardian Angel Church. 
 This change deeply affected the editor of the 
 Tribuna Transatlantica who availed himself of 
 every opportunity to arouse prejudice against 
 the pastor and his work among the Italian peo- 
 ple. We submit a literal translation of one of- 
 fensive paragraph which subsequently appeared 
 on the editorial page of his wretched newspaper. 
 
 EVENING SCHOOLS AND IRISH PRIESTLY ACTIVITY 
 
 Last Monday night fully 500 Italian men at- 
 tended the opening of the Dante Night School 
 for the classes of English. For this we are in- 
 debted to the Very Rev. Irish priest, Father 
 
THE PROSELYTIZERS 23 
 
 Dunne who, rendered furious by the prosperous 
 Evangelical missions and schools of the ener- 
 getic Marquis Petacci in Ewing, Forquer, and 
 W. Taylor streets, and other institutions fre- 
 quented by Italians, has been able to obtain the 
 Dante School for this purpose through his in- 
 fluence. 
 
 We implore our compatriots to continue fre- 
 quenting the night school, so that Fr. Dunne may 
 have no reason to complain of them. Thus they 
 won't be obliged to go to hell, from which place 
 this priest wants to save them at all cost. What 
 bothers him indeed more than hell and incites 
 him to labor among our countrymen is the threat- 
 ened loss of fruitful customers. 
 
 In fact about a dozen new churches have been 
 recently established in Chicago for the Italians, 
 and entrusted to Italian priests who must pay 
 for the cost of their construction by cruelly milk- 
 ing their compatriots, while the holy shops them- 
 selves (botteghe) remain the property of the 
 Archbishop who has the largest real estate office 
 in the city. 
 
 The poor Italian priests are passing worried 
 days and sleepless nights in devising ways and 
 means to pay the Archbishop for the churches. 
 Some of them have grown old and prematurely 
 gray. 
 
24 MEMOIRS OF ZI PRE* 
 
 Of course we lost no time in coming back at 
 our journalistic friend to whom the Italian gam- 
 ins applied the familiar sobriquet of " Don Sal- 
 siccia " which, being interpreted, means : Mr. 
 Sausage. Here is what we said — 
 
 MORE YELPS FROM DON SALSICCIA 
 
 Povero Don Salsiccia! His case is really 
 pathetic. Having carefully diagnosed the symp- 
 toms as they appeared in last week's issue of the 
 Tribuna, and even though he frothed profusely 
 at the mouth, we are firmly convinced that it 
 was not hydro-, but clericphobia that induced 
 him to bark as usual up the wrong tree. Any- 
 one at all familiar with the scanty income de- 
 rived from the average Italian parish must be 
 amused at his mendacious insinuation that 
 we are laboring among his compatriots for the 
 sake of filthy lucre. Comparing the house of 
 God to a shop is truly characteristic of this un- 
 scrupulous scribe, and sacrilegious like the most 
 of his journalistic utterances. " Cruelly milking 
 his compatriots " is redolent of the cow stable, 
 and candidly this is the first time we ever saw 
 such a lacteal term used in any language, ex- 
 cept in reference to quadrupeds. To borrow 
 his barnyard metaphor, let me assure him, from 
 seven years' personal experience among his patri- 
 otic countrymen, that it has been indeed dry 
 
THE PROSELYTIZERS 25 
 
 milking! Had not generous outsiders like the 
 Bremners, Ambergs, and a host of others come 
 to our assistance financially, the church, we fear, 
 would never have been erected. 
 
 It will be quite a shock for his sensitive nature 
 to learn that the Archbishop does not own a sin- 
 gle foot of real estate in the city of Chicago. 
 Diocesan property is vested in the title, not of 
 an individual archbishop, but of a corporation 
 sole, legally known as " The Catholic Bishop of 
 Chicago." Personally His Grace the Arch- 
 bishop holds the same relation to church prop- 
 erty as the executor to an estate which he is ap- 
 pointed to administer, and he must render a 
 strict account of his stewardship when he makes 
 his ad limina visit to Rome. He is therefore 
 not really the owner, but the custodian. He 
 simply holds the property in trust. 
 
 The Italian priests must naturally meet their 
 semi-annual interest, and are expected to pay off 
 eventually mortgage loans to the companies from 
 which they have borrowed money to complete 
 their churches. And why not? Is there any 
 plausible reason why they should be excepted 
 any more than pastors of other nationalities? 
 The Tribunas editor apparently fails to under- 
 stand that the churches in America are not sub- 
 sidized by the Government, as in Catholic coun- 
 tries, but for their erection and maintenance 
 
26 MEMOIRS OF ZI PRE' 
 
 must depend upon the generosity of the faithful, 
 — a virtue, needless to say, practically unknown 
 to him and his tribe. 
 
 Some years ago a Catholic social club was 
 established in the West-Side Italian district by a 
 few of the philanthropic members of the Sun- 
 day-school Association. It is a signal blessing 
 not only for the inhabitants, but also for those 
 engaged in its management. The young Italians 
 are furnished with reading and billiard rooms, 
 dramatic entertainments, and other innocent rec- 
 reations. Thus they are kept away from kin- 
 dred attractions conducted by our separated 
 brethren, and at least one danger of perversion 
 is removed. 
 
 The occasional bringing together of Catholic 
 young men and women in the exercise of spirit- 
 ual and corporal works of mercy is an excellent 
 idea, deserving of universal adoption. It tends 
 to diminish one of the greatest evils menacing the 
 Church in America, the number of mixed mar- 
 riages. How many prominent Catholic families 
 of Chicago owe their origin to the acquaintances 
 and courtships occasioned by the social enter- 
 tainments of the good old Union Catholic Li- 
 brary Association ? Those forming the cream of 
 Catholic society to-day were at one time mem- 
 bers of that worthy organization. The success 
 of Catholic social work needs the unstinted co- 
 
THE PROSELYTIZERS 27 
 
 operation of clergy as well as laity. The homely 
 German rhyme, " Die Gheistlichen rathen und die 
 Laien thaten," 1 should be the inspiring motive 
 of such enterprises. The priest after all is the 
 good shepherd who must take a special interest 
 in the spiritual and corporal welfare of his flock. 
 All plans for the moral and social uplift of his 
 parish must be submitted to him for careful in- 
 vestigation and approval before put into execu- 
 tion. He must see to it that all entertainments 
 given be of a refined and elevating character. 
 Since the Catholic social settlement movement 
 is professedly an auxiliary of the Church, spe- 
 cial attention should be given to the moral char- 
 acter of the workers. Only those remarkable 
 for their piety, exemplary speech and conduct 
 should be selected; otherwise their influence in 
 the neighborhood will prove a curse instead of a 
 blessing. 
 
 4 The clergy advise and the laity execute. 
 
CHAPTER IV 
 
 PASQUALINO 
 
 PASQUALINO AMADEO was born on 
 Easter Sunday in the congested district of 
 the West Side Italian colony. The Amadeos 
 were people of considerable means and stood 
 high in the community. The father had the 
 commercial instinct abnormally developed. 
 Scarcely a branch of industry might be men- 
 tioned in which he did not dabble. He conducted 
 a small bank well patronized by his Calabrian 
 paesani, dealt in real estate, had the agency of 
 several steamship lines, and ran an employment 
 bureau for the railroads. In addition to this he 
 sold razors, revolvers, jewelry, musical instru- 
 ments, prayer-books, suspiciously titled ro- 
 mances, and home-made wine. From the con- 
 glomeration of heterogeneous articles displayed 
 in the windows, it seemed scarcely possible for 
 any visitor to enter his establishment and escape 
 without making a purchase, even were it only 
 a postage stamp. He had most of his religion 
 vested in his wife, who came quite regularly to 
 
 28 
 
PASQUALINO . 29 
 
 Mass. He had very little time for religious du- 
 ties on account of his business. Besides, he held 
 the office of secretary in several societies that al- 
 ways managed to rival the Church by conducting 
 their meetings Sunday morning. When the 
 priest implored the officials of these organiza- 
 tions to cease placing an obstacle to the people 
 in the fulfilment of hearing Mass and change 
 their meeting hour to the afternoon, they replied, 
 it was impossible to change the meeting-hour. 
 No business could be transacted then, as most of 
 the members got drunk in the afternoon ! With 
 Amadeo it was a case of choosing between the 
 Church and the lodge, Jesus Christ and Barab- 
 bas, and he never hesitated long in making his 
 selection. Still, be it said to his credit that he 
 always managed to hear Mass twice a year — 
 on Palm Sunday and on the feast of San Rocco 
 whose name he bore and for whom he professed 
 great devotion. 
 
 Nearly a month elapsed before the baptism of 
 the child. The delay was occasioned by a squab- 
 ble over the selection of the godparents. The 
 mother wanted her brother, Giovanni Buonan- 
 ima and his wife to stand for the child; but 
 Amadeo was strongly in favor of a worthless 
 character named Capostorto and his consort. 
 
 " Zi Pre' will never permit that loafer to act 
 as sponsor," said the mother. " Only a few 
 
30 MEMOIRS OF ZI PRE 
 
 Sundays ago he spoke very emphatically about 
 the care we should take in choosing persons for 
 such an important office. ' Sponsors both in 
 baptism and confirmation/ he said, ' contract a 
 spiritual affinity or relationship not only with 
 their godchild, but also with its parents. From 
 that affinity arises a canonical impediment to 
 marriage — ' " 
 
 " Oh caspeta ! " roared Amadeo, " do you 
 think that Capostorto would ever want to marry 
 you in case I died ? " 
 
 " I should say not, for it would not do him 
 any good if he did," indignantly retorted Mrs. 
 Amadeo. " Capostorto has already one wife 
 whom he abandoned in the old country. I am 
 simply telling you what the priest said. ' Spon- 
 sors/ he declared, ' promise in the name of the 
 child what the child would promise if it had the 
 use of reason. They assume the obligation of 
 instructing their godchild in its religious duties 
 if the parents neglect to do so or die/ Hence 
 neither infidels, nor heretics, nor public sinners, 
 nor those ignorant of the rudiments of faith can 
 be admitted. What an edifying godfather Cap- 
 ostorto, member of the Giordano Bruno Club, 
 wouM make! No, he shall never stand for a 
 child of mine, even were the priest to allow him. 
 Besides, I'll not have this criminal negligence on 
 my conscience any longer. To defer baptism 
 
PASQUALINO 31 
 
 for more than a week after the birth of the child, 
 without grave reason, is universally regarded as 
 a mortal sin." 
 
 Amadeo was forced to capitulate. He acqui- 
 esced in the selection of Buonanima as sponsor, 
 and the following Sunday accompanied the chris- 
 tening party to the church. As they entered the 
 sacred edifice their ears were greeted by a 
 rather inharmonious concert issuing from the 
 lungs of a score of Adam's unhappy descendants 
 impatiently waiting to be cleansed from the origi- 
 nal stain. Amadeo pompously approached the 
 priest and asked if his child could be baptized 
 immediately, for he was in a great hurry, as peo- 
 ple were waiting for him at home. The priest 
 gently relieved him of the smouldering cigar he 
 held in his hand and threw it out of the window. 
 
 " Take off your hat and stay a while, Signor 
 Amadeo," he said smilingly. " It isn't often 
 that we are honored with a visit from you in the 
 church. You must have patience. You cannot 
 be in a greater hurry than the rest of these peo- 
 ple." The priest then busied himself question- 
 ing the sponsors as to the names and domiciles 
 of the children, and whether any of them had 
 already been baptized privately at home. 
 
 "What is this child to be called?" he asked 
 of a godmother holding a sturdy infant whose 
 ponderous head seemed indicative of a future 
 
32 MEMOIRS OF ZI PRE' 
 
 candidate for the mayor's office, or at least for 
 a seat in the city council. 
 
 " His parents want to call him Fiorino, or 
 Little Flower," meekly replied the sponsor. 
 
 " Not if I can help it," commented the priest. 
 " The Roman Ritual directs us to see that ob- 
 scene, fabulous, and ridiculous names, or those 
 of heathen gods or of infidel men be not im- 
 posed. Let him take the name of a saint whose 
 example and patronage may benefit him in after 
 life." 
 
 " Where do the parents of this baby reside? " 
 he asked of another sponsor. 
 
 " They leev ona Clarka street," spoke up the 
 father. 
 
 " Well, then, you don't belong here," replied 
 Zi Pre'. " Take him over to Padre Riccardo of 
 the Incoronata. He is an excellent priest and 
 needs all the support he can get. We are for- 
 bidden to baptize children not belonging to our 
 parish, unless they be in danger of death. From 
 all appearances this youngster is destined to be- 
 come a nonagenarian." The priest then pro- 
 ceeded to give a brief explanation of the sacra- 
 ment he was about to administer. 
 
 " Baptism," he said, " is a sacrament which 
 cleanses us from original sin, makes us Chris- 
 tians, children of God, and heirs to the kingdom 
 of heaven. Being first among the seven sacra- 
 
PASQUALINO 33 
 
 ments, it is the door through which all must pass 
 in order to enter eternal life. ' Unless a man 
 be born again of water and the Holy Ghost, he 
 cannot enter into the kingdom of God.' (John 
 
 " Since baptism is absolutely necessary for sal- 
 vation, the reception of it has been rendered most 
 easy. While the pastor or any other priest dele- 
 gated by him or the bishop is the lawful minister 
 of this sacrament, in case of necessity, i. e., if 
 the infant or adult be in danger of death, anyone 
 having the use of reason, lay or cleric, Catholic 
 or Protestant, Jew or infidel, or even atheist 
 may validly baptize, provided he observe the 
 form of baptism and has really the intention of 
 doing what the Church does. 
 
 " Whoever baptizes must pour water on the 
 head of the person to be baptized, and say, while 
 pouring it, ' / baptize thee in the name of the Fa- 
 ther, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost! If 
 a child has been baptized privately, this fact 
 should be revealed to the priest when the child 
 is brought to the church for the rest of the cere- 
 monies. In case of doubt as to the validity of 
 baptism, which often occurs when privately ad- 
 ministered by a lay person and when converts are 
 about to be admitted into the Church, baptism is 
 administered conditionally. Like Confirmation 
 and Holy Orders, Baptism can be received only 
 
34 MEMOIRS OF ZI PRE 
 
 once, because each of these sacraments imprints 
 upon the soul a spiritual seal that remains for- 
 ever. There are three kinds of baptism: Bap- 
 tism by water, already described; baptism of de- 
 sire, which is an ardent wish to receive baptism 
 and to do all that God has ordained for our salva- 
 tion; baptism of blood, which is martyrdom, or 
 the shedding of one's blood for the faith of 
 Christ. In order to receive baptism worthily, 
 persons of an age to learn must know and be- 
 lieve the chief mysteries of Christian faith, and 
 be sorry for their sins. Evidently no disposition 
 is required in infants to receive this sacrament. 
 Without their knowledge or co-operation they 
 contracted original sin, and in a similar manner 
 they are cleansed from its stain. Just as they 
 are born and may inherit property without their 
 knowledge or consent, so through baptism they 
 become God's adopted children and heirs to His 
 heavenly kingdom without any of the disposi- 
 tions required in adults. We never baptize the 
 children of Jews or infidels against the will of 
 their parents, since that would be a violation of 
 parental rights. We would, however, be justified, 
 and even obliged in charity to baptize their chil- 
 dren, if they were in proximate danger of death. 
 In the solemn administration of baptism we em- 
 ploy a great many prayers and ceremonies which 
 are omitted in private baptism. 
 
PASQUALINO 35 
 
 " What dost thou ask of the Church of God? " 
 the priest demands of the candidate. 
 
 " Faith/' the sponsors reply in the name of the 
 child. 
 
 "What doth faith bring thee to?" 
 
 " Life everlasting." 
 
 "If thou wilt enter into life, keep the com- 
 mandments. Thou shalt love the Lord thy God 
 with thy whole heart, with thy whole soul, with 
 all thy mind, and thy neighbor as thyself." 
 
 Breathing thrice in the child's face, he bids 
 the unclean spirit depart and give place to the 
 Holy Paraclete. He next makes the sign of the 
 cross, the symbol of redemption upon the fore- 
 head and breast of the child, and prays that by 
 his future exemplary conduct he may become a 
 temple of God. Then follows the imposition of 
 hands, a custom dating back to Apostolic times. 
 Some blessed salt is now placed in the child's 
 mouth. Just as salt preserves food from cor- 
 ruption, so it symbolizes the salutary effects of 
 divine grace in preserving the soul from the cor- 
 ruption of sin. The priest places the end of his 
 stole upon the child's head, leading him, as it 
 were, into the Church, and saying, " Enter into 
 the temple of God that thou mayest have part 
 with Christ, in life eternal." On the way to the 
 font the sponsors recite the Creed and Our Fa- 
 ther, as a profession of faith for the child. His 
 
36 MEMOIRS OF ZI PRE 
 
 nostrils and ears are now touched with spittle — 
 after our Lord's example, who thus restored 
 sight to the blind man mentioned in the gospel. 
 After making a triple renunciation of Satan, and 
 all his works and pomps, the child is anointed 
 with the oil of catechumens on the breast and 
 between the shoulders. On the breast, that by 
 the gift of the Holy Ghost, he may cast off error 
 and ignorance and may receive the true faith, 
 ' for the just man liveth by faith ' ; on the shoul- 
 ders, that by the grace of the Holy Spirit, he may 
 shake off negligence and torpor, and engage in 
 the performance of good works, ' for faith with- 
 out works is dead.' After another declaration 
 of faith the child is baptized, during which cere- 
 mony the sponsors must either hold or at least 
 touch the child. The crown of its head is now 
 anointed with chrism, to signify his- union with 
 the Church, the mystic body of Christ. 
 
 A white veil is put on the infant's head, with 
 the words : " Receive this white garment, which 
 mayest thou carry without stain before the judg- 
 ment seat of our Lord Jesus Christ that thou 
 mayest have eternal life." A lighted taper is 
 placed in the sponsor's hand, the priest saying: 
 " Receive this burning light, and keep thy bap- 
 tism so as to be without blame. Observe the 
 commandments of God; that, when our Lord 
 shall come to his nuptials, thou mayest meet Him 
 
PASQUALINO 37 
 
 together with all the Saints and may est have life 
 everlasting, and live for ever and ever. Amen. 
 Go in peace, and the Lord be with you." 
 
 While the priest was recording the names in 
 the baptismal register, Amadeo came forward 
 and handed him a big round silver dollar with the 
 remark: " Ecco, Padre chisto per fuo incomodo; 
 compriti un caffe." 1 A dollar always appeared 
 unusually large to Amadeo when given to the 
 support of the Church. He might easily have 
 contributed half the amount necessary for its 
 construction and never have missed the money. 
 But when approached for a donation he deftly 
 diverted the topic of conversation, and glibly 
 spoke of his famous uncle, an archpriest in 
 Calabria. " The people," he said, " invariably 
 tried to secure him as preacher at every notable 
 function." 
 
 Zi Pre' visited Amadeo occasionally in the hope 
 of inducing him to attend Mass, but in vain. 
 The latter took refuge in the oft repeated story 
 of his famous uncle whose biography the priest 
 had learned by heart. Amadeo lived but a 
 stone's throw from the church, and seemed to 
 vindicate the truth of the adage, " the nearer the 
 church the farther from God." 
 
 ".Signor Tightwaddo," said the priest, jok- 
 
 1 This is for your trouble, Father ; buy yourself a cup 
 of coffee. 
 
38 MEMOIRS OF ZI PRE 
 
 ingly, to him one day : " your cognomen is really 
 a misnomer. You ought to ask the County Clerk 
 to change it." 
 
 " What change would you suggest ? " he de- 
 manded. " Should I take an American name? " 
 
 " Oh, no," replied the priest. " Just call your- 
 self Amadenaro, or Amadiavolo, for you seem 
 to love money and the devil more than God." 
 
CHAPTER V 
 
 EARLY TRAINING 
 
 FORTUNATE, indeed, for Pasqualino, that 
 his mother was piously inclined. She neu- 
 tralized in a great measure by her example the 
 less edifying conduct of her husband. He was 
 left in undisputed possession of the bank and 
 variegated emporium on the first floor where he 
 fumed and vociferated to his heart's content 
 during his wife's absence. His vocabulary usu- 
 ally assumed a tinge of refinement, however, 
 when she appeared upon the scene. She domi- 
 nated the living quarters on the second floor, 
 where she required him to keep a strict guard 
 over his tongue on account of the children. She 
 realized how strong in them is the imitative in- 
 stinct. Seldom do they act independently, but 
 do only what they see others doing. Having 
 unbounded confidence in their parents, they re- 
 gard everything said and done by them as right 
 and good. Hence they will say and do the same 
 in imitation of them. She had a profound hor- 
 ror of giving scandal, and tried most earnestly 
 
 39 
 
4 o MEMOIRS OF ZI PRE 
 
 to imbue her consort with the same religious sen- 
 timent. " Woe to him that shall scandalize any 
 of these little ones/' she used to repeat to him; 
 " it were better for him that a mill-stone should 
 be hanged about his neck and that he should be 
 drowned in the depth of the sea." How can we 
 ever expect our darling boy to grow up virtuous, 
 to become a credit and comfort to us in our de- 
 clining years, if from his very cradle he has con- 
 stantly before his eyes the demoralizing example 
 of a profane, intemperate father, who tramples 
 under foot the laws of both God and His 
 church ?" Having graduated from an Italian 
 convent, she was thoroughly grounded in her re- 
 ligion. She understood the importance of train- 
 ing Pasqualino from earliest infancy in the rudi- 
 ments of faith. At the very first glimmering of 
 intelligence she gave him this elementary instruc- 
 tion plainly, seriously and patiently. We can- 
 not be too simple in our language to children, or 
 even to adults when there is a question of in- 
 structing them in matters of religion. It is the 
 method followed by our Lord Himself, whose 
 parables were invariably drawn from the every- 
 day happenings of life to illustrate most im- 
 portant truths. He speaks of heavenly things 
 in terms not fully expressive of their sublime 
 dignity, but suited rather to our feeble mode of 
 comprehension. Thus should we endeavor to in- 
 
EARLY TRAINING 41 
 
 struct those entrusted to our care and pay heed 
 that they really grasp our meaning, otherwise, 
 as far as practical results are concerned, we 
 might just as well address them in Sanskrit. 
 Religious instruction should be given seriously. 
 In our present state of fallen nature, there is an 
 unfortunate tendency to trifle with things sa- 
 cred. This irreverential giddiness is particu- 
 larly noticeable in the young. But no matter 
 how provokingly funny her husband might deem 
 it, Mrs. Amadeo never laughed, nor seemed at 
 all pleased when her young hopeful did or said 
 anything, though it were ever so witty, which 
 bordered on irreligion. She had always been 
 taught to regard " the fear of the Lord as the 
 beginning of wisdom/' and sought to impress that 
 salutary fear upon the tender heart of her off- 
 spring. She began by teaching him the sign 
 of the cross. For a long time when she tried 
 to show him off in company, he invariably disap- 
 pointed her by making the symbol of our re- 
 demption with his left hand, and it required 
 painstaking and incessant repetitions to cure him 
 of the habit. Patience finally triumphed. Rome 
 wasn't built in a day. After the farmer has 
 planted his corn, he doesn't expect immediately 
 to see his field waving with a ripe and abundant 
 crop of sixty bushels to the acre. He must pa- 
 tiently let nature take her course for a consider- 
 
42 MEMOIRS OF ZI PRE' 
 
 able time before he can know whether his labor 
 will be fecund or fruitless. It is only after the 
 lapse of months that he can hope to reap the re- 
 ward of his industry. In cultivating the mind 
 of Pasqualino she did not imagine that a plen- 
 tiful harvest would spring up in a day. The 
 growth of his body was slow and proceeded by 
 insensible degrees. She did not wonder if his 
 progress in knowledge and virtue was still slower. 
 She was therefore on her guard against fret- 
 fulness and impatience. 
 
 Just as soon as his tiny lips were capable of 
 articulating an intelligible sound, they were 
 trained with heroic patience to repeat after her 
 the Our Father, Hail Mary, and the Apostles' 
 Creed. At the age of four, he would no more 
 think of omitting his morning or night prayer 
 than his breakfast or his supper, and he could 
 recite the Ten Commandments without a single 
 mistake. When he became big enough to sit 
 at table with the rest of the family, it was his 
 important function to say the grace both before 
 and after meals. 
 
 " Little boys," his mother said to him, " must 
 not come to table like the cat to her saucer of 
 milk, or like animals to the trough. Almighty 
 God expects us to ask His blessing beforehand 
 both upon us and upon what He has given us to 
 eat, and to thank Him after we have finished 
 
EARLY TRAINING 43 
 
 eating." She never allowed him wine or beer, 
 or even tea or coffee. Milk, and, in fact, more 
 frequently plain water, constituted his only bev- 
 erage. Once when his chubby hand reached out 
 and clinched his father's glass of wine, the lat- 
 ter was inclined to humor him, but she promptly 
 wrested it from his grasp with the warning 
 " that it was bad for little boys." 
 
 " But why isn't it also bad for papas ? " he de- 
 manded. Later on in life he made the same 
 query in regard to the omission of Holy Mass 
 and the Sacraments, and his good mother found 
 the question still more embarrassing to answer. 
 
 She took great pains to impress upon him the 
 thought of God's abiding presence. " God made 
 us," she used to say to him, " in order that we 
 may know, love, and serve Him in this life, and be 
 happy with Him forever in the next life. He is 
 always near us. In Him we live, move, and are. 
 Our most secret thoughts are as clear to Him 
 as the noonday sun. He sees and hears every- 
 thing we do and say in the dark just the same as 
 in the light. He keeps a strict account of all our 
 thoughts, words, and deeds in the great book of 
 life. Those who lead pure, good lives shall go 
 to heaven when they die, and be happy with God 
 forever. But lying, disobedient, wicked chil- 
 dren shall never enter there. God shall drive 
 them from His sacred presence forever into a 
 
44 MEMOIRS OF Zl PRE 
 
 place of torment called Hell, where they shall al- 
 ways be miserable and unhappy." As moral 
 consciousness gradually developed, Almighty 
 God, the Creator, Redeemer, and Benefactor of 
 mankind, became as much a living reality in Pas- 
 qualino's life as his own father. 
 
 No sooner was he able to toddle than she 
 marched him off every Sunday morning with his 
 sister to the church where he took his place dur- 
 ing the 9 o'clock Mass with the other tots perched 
 like so many sparrows on the steps leading to 
 the Communion rail. 
 
 Pasqualino was inclined to be headstrong and 
 needed correction betimes. His mother be- 
 lieved in giving it to him, but judiciously. When- 
 ever he showed signs of obstinacy or stubborn- 
 ness, she promptly turned him over her knee and 
 administered a few vigorous spanks that usu- 
 ally brought him to his senses. She was care- 
 ful to make her corrections neither too frequent 
 nor too severe. Children, like metal, become 
 hardened under continual hammering, which 
 eventually leaves upon them little or no impres- 
 sion. Care should be taken to make the punish- 
 ment fit the crime. When the same chastise- 
 ment is invariably given, the distinction between 
 slight and grievous faults gradually disappears. 
 Those intrusted with the training of youth should 
 be able to distinguish between indiscretion and 
 
EARLY TRAINL 45 
 
 malice. Children are always prone to trivial 
 pranks which leave them as they grow up. 
 u When I was a child." says the Apostle. u I 
 spoke as a child, I understood as a child, I 
 thought as a child : but when I became a man, I 
 put away the things of a child. " Such failings 
 must be often overlooked and i: would be most 
 injudicious to be continually punishing children 
 for them. But if the fault be immoral or indic- 
 ative of a vicious disposition, such as telling lies, 
 stealing, speaking improper words, disobedience 
 or stubbornness — to overlook such delinquen- 
 cies would be nothing short of criminal. 
 
 Correction supposes that a child has adopted 
 some wrong notions, or contracted some bad hab- 
 its. The evil may be remedied in one of two 
 ways. First, by showing what is wrong in the 
 notions adopted, and, by contrasting it with :'::- 
 opposite truth, to convince the judgment, and 
 thus lead the young mind to correct itself. Bad 
 habits may be broken in a similar manner by 
 showing where::: they are wrong, and thus in- 
 ducing the young mind to abandon them. But 
 when this method fails, when the child sees what 
 is right, and yet persists in doing wrong, such 
 juvenile obstinacy can only be remedied by cor- 
 poral punishment; and the parent who, in such 
 cases, withholds it, destroys the child, according 
 to the Scriptural admonition. u He that spareth 
 
46 MEMOIRS OF ZI PRE' 
 
 the rod, hateth his son ; but he that loveth him, 
 correcteth him betimes/' Chastisement should 
 be regarded as an act of domestic justice, and 
 should be administered not in a rage or passion, 
 but with due decorum; otherwise it will defeat 
 its own purpose. 
 
 Amadeo was just the antithesis of his wife. 
 His educational method was somewhat crude. 
 He believed in raising children by the ear or hair. 
 His presence among them usually lowered the 
 temperature several degrees. The merry peal of 
 song and laughter ceased. The frightened 
 youngsters glided noiselessly, like phantoms, 
 from the room. Or if they remained they spoke 
 with bated breath, and could not look their som- 
 bre parent in the face without being almost petri- 
 fied with terror. At his approach even Pasqual- 
 ino's tiny arms instinctively went up in self-de- 
 fense to parry a prospective blow. 
 
 When scarcely seven years of age an incident 
 happened that he never forgot. One morning 
 during his mother's absence he wandered into a 
 neighboring fruit store, where he picked up a 
 couple of apples and brought them home. While 
 contentedly munching one of them at the door, he 
 met his sister Concetta, to whom he offered the 
 other. He was of a very generous disposition — 
 a trait certainly not inherited from the paternal 
 side of the house. 
 
EARLY TRAINING 47 
 
 " Oh, Pasqualino ! What have you done ? " 
 exclaimed the sister. " Father will flay you 
 alive. That Sicilian grocer was down stairs a 
 while ago, complaining to him that you had 
 stolen fruit from his store." 
 
 Just then the children heard the heavy tread 
 of familiar footsteps on the stair and their faces 
 blanched at the thought of the impending storm. 
 Concetta slunk into the kitchen, where she busied 
 herself with the dishes, while Pasqualino darted 
 into his bedroom, where he knelt down and be- 
 gan reciting Ave Marias with the greatest fervor. 
 As the father entered, with a formidable strap in 
 hand, he found the desperate criminal absorbed 
 in prayer. The sight would have melted the 
 heart of a savage to compassion. But Amadeo 
 was no ordinary brute. " Come, strip off at 
 once ! " he thundered. u The disgrace of har- 
 boring a thief in my house is greater than I can 
 bear." The little fellow reluctantly obeyed. 
 While he rent the air with his agonizing shrieks 
 as blow after blow descended upon his tender 
 body, the mother returned. When she came 
 within fifty yards of the house she instantly rec- 
 ognized the piteous appeals of Pasqualino to his 
 mamma to save him. Rushing frantically up 
 stairs, she threw herself between her offspring 
 and his assailant. Then that rigid disciplinarian 
 did a thing in his frenzy that should have landed 
 
48 MEMOIRS OF ZI PRE' 
 
 him in jail, or, still better, at the whipping post — 
 he struck the poor, defenseless mother a savage 
 blow, and departed. 
 
 A few days later Zi Pre' visited the store, and 
 noticed that Mrs. Amadeo had a very badly swol- 
 len eye. "Why, what on earth happened to 
 you ? " he asked. " You must have met with a 
 terrible accident. Did you fall off a street car ? " 
 
 " Oh, no," she replied with a melancholy smile, 
 " E un piccolo regalo dal marito" (It is a little 
 present from my husband.) 
 
 " You see, Fadda," explained the latter in his 
 broken English, " she getta me so excite when she 
 butt in to sava da kid. Per Bacco, I make every- 
 body understan' that I'm padrone in my own 
 house. But I'm not like those mean guys what 
 run for a knife or a gun. When I fight a woman, 
 I alius usa da fist." 
 
 " You are certainly a brave man," commented 
 Zi Pre'. " Some afternoon you ought to take 
 the whole family for an outing to Lincoln 
 Park." 
 
 "What for?" asked Amadeo, "to see the 
 statue of Garibaldi ? " 
 
 " Oh, no," rejoined the priest with evident dis- 
 gust, " but to visit the Zoological Garden. It is 
 much more instructive. I think it might do you 
 good to watch the grizzly bears playing with 
 their cubs." 
 
CHAPTER VI 
 
 A MISNOMER FOR A SCHOOL 
 
 "in>EF I taka de kids to Lincoln Park, eet 
 l\y will be for to show de grande monu- 
 ment of Giuseppe Garibaldi ! " exclaimed Ama- 
 deo in an outburst of patriotism. 
 
 " The money squandered on his statue, brass 
 bands and pyrotechnics would benefit the Italian 
 people far more if devoted to the erection of an 
 Italian church, school, orphanage or hospital," 
 rejoined the priest. 
 
 " O, wat you got against heem?" demanded 
 Amadeo. P W'y, las' week I read in Tribuna 
 dat Zi Pre' was for giving the name of Garibaldi 
 to public school on Poka Street." 
 
 " I am afraid," commented the priest, " that 
 the editor of the Tribuna couldn't tell the truth 
 if he tried. Have you seen this week's issue of 
 the paper ? Oh, here it is ! " he exclaimed, tak- 
 ing it from the showcase and pointing to an 
 article, which being vernacularized, ran as fol- 
 lows: 
 
 49 
 
50 MEMOIRS OF ZI PRE' 
 
 THE WRATH OF GUARDIAN ANGEl/s PASTOR 
 
 We learned from two Irish-American ladies 
 whom we are ready to designate, that the old 
 public school on W. Polk St. will be renamed 
 after Garibaldi in compliance with a request 
 made by the Rev. Pastor of Guardian Angel 
 Church. Just because we published this news, 
 with a few sympathetic remarks, the aforesaid 
 clergyman published in the New World the fol- 
 lowing letter which we shall translate to the best 
 of our ability. 
 
 NOT AFTER GARIBALDI 
 
 According to recent newspaper reports, the 
 Board of Education has decided to replace the old 
 Polk Street school with a new one, which will 
 bear the name of Giuseppe Garibaldi. We have 
 in Chicago a weekly Italian sheet with the pic- 
 ture of an ocean liner extending across the top 
 of the front page. It is bedecked with all the 
 naval flags of the universe and sails under the 
 bombastic title of Tribuna Transatlantic*!. The 
 most appropriate haven for this literary mud 
 scow is the waste basket. The appellation — 
 newspaper — is really a misnomer. For, what- 
 ever notable event may accidentally break into 
 its columns, invariably appears too late to have 
 any value as a news item. The editor claims to 
 
A MISNOMER FOR A SCHOOL 51 
 
 be anticlerical, but not antireligious — rather a 
 subtle distinction without any practical differ- 
 ence. When accused by me of attacking the 
 Church's doctrines, he emphatically denounced 
 the accusation as a " cunning Jesuitical trick," 
 " a low down calumny." Verily this man pro- 
 testeth too much. Scarcely a year ago this 
 " anticlerical but not antireligious " scribe 
 printed an article in which he tried to show that 
 the Church, instead of deriving the seven sacra- 
 ments from her Divine Founder, pilfered them 
 from pagan ceremonies prevailing among the 
 idolators of India. He compared each sacra- 
 ment with a supposedly corresponding pagan 
 rite, leaving the reader to infer that there ex- 
 isted the most perfect concordance. He cul- 
 minated his blasphemous diatribe by asserting 
 that Protestants were far more reasonable in re- 
 gard to the Holy Eucharist than Catholics, for, 
 unlike them, they didn't pretend to devour a 
 full-grown man, body and bones, hair, teeth and 
 beard, but simply claimed to eat a piece of bread 
 in memory of him. At the time of its appear- 
 ance, I put this diabolical travesty on file for 
 future reference. And this is the man who 
 proffered his services as Sunday School teacher 
 at the opening of Guardian Angel Mission ! 
 
 Last week, in a moment of irrepressible mirth 
 and utter disregard for truth, our anticlerical 
 
52 MEMOIRS OF ZI PRE' 
 
 neighbor asserted that through the influence of 
 Guardian Angel's Pastor, the new school on Polk 
 Street would be named after the immortal 
 hero of two hemispheres — r Giuseppe Garibaldi. 
 What a giggle-provoking lie that was! Every 
 Catholic knows that a priest would just as soon 
 have the school named after Beelzebub, Bob In- 
 gersol or Judas Iscariot. 
 
 A few years ago we succeeded in having the 
 school diagonally across from the Guardian 
 Angel Church, named after Dante, the Shake- 
 speare of Italy. This compliment extended to 
 the Italian colony has not satisfied the inordinate 
 cravings of our anticlerical journalist. Was it 
 perhaps the thought of Dante's Inferno that 
 smote his conscience, and too forcibly reminded 
 him of what he must inevitably expect hereafter, 
 unless he repent of his futile attacks upon the 
 Church? We don't know. We, however, do 
 know, that he is at present making gigantic ef- 
 forts to honor the name of one whom all true 
 Catholics regard as the antithesis of Dante. 
 Since we protested against naming the new Polk 
 Street school after an ignorant bushwhacker, 
 notorious for his demoniac hatred of the Pope, 
 as such a procedure would insult the entire Cath- 
 olic population, irrespective of nationality, our 
 anticlerical friend is frantic. The poor man has 
 an acute case of Irish, Jesuit and Popephobia. 
 
A MISNOMER FOR A SCHOOL 53 
 
 Listen to this ebullition of aggressive patriot- 
 ism: 
 
 " So the Italian must not praise Garibaldi who 
 represents the ideal of mother country united 
 and free? Ah, must we Italians refuse to cher- 
 ish in our hearts one of the most divine senti- 
 ments which God has implanted there — the love 
 of mother country? Yes, gentlemen, in order 
 to please a few fanatical Irishmen, must we ig- 
 nore those who, from Dante down to the present 
 day, have desired the freedom of their native 
 land, who have given their energy, aye, and 
 their heart's blood to liberate it from foreign, 
 domestic, and, above all, from Papal tyranny? 
 Is, perhaps, love of country an exclusively Irish 
 prerogative? Have they alone the right to hate 
 such as Cromwell, Queen Mary (?) and other 
 oppressors of their native country? ... If 
 they imagine that they have succeeded in dop- 
 ing the patriotism of Chicago Italians with soci- 
 eties of Saints and Madonnas, sodalities, par- 
 ishes, Catholic schools, the acquisition of influ- 
 ential friends, etc., we assure them that they are 
 very much mistaken." 
 
 Let us briefly analyze these patriotic senti- 
 ments. A cursory glance at the Tribunals argu- 
 ment clearly shows the editor's anxiety to jus- 
 tify his hatred of the Pope. Here it is in a nut- 
 shell: The Italians have just as much right as 
 
54 MEMOIRS OF ZI PRE' 
 
 the Irish to hate the tyrants of their country; 
 and since the Pope has always been Italy's 
 greatest tyrant; therefore the Italians have the 
 right to hate him, just as the Irish are justified 
 in hating Cromwell and other oppressors of Ire- 
 land ! When we hear men like the editor of the 
 Tribuna ranting about papal tyranny we cannot 
 help recalling yEsop's fable of the ungrateful 
 serpent that stung its benefactor. 
 
 The Papacy has been the greatest benefactor 
 the Italian people ever had. During the interval 
 in which the Popes were exiled and resided in 
 Avignon, grass grew in the streets of Rome. 
 What wonderful blessings resulted from the 
 Italian revolution? National bankruptcy, star- 
 vation, and the forced emigration of the inhabit- 
 ants. Behold the triple legacy which the Tri- 
 bunals " ideal of mother country, united and 
 free," has bequeathed to posterity! It is an in- 
 heritance over which the natives of Southern 
 Italy must grow enthusiastic. Neither the 
 Irish nor anyone else has the right to hate his 
 enemies. Christ commands us to love them, to 
 do good to those who hate and persecute us. 
 We must hate pernicious principles and actions, 
 but persons? never! 
 
 Nobody pretends that the Irish have a monop- 
 oly of patriotism. Of course they love their 
 native land, but they love their God and their 
 
A MISNOMER FOR A SCHOOL 55 
 
 religion more. Their special virtue, with which 
 the editor of the Tribuna might imbue his anti- 
 clerical compatriots, is to build and support 
 churches, orphanages and schools, before under- 
 taking to name them. A vigorous campaign is 
 just now being conducted to embellish public 
 school nomenclature with the names of Gari- 
 baldi and three defunct saloonkeepers! In 
 naming an object care should be taken that a 
 certain analogy exist between its nature or pur- 
 pose and the title it receives. A school is a 
 building in which teachers are engaged in the 
 peaceful pursuit of imparting elementary in- 
 struction to the young. Were they institutions 
 in which pupils are initiated in the lucrative art 
 of extracting malt beverages from potatoes, 
 corn, and the Lord only knows from what other 
 products, or, in wielding the sword instead of 
 the pen, why, then, of course, Garibaldi, Gam- 
 brinus or the name of the individual who brewed 
 the beer that made the town north of us famous, 
 would answer perfectly. Since the curriculum 
 of studies in the public schools is restricted to 
 the three " R's," common sense and the eternal 
 fitness of things dictate that in the selection of 
 names we ought to choose from those distin- 
 guished in the realm of literature, science and 
 arts that require brain rather than brawn. 
 Were there question of bestowing appropriate 
 
56 MEMOIRS OF ZI PRE' 
 
 titles upon military academies, it would be in- 
 deed proper to name them after warriors whose 
 military genius and exploits have elicited the 
 world's admiration. It is not, however, a case 
 of naming soldiers' barracks, breweries, or dis- 
 tilleries, but simply grammar schools. If the 
 latter must be named after generals and states- 
 men, why not exhaust, first of all, the long list 
 of Americans? There is a tendency among 
 cheap politicians, for the selfish purpose of se- 
 curing votes, to utilize both schools and parks 
 in perpetuating the memory of anyone but a 
 native hero. The city parks are adorned with 
 the monuments of foreign celebrities, but where 
 in this great western metropolis is there a statue 
 to the memory of him who was " first in war, 
 first in peace, first in the hearts of his country- 
 men " — the immortal George Washington? It 
 seems that our home products, like the prophets 
 of old, are without honor in their own country. 
 Why should the name of the Polk Street school 
 be changed to that of Garibaldi? Was he dis- 
 tinguished for his learning? Where can we find 
 a copy of his literary productions? Who was 
 this wonderful character in whose behalf a peti- 
 tion signed by all the Italian Masons and in- 
 fidels of Chicago is before the Board of Educa- 
 tion? 
 
 Garibaldi was simply a red-shirted revolution- 
 
 
A MISNOMER FOR A SCHOOL 57 
 
 ist by profession, just like those abounding in 
 Central and South America. Had he lived in 
 the United States, his proper place would have 
 been, not among the Unionists, but among the 
 rebels. To fight against rebellion in defense of 
 lawful authority and established government 
 would have been quite a novelty to him and con- 
 trary to his native instincts. Cavour said of 
 him : " Garibaldi wants to perpetuate the revo- 
 lution; we wish to terminate it." If the Board 
 desires to place the school under the auspices of 
 a rebel type, why not patronize home talent, and 
 call it Jeff Davis or Sitting Bull? These have 
 at least the advantages of being native Ameri- 
 cans. What would school children find in Gari- 
 baldi worthy of imitation? A spirit of obedi- 
 ence? He claimed that the ambition of his life 
 was " to see the last king strung up by the en- 
 trails of the last priest." Love of study? He 
 had little or no education, and despised it in 
 others. He preferred instinct to study, and the 
 happy inspirations of ignorance to the calcula- 
 tions of science. Candor? At heart he was a 
 republican, but without the courage of his con- 
 victions. He became a willing tool in the hands 
 of Mazzini and other schemers to build up the 
 present monarchy. What can citizens of a re- 
 public find commendable in such a despicable 
 character as to name a school after him? 
 
 
 X 
 
58 MEMOIRS OF ZI PRE' 
 
 If the Board of Education really wishes to 
 honor the Italian people, let the school be called 
 after Manzoni, whose homestead in Milan has 
 been converted into a national monument. Sir 
 Walter Scott did not hesitate to style his " Be- 
 trothed " the greatest novel ever written. Then 
 there is Petrarca, Ariosto, Alfieri, Tasso, Silvio 
 Pellico, and a galaxy of others whose works stand 
 preeminent in the world's literature, and whose 
 names might appropriately adorn the greatest 
 shrines of learning throughout the country. 
 
 As American citizens, we love our country. 
 Because of our patriotism, we see no reason 
 why, in re-naming the Polk Street school, the 
 distinguished heroes of this glorious republic 
 should be ignored in order to honor a foreign 
 revolutionist in whose antagonism to the Church, 
 we, as American Catholics, certainly find noth- 
 ing to admire. 
 
 The anticlerical journal which labored so 
 ardently to get a Chicago school named after 
 the notorious Italian bushwhacker was subse- 
 quently invited to paste a whole edition over the 
 wounds of its defeat. The Board of Educa- 
 tion very wisely ignored the much-signed peti- 
 tion and named the school after an American. 
 
A MISNOMER FOR A SCHOOL 59 
 
 Thus the despoiler of St. Peter's Patrimony re- 
 ceived quite a jolt in the great city of Chicago. 
 And it was well. While he lived he took more 
 interest in revolution than he did in education. 
 
CHAPTER VII 
 
 CONFIRMATION 
 
 PASQUALINO was a lad of the Southern 
 Italian type, beautiful as a picture and 
 lively as a cricket. He had a classically shaped 
 head profusely covered with a wealth of jet 
 black curly hair. His big brown liquid eyes 
 fairly scintillated, and, in striking contrast to 
 the multitude of ansemic looking children of the 
 neighborhood, his olive tinted complexion had 
 a warm rich glow indicative of perfect health 
 and proper nourishment. 
 
 His mother prepared him most carefully for 
 his first confession just as soon as he began to 
 realize the meaning of mortal sin. He had been 
 regularly attending the instructions and she was 
 overjoyed when he came bounding into her 
 room one day with the announcement that he 
 had passed successfully the examination for 
 First Communion and Confirmation. " But you 
 are altogether too young, my child/' she ex- 
 claimed. " You had better wait for another 
 year at least, and then you will be better pre- 
 
 60 
 
CONFIRMATION 61 
 
 pared." She was somewhat scrupulous about 
 letting him approach Holy Communion on ac- 
 count of his tender age. He had not yet reached 
 his ninth birthday. '* Why, Father," she said 
 to the priest next morning, " I am really afraid 
 to let Pasqualino go to Holy Communion with 
 the others, as it might expose the Blessed Sacra- 
 ment to irreverence." 
 
 " He knows a great deal more about it than 
 the others in his class," replied the priest. 
 ' We must not be more solicitous about the in- 
 terests of God's glory than God Himself. Dur- 
 ing His earthly sojourn our Divine Redeemer 
 proved by act as well as word that it was His 
 delight to be with the children of men. i Suffer 
 little children/ He said, ' to come unto me, and 
 forbid them not; for of such is the kingdom of 
 heaven/ 5 He allayed her fears by assuring her 
 that there was no valid reason for preventing 
 the lambs of the flock from partaking of the 
 Bread of Life, once they reached the age of dis- 
 cretion. " When they have attained the degree of 
 intelligence necessary to distinguish the Holy 
 Eucharist from common material bread, or as 
 the Apostle expresses it, ' of discerning the body 
 of the Lord/ and have sufficient love in their 
 innocent hearts to form the desire of receiving 
 Him, nothing more is required. Their tender 
 minds and hearts are ready. From that time on 
 
62 MEMOIRS OF ZI PRE' 
 
 they have not only the right, but also the obliga- 
 tion to approach the Eucharistic Table. There 
 is but one obstacle that might prevent them ; it is 
 mortal sin." 
 
 " But do you think that he will receive 
 worthily ? " she asked. 
 
 " Who," replied the priest, " is worthy to re- 
 ceive the Lord and Author of life? We do not 
 approach Holy Communion because we are 
 worthy and good, but because God is; not be- 
 cause we deserve it, but because we need it. 
 Nobody waits to become warm before approach- 
 ing the fire, otherwise he would remain cold a 
 long while and eventually freeze. That is why 
 the primitive Christians communicated every 
 day, ' continuing daily with one accord in the 
 temple, and breaking bread from house to house/ 
 If frequent communion does not inflame our 
 hearts with the love of God, nothing else will. 
 Now that Pasqualino has come to the use of 
 reason, the command, 'Unless you eat the flesh 
 of the Son of Man and drink His blood, you 
 shall have no life in you/ is just as binding upon 
 him, as upon you. He is obliged, just the same 
 as an adult, to hear Mass on Sundays and holi- 
 days, to observe the days of abstinence, and to 
 make his Easter duty." 
 
 Mrs. Amadeo left the rectory with the firm 
 resolution that if her offspring failed to obey 
 
 
CONFIRMATION 63 
 
 these precepts, it would not be through any fault 
 of his mother. 
 
 The coming of the Archbishop to administer 
 Confirmation invariably drew an immense crowd. 
 There was a class of about 500 to confirm, and 
 in it figured prominently Pasqualino. With few 
 exceptions every candidate was accompanied by 
 a sponsor. This circumstance, together with the 
 presence of fond parents anxious to behold the 
 enlistment of their offspring in the Lord's army, 
 produced quite a multitude. The church being 
 too small to accommodate the crowd, two cere- 
 monies became imperative. As soon as a por- 
 tion of the throng filled the sacred edifice the 
 doors were locked and guarded. After the de- 
 parture of the first division through the vestry, 
 the portals were again thrown open and the bal- 
 ance of the class were allowed to enter. By the 
 time the forehead of the last candidate had been 
 signed with holy chrism, the Archbishop was 
 pretty well exhausted. He had perspired pro- 
 fusely. His rochet was wringing wet, and his 
 forehead, streaked with red from the lining of 
 his miter. But in spite of the fatigue, he gave 
 the children a brief, practical instruction on the 
 nature and effects of Confirmation, as well as 
 on the duty of co-operating with the graces 
 which they had received. He said in part: 
 
 " My Dear Children : When our Lord was 
 
64 MEMOIRS OF ZI PRE' 
 
 about to ascend into heaven, the Apostles were 
 very sad at the thought of His departure. But 
 He consoled them, promising to send the Holy 
 Ghost, or Paraclete, which means Comforter, 
 Consoler. He, the Holy Spirit of truth, would 
 abide with them forever to guide them in the 
 way of holiness and truth. Immediately after 
 our Savior's ascension into heaven, the Apostles 
 returned to Jerusalem where they remained for 
 ten days in prayer and recollection, waiting until 
 the Holy Ghost came down upon them in the 
 form of fiery tongues. This afternoon, you re- 
 ceived the same Holy Spirit of God, the Third 
 Person of the Blessed Trinity, in the sacrament 
 of Confirmation, in order to make you strong 
 and perfect Christians, and soldiers of Jesus 
 Christ. This sacrament is called by various 
 names. The Italians call it la Cresima, or 
 Chrism, because the forehead of the person to 
 be confirmed is anointed with holy chrism. 
 Sometimes it is designated as the ' imposition or 
 laying on of hands/ because the bishop extends 
 his hands over those whom he confirms. It is 
 more generally called Confirmation, because it 
 confirms or strengthens the soul with divine 
 grace. In the Acts of the Apostles, Chapter 
 VIII, we read that after the Samaritan con- 
 verts had been baptized by Philip the deacon, 
 ' they sent to them Peter and John, who, when 
 
CONFIRMATION 65 
 
 they were come, prayed for them that they might 
 receive the Holy Ghost ; for He was not yet come 
 upon any of them . . . then they laid their hands 
 on them, and they received the Holy Ghost.' 
 In the XIX chapter it is related that when Paul 
 came to Ephesus and found certain disciples, he 
 asked them : ' Have you received the Holy 
 Ghost, since you believed ? ' But they said : 
 ' We have not so much as heard whether there 
 be a Holy Ghost . . . And when Paul had im- 
 posed his hands on them, the Holy Ghost came 
 upon them, and they spoke with tongues and 
 prophesied.' From these passages of Holy Writ 
 we infer that Confirmation has all the necessary 
 elements of a true sacrament, viz. : An outward 
 sign instituted by Christ, and giving grace. The 
 anointing of the forehead and the words pro- 
 nounced at the same time by the Bishop consti- 
 tute an outward sign visible to all. This out- 
 ward sign practiced by the Apostles upon the 
 newly baptised is productive of grace, for it is 
 indicated as the instrumental cause of the de- 
 scent of the Holy Ghost, the Lord and Author 
 of grace. ' Then they laid their hands on them 
 and they received the Holy Ghost.' This is ad- 
 mirably confirmed by the verse immediately fol- 
 lowing, because there it is recorded that ' When 
 Simon (the magician) saw that by the imposi- 
 tion of the Apostles' hands, the Holy Ghost was 
 
66 MEMOIRS OP Zl PRE' 
 
 given, he offered them money, saying: Give me 
 also this power that on whomsoever I shall lay 
 my hands, he may receive the Holy Ghost.' 
 Simon made no mistake in acknowledging the 
 Apostolic power of imparting grace through the 
 imposition of hands, but he was deceived in 
 thinking that such power could be purchased 
 with money. Hence St. Peter reproved him, 
 saying : ' Keep thy money to thyself to perish 
 with thee, because thou hast thought that the gift 
 of God may be purchased with money.' This 
 outward sign must have been divinely instituted 
 and employed by the Apostles at the express 
 command of Christ. They certainly had not the 
 power of originating an outward sign productive 
 of grace. They in fact declared that they were 
 not ' the authors, but the dispensers of the mys- 
 teries of God.' " 
 
 The so-called reformers did not hesitate to 
 repudiate the sacrament of confirmation on the 
 ground that its institution could not be clearly 
 proved from Scripture. Calvin was very bitter 
 and blasphemous in its denunciation. In the 
 Lutheran churches confirmation is an examina- 
 tion in Christian doctrine of a candidate and a 
 renewal of his profession of faith which had 
 been made for him by godparents at the time of 
 his baptism. The Episcopalians retain the name 
 of confirmation, but nothing more. Contrary to 
 
CONFIRMATION 67 
 
 the practice of all antiquity they mutilate the rite 
 by omitting the unction with chrism. In fact, 
 they are careful to remind us that the rite ad- 
 ministered by them has no sacramental efficacy 
 whatever. 
 
 Confirmation, or the rite of imparting the 
 Holy Ghost, cannot be regarded as an extraor- 
 dinary gift conferred upon the Apostles, and 
 which was to cease with their death. No 
 grounds for any such assertion can be found 
 either in the Bible or in the teachings of the 
 Church. Confirmation, which was usually ad- 
 ministered to the catechumens immediately after 
 baptism, formed as regular a part of the Apos- 
 tolic ministry as preaching, baptizing, ordaining, 
 etc. Hence the lawful successors of the 
 Apostles, viz.: the Bishops of the Catholic 
 Church, have the same right to confirm as they 
 have to preach, to baptize, to ordain, or to exer- 
 cise any other inherited apostolic function. 
 
 Confirmation is not absolutely necessary for 
 salvation the same as baptism. Yet for those 
 who have come to the use of reason, it is re- 
 quired by divine as well as Church law. God 
 wants us to fortify ourselves with all the spiritual 
 helps needed for the attainment of our last end, 
 and the catechism declares that it is a sin to neg- 
 lect confirmation especially in these evil days 
 when faith and morals are exposed to so many 
 
68 MEMOIRS OF ZI PRE' 
 
 and such violent temptations. Those having the 
 opportunity to receive this sacrament of strength, 
 and failing to do so, resemble soldiers without 
 weapons in time of battle. They have little 
 chance of victory over their passions. 
 
 Confirmation, like Baptism and Holy Orders, 
 can only be received once. These three sacra- 
 ments imprint upon the soul an indelible char- 
 acter, a spiritual seal which remains even after 
 death for the honor and glory of those who are 
 saved, but for the shame, confusion and punish- 
 ment of those who are lost. Baptism makes us 
 the children, Confirmation the soldiers, Holy 
 Orders the priests of God. A child may rebel 
 against his parents and run away from home. 
 But it doesn't matter how fast or how far he 
 runs, he will always remain the son of his father. 
 A soldier, too, may become a traitor and abandon 
 his colors, but he is still a member of the army. 
 If caught, he will be tried and punished as a de- 
 serter. Those abandoning the regular army 
 may elude pursuit. They may change their 
 name and lose themselves in a large city, or run 
 away to a distant country. But for those de- 
 serting the Lord's army there is absolutely no 
 immunity. It is utterly impossible for them to 
 escape. Whatever character we have borne here, 
 either as children, soldiers, or priests of God, in 
 the same role we shall appear before His judg- 
 
CONFIRMATION 69 
 
 ment seat. We shall be rewarded or punished 
 according to our merits. 
 
 Those confirmed by the Apostles usually mani- 
 fested the presence of the Holy Ghost through 
 the gift of tongues, miracles and prophecy. We 
 don't expect the Holy Spirit to produce in you 
 such prodigies. Those extraordinary graces 
 have been granted at different times to apostolic 
 missionaries by the Holy Spirit who gives to each 
 that measure of grace enabling him to accom- 
 plish what God expects of him. " Just as the 
 sapling," says St, Gregory, " is daily watered by 
 the gardener who loosens the earth about its 
 roots, so that the sun and moisture may nourish 
 them, until they have taken deep root and no 
 longer require any special care; so the Church 
 in her infancy needed to be nourished by the 
 miraculous power of God. But after the Church 
 had taken root in the hearts of the people and 
 spread her branches over the face of the earth, 
 God left her to the ordinary agencies of His 
 providence." 
 
 We expect that the Holy Ghost whom you 
 have received will make you speak the language 
 of God. Your conversation in future will be 
 holy. You will avoid the profane language of 
 the world, the language of anger, deceit, lying, 
 slander, impurity. Henceforth you must speak 
 a tongue that is new and unknown to the chil- 
 
70 MEMOIRS OF ZI PRE 
 
 dren of the world. You must show by your con- 
 duct that the Holy Spirit abides in you and 
 speaks through you, that you are really His liv- 
 ing temples. If you have not received the gift 
 of tongues as did the primitive Christians, you 
 must show at least that you have received some- 
 thing far more excellent — the gift of making 
 proper use of your own tongue. 
 
 You have received, moreover, the gift of forti- 
 tude or strength to enable you to do the will of 
 God in all things. You were given a slight blow 
 on the cheek to remind you that you must be 
 ready to suffer everything, even death for the 
 sake of Christ. The Crusaders were knighted 
 in a similar manner. According to the ancient 
 ceremonial, the Bishop gave those defenders of 
 the faith a slight blow with a sword which he 
 presented to them, and they arose knights. 
 After anointing your foreheads with holy chrism, 
 he also gives you a slight blow to remind you 
 that you have become knights, warriors of Christ, 
 and that you must combat for His glory. Of 
 course you shall not be called upon to shed your 
 blood for your faith, as were the early martyrs. 
 Those dreadful persecutions are not likely to be 
 repeated. But you shall have other struggles to 
 endure against the world, the flesh, and the devil 
 " who goeth about like a roaring lion seeking 
 whom he may devour." You may encounter 
 
CONFIRMATION 71 
 
 persons of little or no religion, " wolves dressed 
 in sheep's clothing," who will try to rob you of 
 your faith. This very neighborhood in which 
 you live is swarming with them. Against their 
 impious attacks you must show a courage worthy 
 the soldiers of Jesus Christ. It is your duty to 
 uphold the interests and glory of your Master. 
 What boy would allow anyone to speak con- 
 temptuously of his parents? And how could 
 you allow any scoffer to insult Christ and His 
 Church, or to ridicule devotion to His Blessed 
 Mother? Never be influenced by human re- 
 spect which prevents weak characters from 
 professing their faith. Never omit your morn- 
 ing or night prayers. Come promptly to Mass 
 on Sundays and Holidays, and approach the sac- 
 raments regularly. Above all, avoid the occa- 
 sions of sin. You may find stumbling blocks to 
 the practice of virtue and religion even among 
 your relatives whose scandalous conduct may be 
 a constant invitation to wickedness. Pray for 
 their conversion. No matter to which side you 
 turn, you may see evil applauded and good de- 
 rided. Those will be your tyrants and perse- 
 cutors. But the graces received this day in Con- 
 firmation will enable you to resist and triumph. 
 
CHAPTER VIII 
 
 SCHOOL DAYS 
 
 AFTER considerable family debate it was 
 decided to let Pasqualino attend the pa- 
 rochial school where the good Sisters were cer- 
 tain to exert upon him a refining influence. He 
 soon gave evidence of remarkable talent. His 
 desire to learn, to see whatever was going on, 
 and especially to ply people with questions, was 
 so insistent, that his father often implored him 
 for the love of San Sebastiano or the Madonna 
 to keep his mouth shut and let people have a 
 chance to speak of more important matters. He 
 gradually became persona non grata iir the busi- 
 ness section of the Amadeo household, and when- 
 ever appearing there, was usually invited to de- 
 part. He was a walking interrogation point, and 
 the father vastly preferred to sell steerage tick- 
 ets, and make out money orders than to fatigue 
 his brain answering childish questions. " The 
 mania which that boy has for talking," he ex- 
 claimed, " convinces me that he will eventually 
 become either a great lawyer or a great nuisance. 
 
 72 
 
SCHOOL DAYS 73 
 
 In fact, he is the latter already." But in spite 
 of his gruff exterior he began to soften towards 
 the lad whom he had once so inhumanly chas- 
 tised, and decided to give him the best education 
 available. At the age of twelve Pasqualino en- 
 tered the preparatory course of a Catholic col- 
 lege and for three successive years easily led his 
 class in all the branches. He manifested a spe- 
 cial predilection for reading and at times became 
 so absorbed in the perusal of a book as to forget 
 the bell for meals. In all the college plays he 
 invariably took a leading part. Gifted with a 
 tenacious memory and a talent for elocution, his 
 declamatory efforts usually elicited great ap- 
 plause. Each year of his college course he car- 
 ried off the gold medal for Christian doctrine. 
 In class he never failed to importune the pro- 
 fessor for the explanation of any difficulty he did 
 not comprehend. 
 
 A two weeks' mission was conducted one sea- 
 son in the church, and it left upon Pasqualino 
 an indelible impression. The religious exercises 
 were conducted in true Italian style. On a Sun- 
 day morning after the first gospel of the High 
 Mass, the pastor bearing a large crucifix, and 
 accompanied by acolytes, met the Missionary 
 Fathers at the church door. The procession 
 chanting psalms marched slowly up the middle 
 aisle to the main altar. The pastor presented 
 
74 MEMOIRS OF ZI PRE' 
 
 the crucifix to the missioners who were formally 
 given charge of the congregation. The people 
 were exhorted to take advantage of the graces 
 afforded them during the mission and to attend 
 regularly its various exercises. The admonition 
 was hardly needed, for each evening every seat 
 was taken fully an hour before the service's be- 
 gan. In fact one Sunday night that the Fire De- 
 partment came over hurriedly in response to a 
 false alarm turned in by an hysterical female, 
 so dense was the throng both within and without 
 the church, that the Fire Marshal wrote a curt 
 note to the pastor the next day informing him 
 that if he ever allowed his church to be over- 
 crowded again, he would simply notify the Chief 
 of Police to issue a warrant for his arrest. A 
 characteristic feature of the mission and which 
 held the attention of Pasqualino far more than 
 the most elaborate sermon, was the dialogue be- 
 tween the preceptor and pupil. This method of 
 imparting instruction is as old as the hills and 
 exceedingly popular among the Southern Ital- 
 ians. The questions and answers of the contro- 
 versial subjects treated were followed by Pas- 
 qualino most minutely, so that afterwards he 
 was able to repeat the entire dialogue almost 
 verbatim. A novel feature of the mission, re- 
 calling the conduct of the primitive Christians 
 who brought their books of necromancy to be 
 
SCHOOL DAYS 75 
 
 burned by the Apostles, was the combustion of 
 anti-catholic literature in the church yard. A 
 waste basket was filled with spurious editions of 
 the Bible and slanderous pamphlets which a few 
 misguiding zealots had distributed among the 
 people. News of this impending event spread 
 rapidly and created great consternation among 
 the evangelicals. About an hour before the cere- 
 mony one of them came to the basement of the 
 church. He was eyed suspiciously by a group 
 of altar boys. " Oh, look who is here ! " whis- 
 pered one. " That fellow comes from the Tay- 
 lor Street Mission. I have often seen him gad- 
 ding about the street corners on Sunday, trying 
 to coax children into the Bible class." 
 
 " I admire his nerve," commented Pasqualino. 
 " I wonder what the Dickens brings him here." 
 Then approaching the new comer, he addressed 
 him : " Excuse me, Mister, is there anything I 
 can do for you? Do you want that book given 
 to the priest?" he added, pointing to the Bible 
 which the evangelist carried under his arm. 
 " No," replied the latter, " but I would like very 
 much to speak to him." The boys made a futile 
 effort to repress an irrepressible giggle. Just 
 then Zi Pre 5 entered the room on his way to the 
 sacristy and the giggling ceased. " Just a mo- 
 ment," said the evangelist, stopping him. " If 
 you can convince me that my bible is not the 
 
76 MEMOIRS OF ZI PRE' 
 
 Word of God, I will let you have it to be burned 
 along with the others. " 
 
 " If your bible," said the priest, " has the ap- 
 proval of the Catholic Church, it is authentic. 
 If it lacks that sanction, it must be spurious. I 
 haven't time to examine it now." 
 
 " Well," insisted the evangelist, " I claim that 
 it is the word of God just the same as the Catholic 
 Bible. There is no difference between them." 
 
 " Your claiming doesn't make it so," responded 
 the priest. " The word of God doesn't consist 
 in mere letters, whether written or printed, but 
 in the true sense of it. A false interpretation 
 can turn the word of God into the word of man, 
 or even into the word of the devil who quoted 
 Scripture rather fluently to our Savior, when 
 tempting Him in the desert. In itself the Bible 
 is a dead letter. It cannot talk or explain itself. 
 Without an infallible teaching authority to inter- 
 pret its true meaning, what good can it do us? 
 Here, Pasqualino, conduct this gentleman to the 
 church, and give him a good seat toward the 
 front where he can clearly hear the Missioner." 
 The evangelist followed Pasqualino into the 
 church, while the priest proceeded to the bap- 
 tistery. The missioner prefaced the bonfire with 
 a forcible sermon on the authenticity of the 
 Scriptures. " The Catholic Church," he said, 
 " the divinely appointed guardian of God's mes- 
 
SCHOOL DAYS 77 
 
 sage to mankind, cannot tolerate spurious edi- 
 tions of His written word, any more than the 
 government can connive at the circulation of 
 counterfeit bills. Our separated brethren pre- 
 tend to discover no essential difference between 
 the Catholic and Protestant version of Scripture, 
 although they regard seven books of the Old 
 Testament as apocryphal. Strange inconsist- 
 ency! The books which they reject have abso- 
 lutely the same sanction as those which they ac- 
 cept — the sanction of the Catholic Church, with- 
 out whose authority St. Augustine declared : ' I 
 would not believe the Gospel/ The craze for 
 scattering bibles broadcast over the face of the 
 earth, is a most potent cause of the growing ir- 
 reverence and disbelief in its contents. Cheap 
 bibles have been used for gun wadding and even 
 more ignoble purposes by the very people upon 
 whom they have been foisted. This indiscrim- 
 inate distribution of biblical literature is design- 
 edly made by ignorant Gospel peddlers so that 
 they may present lengthy and glowing accounts 
 of their proselytizing labor to interested employ- 
 ers. We have encountered individuals simple 
 minded enough to believe that the first edition 
 of the Bible, after the invention of the printing 
 press, was published by Martin Luther! As a 
 matter of historical fact no less than fifty-six 
 editions of the Sacred Book had appeared in 
 
78 MEMOIRS OF ZI PRE' 
 
 Europe long before the birth of the famous 
 heresiarch. Another popular fallacy is that the 
 Church discourages the reading of the Bible 
 among her members, as it might make them Prot- 
 estants. Strange that it made Catholics of Man- 
 ning, Newman, Faber, and a host of others! 
 Persons afflicted with this delusion might profit- 
 ably peruse the preface of the first Catholic Bible 
 that they happen to run across. They will find 
 in it a congratulatory letter from Pius VI to 
 Archbishop Martini of Florence who had just 
 completed a translation of the Bible into Italian. 
 The pontifif indicates the benefits which the faith- 
 ful may reap by piously reading the Holy Scrip- 
 tures with explanatory notes in their mother 
 tongue. True, in the days of religious turmoil 
 when heretics sought to fill the sacred text with 
 interpolations of their erroneous doctrines, thus 
 wresting the words of Scripture to their own 
 destruction, restrictions were placed on the cir- 
 culation and reading of the Bible. The Church 
 is its divinely appointed custodian. Once we re- 
 pudiate her teaching authority, we cannot be 
 certain of its authenticity, and nothing remains 
 for us but to be ' tossed to and fro, and carried 
 about with every wind of doctrine/ " 
 
 Pasqualino's home surroundings were any- 
 thing but attractive. The neighborhood had un- 
 dergone little or no change from the time of the 
 
SCHOOL DAYS 79 
 
 great Chicago fire in 1871. The same old shan- 
 ties erected then, were beginning to show the 
 ravages of time. On all the intervening streets 
 between Van Buren and Maxwell, from the river 
 to Blue Island Avenue, garbage boxes were ob- 
 noxiously evident and arranged as sentinels along 
 the sidewalks. In the years immediately follow- 
 ing the awful conflagration caused by Mrs. 
 O'Leary's cow, that section of the city was in- 
 habited by the Irish and Bohemians. Just as 
 soon as they acquired the means, the most of 
 them moved away. They were succeeded by 
 Russian Jews, Italians, and Greeks. An oasis 
 of green grass and shady trees in the form of a 
 small park would have been a God send to the 
 rising generation of that congested tenement dis- 
 trict. The priest had repeatedly urged the West 
 Side Park Board to select a site for that purpose. 
 After several years of needless procrastination 
 a few lots opposite the church were purchased 
 for a public playground. In the crowded thor- 
 oughfares of that Italian quarter youngsters 
 might be found who never saw a blade of grass, 
 much less a flower, until they beheld the few 
 sickly plants and vines that were making an heroic 
 struggle for existence on the lawn of Guardian 
 Angel Church. Poor little children, like the 
 flowers of the neighborhood, their life was mis- 
 erable. 
 
80 MEMOIRS OF ZI PRE' 
 
 Signor Buonanima, the godfather and maternal 
 uncle of Pasqualino, kept an ice-cream parlor on 
 N. Clark St., near Lincoln Park. The Amadeos 
 were toiling and moiling from early morn till 
 late at night, selling steamship tickets, exchang- 
 ing money, sending drafts, and writing letters 
 for clients to their loved ones in far-off Italy. 
 Thursday, the weekly college free-day brought 
 Pasqualino more in contact with his parents. 
 They did not require much coaxing to let him 
 spend that day at his uncle's. Thus he would not 
 be around to pester them with his incessant prat- 
 tle. To the uncle's house therefore Pasqualino 
 regularly went in order to spend the greater part 
 of Thursday. He invariably brought along a 
 couple of school books and devoted a few hours 
 to the preparation of class exercises for the next 
 day. The rest of the time was spent romping 
 about the park, playing tennis, or visiting the 
 zoological garden. He never failed to visit a 
 big grizzly bear to whom he usually threw a few 
 crumbs of cracker jack, that is, when the attend- 
 ants were not in sight. Pasqualino seemed to- 
 tally oblivious of the placards confronting him 
 on every side not to feed the animals. It amused 
 him immensely to watch the antics of Bruin who 
 would complacently straighten up on his haunches 
 like a trained dog anticipating a lump of sugar. 
 If any of the tempting crumbs happened to fall 
 

 SCHOOL DAYS 81 
 
 outside the bars, he stretched out his paw and 
 deftly swept them into the cage. One Thursday 
 morning while Pasqualino stood observing an 
 African lion, a dark complexioned gentleman 
 with a Van Dyke beard approached the railing 
 of the enclosure. Pasqualino scrutinized him in- 
 tently, endeavoring to recall where he had seen 
 his face.before. He finally located him, and said 
 to himself : " I got your number, old boy. 
 You're the gent who came to argue with Zi Pre' 
 at the close of the mission ! " A similar process 
 of inquiry was probably taking place in the mind 
 of the stranger, who engaged Pasqualino in the 
 following conversation. 
 
CHAPTER IX 
 
 AT THE ZOO 
 
 "TTTELL, young man," said the stranger, 
 VY " what do you think of the king of the 
 forest ? " An attendant with a basket of meat 
 happened to pass along the enclosure. At sight 
 of him the monarch of the jungle rushed to the 
 front of his cage and emitted a terrific roar that 
 caused both the stranger and Pasqualino a mo- 
 mentary shudder. The lion's roar aroused a con- 
 cert of protests from neighboring cages. The 
 jaguars, leopards and tigers soon joined the ani- 
 mal chorus. "Wow!" ejaculated Pasqualino. 
 " I cannot help thinking of what the x\rchbishop 
 said when he gave us Confirmation, ' to be sober 
 and watch: because your adversary the devil as 
 a roaring lion goeth about seeking whom he may 
 devour.' That fellow would certainly make 
 short work of us if he ever escaped." 
 
 The pair emerged into the open air and pro- 
 ceeded towards the monkey house. The first 
 cage to the left of the entrance contained a Man- 
 drill baboon who, of all animals in the collection, 
 
 82 
 
AT THE ZOO 83 
 
 was by far the homeliest and most repulsive. 
 His face, like a chromatic spectrum, seemed to 
 exhibit nearly every color of the rainbow, while 
 his fiery red nose gave him the appearance of a 
 reprobate who had been on a week's debauch. 
 
 " Hello, Grandpa ! " exclaimed the stranger, 
 playfully addressing the horrid creature. 
 
 " So that is the brute which Mr. Darwin would 
 have us recognize as our ancestor ! " commented 
 Pasqualino. " Nobody can convince me that I 
 am even remotely related to such an ugly beast. 
 I think that I shall move on so as not to disturb 
 your conversation with Grandpa. The odor of 
 this place is rotten like the animals." The 
 stranger did not seem inclined to renew old ac- 
 quaintances, and followed Pasqualino to a cage 
 of timber wolves. 
 
 " How strongly they resemble the domestic 
 canine ! " said the stranger. " They might be 
 trained to mind the house." 
 
 " I'm afraid," said Pasqualino, " that as watch 
 dogs they would prove a failure. You might as 
 well get a cat to mind a canary, or a hawk to 
 watch a brood of chickens. They remind me of 
 the admonition ' to beware of false prophets who 
 come to us in the clothing of sheep, but inwardly 
 they are ravening wolves/ These brutes at least 
 are not masquerading. Just observe the size of 
 that fellow's mouth and teeth when he yawns! 
 
84 MEMOIRS OF Zl PRE 
 
 Anyone could easily recognize him at quite a dis- 
 tance and keep out of his way. But those wolves 
 arrayed in sheep's clothing who steal upon us un- 
 awares . . . they are the ones we must guard 
 against." 
 
 " Why who can those wolves be that cause you 
 so much uneasiness ? " asked the stranger. 
 
 " The Gospel indicates them clearly enough, 
 and our priest has told me about them repeat- 
 edly," rejoined Pasqualino. " They are those 
 misguided soul-chasers who abound in the West 
 Side Italian district. The feminine variety is 
 extremely dangerous, as she usually has such at- 
 tractive and winning ways. These zealots are 
 continually trying to draw Italian children into 
 their meeting houses. Under the guise of giv- 
 ing the poorer ones an outing in the country they 
 keep them under control during the summer 
 months and employ all sorts of inducements to 
 rob them of their faith. Sometimes they meet 
 us on our way home from Mass and tell us we 
 mustn't believe that we receive Jesus in Holy 
 Communion, that it is only a piece of ordinary 
 bread which the priest gives us. They offer lit- 
 tle girls candy, clothes, and all kinds of presents, 
 in order to entice them into their sewing circles. 
 Some go so far as to place a cross over their 
 chapel and hang pictures of the Madonna on the 
 walls in order to hoodwink the simple-minded. 
 
AT THE ZOO 85 
 
 There is a poor barber dying of consumption in 
 a house on Desplaines Street. One of these 
 fanatics visited his wife and told her that if she 
 only joined their church, the rent would be paid 
 and the family would be supplied with coal and 
 groceries during the winter. Our pastor told us 
 all about the case, because he is attending her 
 husband. He said that it was like Satan taking 
 our Lord to the top of a mountain, and promis- 
 ing Him all the kingdoms of the earth and the 
 glory of them, if only falling down He would 
 adore him. The barber's wife begged the pros- 
 elytizer to go away and not try to take advantage 
 of her poverty. Although in extreme need, she 
 was not ready to exchange her priceless gift of 
 faith for a mess of pottage. 
 
 " One. Sunday morning the priest discovered 
 two men distributing their leaflets among the chil- 
 dren in Guardian Angel school yard. He was 
 very indignant that they dared to trespass on pri- 
 vate property. He ordered them out and de- 
 clared that if he ever caught them on the church 
 premises again, they would get a free ride in the 
 patrol wagon. Last summer two individuals 
 were haranguing the people in front of Gari- 
 baldi Hall on Ewing Street. One started to sing 
 a hymn while the other doled out bibles from a 
 satchel to the crowd. Suddenly the listeners 
 began to jeer and pelt them with water-melon 
 
86 MEMOIRS OF ZI PRE' 
 
 rinds obtained from a neighboring garbage box, 
 and finally chased them across Polk street bridge. 
 Now I regard these gospel peddlers as ravening 
 wolves/' 
 
 " Do you really think," asked the stranger, 
 " that those engaged in spreading the Gospel 
 among ignorant, superstitious Italians are raven- 
 ing wolves ? " 
 
 " Yes," replied Pasqualino. " What else but 
 a wolf in sheep's clothing would you consider 
 the so-called Father Anastasi who donned a set 
 of vestments and pretended to say Mass al fresco 
 on W. Polk St., for the Santa Rosalia Society? 
 This proselytizing skulduggery was highly com- 
 mended by the Episcopalian Official Organ 1 
 which declared that ' the 3,000 reverent Italians 
 were delighted at having finally discovered a 
 Catholic (?) priest who did not live in submis- 
 sion to the Pope ! ' Anyone employing such un- 
 derhanded tactics in the commercial world, would 
 be speedily driven out of business." 
 
 " You seem to be deeply prejudiced against 
 these good people," said the stranger. " Are 
 you acquainted at all with their religion ? " 
 
 " No, sir," rejoined Pasqualino, " and what is 
 more, I have no desire to make its acquaintance. 
 It is enough for me to know that these people 
 despise the Pope, bishops, and priests, about 
 
 lU The Diocese of Chicago," (Nov., 1913, p. 20). 
 
AT THE ZOO 87 
 
 whom they are continually spreading all kinds 
 of lies. Why don't they stay at home and mind 
 their own business, or wait at least until we send 
 for them? They seem so anxious to make us 
 apostatize from the true faith. Are you perhaps 
 one of them ? " 
 
 " Oh, dear no," responded the stranger. " I 
 am an Evangelist/' 
 
 " An Evangelist ! " echoed Pasqualino, giving 
 a long whistle and drawing back in astonishment. 
 " Which one of them have I the honor to ad- 
 dress? Matthew, Mark, Luke, or John? I 
 thought that all four were dead and buried cen- 
 turies ago. What is the ' difference between a 
 Protestant and an Evangelist ? " 
 
 " Protestants," explained the stranger, " are 
 those who follow the reformation of Calvin and 
 Luther. Evangelists or Evangelicals adhere to 
 the pure and simple Gospel explained in its true 
 sense." 
 
 " Is your Gospel different from ours ? " asked 
 Pasqualino. 
 
 " Oh, it is really the same book," replied the 
 stranger, " but with a different explanation." 
 
 "Per Bacco, that is wonderful," exclaimed 
 Pasqualino. " What authority have you for 
 your different explanation ? " 
 
 H You might as well ask me," rejoined the 
 stranger, " what authority I have to know light 
 
88 
 
 MEMOIRS OF ZI PRE' 
 
 from dark, white from black, or sweet from sour. 
 Each one's common sense gives the true mean- 
 ing of the Bible." 
 
 " Your illustrations," said Pasqualino, " de- 
 note objects that fall under the senses and even 
 the animals are able to distinguish them. Offer 
 a lemon even to a jackass, and see how quickly 
 he will turn from it in disgust. ,The Bible is 
 not an object of the senses, but something spir- 
 itual and divine. To recognize it as the written 
 word of God, we require not only an enlightened 
 mind, but also an infallible tribunal divinely es- 
 tablished which St. Paul calls, ' the pillar and 
 ground of truth/ Everybody claims to have 
 common sense. Hence everybody even the most 
 ignorant ' ought to be able then to explain the 
 Bible. The New Testament was not written 
 until quite a while after our Savior's death. 
 During that interval men could certainly be 
 saved without reading the Bible. They could 
 not read and explain what was not written. 
 Can you give any proof that we are obliged to 
 read the Bible?" 
 
 " Why, do you think God gave us the Bible, 
 if He didn't expect us to read it and thus learn 
 His holy will ? " asked the stranger. 
 
 "If God's will could be ascertained solely 
 through the reading of the Bible," rejoined Pas- 
 qualino, "your argument might have some 
 
AT THE ZOO 89 
 
 weight. Fortunately His will may be learned in 
 various other ways, and chiefly through the oral 
 teaching of the Church which He commands us 
 to obey. ' He that heareth not the Church, let 
 him be to thee as the heathen and the publican.' 
 If all had the assistance of the Holy Spirit when 
 reading the Bible, as you contend, all would 
 agree in its interpretation. St. Peter declares 
 that the epistles of St. Paul contain certain 
 things hard to be understood, which the un- 
 learned and unstable wrest, as they do also the 
 other Scripture, to their own destruction." (II 
 Peter III-16.) 
 
 " But the Savior commanded us to read the 
 Bible," insisted the stranger. " ' Search the 
 Scriptures, for you think in them to have life 
 everlasting; and the same are they that give tes- 
 timony of me.' " 
 
 " The passage quoted," said Pasqualino, " is 
 of doubtful construction, and may be understood 
 indicatively or imperatively. In either case it 
 conveys no general command. Understood in 
 the Indicative mood, it is simply a reproach to 
 the Jews who, like yourself, derived such little 
 profit from the reading of the Bible. Taken 
 imperatively, the text refers, not to the multi- 
 tude, but to the Scribes and Pharisees, those 
 versed in the law, whom alone our Lord here 
 addresses. If God commanded all to read the 
 
go MEMOIRS OF ZI PRE 
 
 Bible as the sole means of salvation, for Apostles 
 He would have selected a dozen printers instead 
 of twelve poor fishermen. Many cannot read, 
 and many who can, have no bible. God never 
 exacts an impossibility of His creatures. My 
 grandmother doesn't know B from a bull's foot. 
 Isn't there any salvation for her?" 
 
 " My dear boy," said the stranger patroniz- 
 ingly, " you don't understand these things. Just 
 let me explain them to you gradually." 
 
 " Thanks, I don't need your explanation," re- 
 torted Pasqualino. " I can read the Bible, and 
 my common sense will enable me to interpret it 
 just as well, in fact better than you. Just tell 
 me how an ignorant person can read and under- 
 stand it, and then you may pass on to some other 
 subject. You make me tired." 
 
 " Well, well," laughed the stranger, " your 
 candor pleases me. What else have you to 
 say?" 
 
 " Simply this," shouted Pasqualino excitedly ; 
 " if each one's common sense be enough to in- 
 terpret the Bible, then let each one have a copy 
 of it, and even the most illiterate will have no 
 need of you or any other teacher. You should 
 be true to your principles. To do otherwise is 
 to act the traitor, the wolf in sheep's clothing." 
 Just then Pasqualino heard the noon whistle. 
 
 " One word more," said the stranger. " Since 
 
AT THE ZOO 91 
 
 you are so much opposed to the common sense 
 of each one, or the private illumination of the 
 Holy Ghost, what assurance can you have that 
 your belief is according to the Gospel ?" 
 
 " Faith cometh by hearing/' replied Pasqua- 
 lino ; " we get ours from the pastors whom the 
 Holy Ghost appointed to govern the Church. 
 We follow the teachings of those to whom it was 
 said : ' Going therefore teach all nations all 
 things whatsoever I have commanded, and be- 
 hold I am with you all days even to the con- 
 summation of the world.' We observe the doc- 
 trine taught by the lawful successor of him to 
 whom it was declared : ' Thou art Peter and 
 upon this rock I will build my church and the 
 gates of hell shall not prevail against it.' Kindly 
 meet me here next Thursday and we can re- 
 sume our conversation." Whereupon Pasqua- 
 lino started on a record breaking pace, and did 
 not stop running until breathless he reached his 
 uncle's house. 
 
CHAPTER X 
 
 PSEUDO-REFORMERS 
 
 PASQUALINO'S uncle was so busy waiting 
 on customers that he failed to observe his 
 panting, perspiring nephew glide swiftly through 
 the store to the living apartment in the rear. 
 The aunt, however, demanded an explanation of 
 his delay. 
 
 " Oh, we stood talking near the conservatory," 
 he explained, " and didn't notice the time pass- 
 ing. Just as soon as the 12 o'clock whistle blew, 
 I started for home/' 
 
 " Pasqualino ! " she said, leveling her index 
 finger at him and looking him straight in the 
 eye, " you have been either swimming, or out in 
 a boat! You look as if you had just been fished 
 out of the lake." 
 
 " Neither one, nor the other, Auntie," he re- 
 plied with an air of injured innocence that im- 
 mediately dispelled her suspicions. u I am sim- 
 ply dripping with perspiration, because I ran all 
 the way home." 
 
 Of course he should have told her about meet- 
 ing that strange gentleman and of the conversa- 
 
 92 
 
PSEUDO-REFORMERS 93 
 
 tion with him, but he did not realize the danger 
 to which he was exposed. Rejoicing secretly 
 over the victory achieved, he was anxious to re- 
 turn to the assault in order to render his triumph 
 complete. He devoted every spare moment of 
 the following week to the " Faith of our 
 Fathers " and " Catholic Belief." With the mas- 
 tery of these two books he felt that he was be- 
 coming quite a theologian. In fact on three dif- 
 ferent occasions after class he importuned his 
 professor in order to obtain all possible informa- 
 tion regarding Luther, Calvin, and Henry VIII. 
 " I'll be Johnny on the spot next Thursday morn- 
 ing," he said to himself in great glee, and rub- 
 bing his hands in anticipation of the fray. " If 
 his whiskers only shows up, I'll hand him a few 
 thought-provokers. I will take ' Catholic Belief ' 
 along in my pocket. It may come handy in 
 case of doubt." 
 
 The following Thursday found him attentively 
 watching the sea lions. An attendant was 
 throwing them fish which they never failed to 
 catch with their mouths. " There's only one 
 thing these fellows are unable to catch," said the 
 attendant. " I'll be the goat, mister," said Pas- 
 qualino. " What's the answer ? " 
 
 " A cold," hoarsely muttered the attendant 
 who fell into a paroxysm of coughing. 
 
 Just then the so-called evangelist, confident of 
 
94 MEMOIRS OF ZI PRE' 
 
 drawing a fish into his net, approached our youth- 
 ful theologian and greeted him most cordially. 
 
 Pasqualino returned the salutation and added: 
 " I have been thinking very seriously of what 
 you said last week, and would like you to give 
 me a few explanations." 
 
 " Well, here I am at your service," said the 
 stranger with a beaming countenance. " But 
 you must try to speak more calmly. So many 
 people are passing here. Let us take that seat 
 yonder where we shall neither be disturbed nor 
 attract attention." 
 
 " That suits me," said Pasqualino, as both pro- 
 ceeded leisurely to the bench under a spreading 
 chestnut tree. " Please excuse me," continued 
 Pasqualino, " for having been so rude in my 
 speech last Thursday. I am of a rather excit- 
 able temperament, and whenever anyone attacks 
 the truth in my presence, it gets on my nerves. 
 My professor has cautioned me repeatedly to 
 argue quietly and not fly into a passion." 
 
 " Oh, make no more excuses, but go ahead 
 with your questions," said the stranger. 
 
 " Well," began Pasqualino, " how long has 
 your creed existed ? " 
 
 " The evangelical creed," replied the stranger, 
 " or the method of interpreting the Bible in its 
 true and proper sense goes back to the reforma- 
 tion of the Catholic Church." 
 
PSEUDO-REFORMERS 95 
 
 " History informs us when, where, and by 
 whom the Lutheran, Episcopalian, Baptist, Pres- 
 byterian, Mormon, and other churches were 
 founded. Does it give us any information about 
 the establishment of the Catholic Church?" 
 asked Pasqualino. 
 
 " Oh, yes," replied the stranger, " it was orig- 
 inally founded by Christ. But it gradually 
 drifted into idolatry, and was reformed by 
 Luther, Calvin, and Henry VIII. They cor- 
 rected its various abuses by introducing a belief 
 based solely upon the pure, unadulterated gospel. 
 That is what we call the Protestant or Evangeli- 
 cal Reformation. " 
 
 " You admit," said Pasqualino, " that the 
 Catholic Church was originally founded by 
 Christ. It was therefore the work of God. 
 How then could men improve upon or reform 
 God's work?" 
 
 " He commissioned them to do it," replied the 
 stranger somewhat testily. 
 
 " What proof have you that He commissioned 
 them? True, God occasionally employed wicked 
 men to punish His wayward children, but when- 
 ever there was question of reforming their 
 morals, He invariably selected individuals con- 
 spicuous for their piety who preached, not so 
 much by word of mouth, as by the force of their 
 edifying example. 
 
g6 MEMOIRS OF Zl PRE 
 
 " The scandalous lives of these pseudo-re- 
 formers are so notorious as to be acknowledged 
 even by Protestant historians. Did they per- 
 form any miracles to prove that God sent them 
 to reform His Church ? " 
 
 " It isn't known," replied the stranger, " that 
 they performed any miracles." 
 
 " It is however, known," rejoined Pasqualino, 
 " that they felt the necessity of at least attempt- 
 ing miracles in confirmation of their extraor- 
 dinary mission. • 
 
 " Just listen to a brief memorandum on the 
 subject," continued Pasqualino as he drew forth 
 a small note-book from his pocket and began 
 to read: 
 
 " ' A certain Thomas Munzer began to preach 
 independently of the arch reformer. Enraged at 
 Munzer's presumption, Luther said: Let the 
 illustrious senate of Mulhausen summon Thomas 
 Munzer before it, and if possible before the 
 whole community, and let him be asked, who 
 sent him or who authorized him to preach? If 
 he claims to have been sent by God or the Spirit 
 of God, then, like the Apostles of old, let him 
 prove his assertion by signs and miracles. For 
 when God wishes to deviate from the estab- 
 lished order of things, He always accompanies 
 the change with miracles. (Jena, II vol.) 
 Luther overlooked the fact that his argument 
 
PSEUDO-REFORMERS 97 
 
 against Munzer might equally be urged against 
 himself and fellow reformers. For where were 
 their credentials? By what prodigies did they 
 establish their extraordinary mission? Staphyl, 
 an eye witness, testified that upon one occasion 
 Luther endeavored to expel an evil spirit from 
 a girl possessed. His effort proved such a 
 miserable failure that he was obliged to abandon 
 the attempted exorcism in despair. According 
 to Jerome Bolsec, also an eye witness, Calvin 
 bribed an individual named Brule to feign death 
 for the purpose of imposing upon the credulity 
 of the spectators by apparently restoring him to 
 life. The supposed corpse actually died during 
 the impious performance, and remained dead 
 notwithstanding the futile attempts of Calvin to 
 resuscitate him. Erasmus speaking of the 
 Lutherans declares that there never was one of 
 them able to cure even a lame horse.' " 
 
 " My dear boy/' exclaimed the stranger, " we 
 should attend to what these great reformers said, 
 and not to what they did." 
 
 " Certainly," rejoined Pasqualino, " in seeking 
 truth we pay heed only to what a person says, 
 and not to what he does. Do you think that a 
 lecture on temperance from a drunkard, or an 
 exhortation to purity from a libertine would 
 produce much of an impression? No Episco- 
 palian has yet dared to hold up Henry VIII as a 
 
98 
 
 MEMOIRS OF ZI PRE' 
 
 shining example of conjugal fidelity. Luther 
 declared that he learned a great deal from the 
 demon whom he invoked with the words: 
 ' Holy Devil, pray for me.' Now if you follow 
 these men, you also must have the devil for your 
 master. Strange that people should criticize 
 Catholics for praying to the saints, while they 
 themselves invoke the devil ! " 
 
 " My young friend," exclaimed the evangelist, 
 " you are hardly old enough to understand these 
 things. If you had just a little patience, I would 
 explain everything to you clearly." 
 
 " I clearly understand that the founders of 
 evangelism were self-appointed. They were not 
 virtuous, but addicted to all kinds of vice. They 
 wrought no miracle, but had the demon for in- 
 structor." 
 
 " Now, just a moment," shouted the evangelist. 
 "'Luther and Calvin were the reformers and not 
 the founders of our belief. Our founder was 
 Christ to Whom is due all honor and glory in 
 heaven and earth forever." 
 
 " Please tell me," said Pasqualino, " how the 
 doctrine taught by Christ and preached by the 
 Apostles was transmitted to us. The Church of 
 Christ must be one in doctrine, worship, and 
 government. Catholics the world over may 
 speak different languages, but they all have the 
 same faith and moral law, and receive the same 
 
PSEUDO-REFORMERS 99 
 
 sacraments. Your church, instead of being one, 
 is divided into as many sects as there are mem- 
 bers able to read. According to you, everyone 
 can read and believe in the Bible what he likes. 
 Hence each one can form a religion to suit his 
 own taste. Your belief is not holy because its 
 founders were not holy." 
 
 The evangelist was growing impatient. " We 
 pay no attention," he retorted, " to the private 
 lives of the reformers, but solely to Jesus Christ, 
 the true founder of our church." 
 
 " But," insisted Pasqualino, " how do you 
 prove that Christ established your church 1600 
 years after He ascended into heaven? Can you 
 indicate a series of pastors who taught your doc- 
 trine from the time of Christ down to the ap- 
 pearance of Luther and Calvin ? " 
 
 " Your objection," replied the evangelist, " is 
 easily answered. In St. John's gospel we read 
 that ' many things are not written down in this 
 book.' Now among the ' unwritten things ' I 
 believe we must include the series of our pas- 
 tors. Our doctrine was known in Apostolic 
 times but remained hidden until the reformation 
 when it was promulgated anew." 
 
 " I agree with you," said Pasqualino, " that 
 it was known in the Apostolic times to Judas 
 Iscariot and remained hidden in the devil's 
 brain for 16 centuries. ' I laid the egg/ prophe- 
 
ioo MEMOIRS OF Zl PRE 
 
 sied Erasmus, ' and Luther hatched it' Your 
 reformation sprang from the renaissance. It 
 was simply a revival of pagan ideals rendered 
 successful by the appeals which the reformers 
 made to the vilest passions of human nature. 
 Luther dispensed religious from their vows, 
 sanctioned bigamy, and invited princes to con- 
 fiscate church property. These tactics brought 
 him more adherents than all the books he ever 
 wrote." 
 
 " How can you prove that the Catholic was 
 any more visible than the reformed church ? " 
 asked the evangelist. 
 
 " Ho, ho ! " chuckled Pasqualino. " Chang- 
 ing the subject is a sign that you grant me the 
 first point, viz., that Protestants can claim neither 
 doctrinal unity nor Apostolic succession from the 
 time of Christ down to the reformation. So 
 you want proof that the Catholic Church is vis- 
 ible? That is indeed easy. For our Lord com- 
 pared His Church to a great edifice built upon a 
 rock, and St. Peter was to be the foundation 
 stone. He compared it to a kingdom, to a vine- 
 yard, to a city set upon the mountain top that 
 all might see it ; to a light shining from a candle- 
 stick lighting all in the house. His Church was 
 to be a visible organization spread throughout 
 the whole world, a true body with many mem- 
 
PSEUDO-REFORMERS 101 
 
 bers whose wondrous unity should be a proof to 
 the world of the reality and truth of His divine 
 message, ' that the world may know that thou 
 hast sent me/ " 
 
CHAPTER XI 
 
 UNITY 
 
 "TTTHEN you grow older and have had 
 VV some experience," said the stranger, 
 " you will realize that Protestants and Catholics 
 agree in the fundamentals. You believe in one 
 God and three divine Persons, Father, Son, and 
 Holy Ghost; that God the Son became man and 
 died for our sins ; that He will reward the good 
 and punish the wicked. That is also the Prot- 
 estant profession of faith. In fact they recite 
 the Apostles' Creed just the same as you will find 
 it in a Catholic prayer book." 
 
 '■ Do they really repeat the words : ' I believe 
 in the Holy Ghost, the Holy Catholic Church ? ' " 
 asked Pasqualino. 
 
 " Why certainly," replied the stranger. 
 
 " It is really too bad," rejoined Pasqualino, 
 " that they fail to grasp the deep spiritual mean- 
 ing of those two articles. Did it ever occur to 
 you why they were so peculiarly arranged in the 
 Apostles' Creed?" 
 
 " It did not," responded the stranger. " I do 
 
 102 
 
UNITY 10: 
 
 not think that there can be any particular rea- 
 
 son." 
 
 " Oh, yes, there is/' insisted Pasqualino. " The 
 eternal fitness of things required that to the 
 Holy Ghost should be subjoined the Catholic 
 Church, just as the house to the tenant, the body 
 to the soul. Without the presence of the Holy 
 Ghost the Church couldn't exist. In Him she 
 lives, moves, and has her being. It is from this 
 intimate union of the Holy Spirit with the 
 Church that her unity, sanctity, perpetuity, infal- 
 libility, and in fact every one of her attributes is 
 derived." 
 
 " All the Christian denominations," said the 
 stranger, " claim the guidance of the Holy 
 Spirit." 
 
 " Their claim proves nothing," replied Pas- 
 qualino, drawing a penknife from his pocket, 
 and glancing furtively around to see if he were 
 observed by a park policeman. 
 
 " What are you going to do ? " exclaimed the 
 terrified evangelist, springing up from the bench, 
 and seizing both wrists of Pasqualino in a vice- 
 like grip. 
 
 " You have no reason to be frightened," said 
 Pasqualino, who could not help laughing at the 
 ludicrous situation. " I simply wish to illustrate 
 my point." 
 
 The evangelist being convinced that no de- 
 
104 
 
 MEMOIRS OF ZI PRE 
 
 signs to puncture his abdomen were really in- 
 tended, relinquished his hold, and the youth, 
 reaching up, severed a small twig from an over- 
 hanging bough. " Look/' he continued, " this 
 little branch is just like thousands of others up 
 in the tree. Its leaves have the same shape and 
 color. Do you notice any difference between this 
 branch in my hand and the others above our 
 heads ?" 
 
 " Not a particle/' replied the evangelist, some- 
 what amused. 
 
 " Well, there is a difference/' said Pasqualino. 
 " The branches up there are firmly attached to 
 the tree from which they draw their sap and 
 nourishment. They will continue to flourish and 
 eventually bear fruit. Take this tiny twig home 
 with you and look at it to-morrow. You will 
 then discover how rapidly its leaves wither and 
 decay. Likewise in the body of man it may 
 happen that a member be cut off. Does the soul 
 follow the severed member? While united to 
 the body, it was alive; cut off, its life is lost. 
 Thus we are members of Christ's mystic body, 
 the Church, so long as we remain united in faith, 
 in worship, and in government. Through schism 
 or heresy we are cut off just the same as this un- 
 fortunate twig here in my hand. The Holy 
 Ghost doesn't follow a member severed from the 
 Church any more than the soul follows an ampu- 
 
UNITY 105 
 
 tated hand or foot. Whether it be one unfortu- 
 nate person here or there, or even a whole na- 
 tion which is thus torn off, the result is practically 
 the same. They are without spiritual life, be- 
 cause severed from the Church which is the liv- 
 ing organism of the Holy Ghost. ' We being 
 many, are one body in Christ, and everyone mem- 
 bers one of another/ (Rom. xii, 5.) ' For in 
 one Spirit were we all baptised into one body.' " 
 (I Cor. xii, 13.) 
 
 " I think," said the evangelist, u that the 
 Church is invisibly one, but visibly separated 
 into branches, such as the Roman Catholic, Greek 
 and Anglican churches." 
 
 " You think an absurdity. Your theory is an 
 insult to the. Holy Ghost," replied Pasqualino. 
 " The Holy Ghost is the Spirit of truth and not 
 of falsehood. If He really resided in the three 
 so-called branches, it would be impossible for 
 them to teach contradictory doctrines. A soul 
 cannot animate two bodies, nor can two rival 
 churches each possess the indwelling guiding 
 presence of the Holy Spirit." 
 
 " All the branches of the Church agree in es- 
 sentials," said the stranger. " So what differ- 
 ence does it make if they happen to differ in 
 minor details ? " 
 
 " When our Lord commanded His Apostles 
 to preach the Gospel to every creature," replied 
 
io6 MEMOIRS OF ZI PRE' 
 
 Pasqualino, " He made no distinction between 
 essentials and non-essentials. They were not 
 at liberty to expound just those portions of 
 His gospel which might please popular fancy, 
 because they were ordered to teach all things 
 whatsoever He commanded. He wanted them 
 to preach to all nations one and the same doc- 
 trine, to administer everywhere the same means 
 of salvation, and to enforce universal obedience 
 to the same divine authority. He established 
 but one true Church for the whole human race." 
 
 " Do you know where any two individuals can 
 be found believing exactly the same things ? " 
 asked the evangelist. 
 
 " Oh, yes," promptly rejoined Pasqualino. 
 yc In the Catholic Church you can find 250 mil- 
 lion members not only believing exactly the same 
 doctrines, but also receiving the same sacra- 
 ments and rendering obedience to the same spir- 
 itual head. They are all as intimately united to 
 one visible chief as the members of the human 
 body are united to the head. The faithful of 
 each parish are subject to their immediate pastor. 
 Each pastor is subordinate to his bishop, and 
 every bishop of Christendom acknowledges the 
 universal jurisdiction of the Bishop of Rome, the 
 successor of St. Peter and the visible head of the 
 Church. This admirable unity of faith, cult, and 
 authority, which is a distinctive mark of the 
 
UNITY 107 
 
 religious society established by Christ, cannot be 
 found outside the Catholic Church. The Epis- 
 copalian communion is subdivided into Low and 
 Ritualistic or High Church. Some of these 
 claim that there are seven sacraments, others have 
 reduced the number to two. Anabaptists assert 
 that infant baptism is altogether unnecessary. 
 The Unitarian denies the Divinity of Christ, and 
 the Universalist repudiates the existence of hell. 
 Then we have the shouting Methodist, the hard- 
 shell bigoted Baptist, and the friendly Quaker 
 all differing in their creed. According to the 
 Quaker, it behooveth us to quake, for doesn't the 
 Bible exhort us ' to work out our salvation in fear 
 and trembling ' ? Imagine the conglomeration of 
 religious notions, were we to compare the hun- 
 dreds of sects differing from each other in the 
 interpretation of the Bible, and claiming to be 
 guided by the Holy Spirit ! " 
 
 " Amid such confusion," exclaimed the evan- 
 gelist, " what chance have we to discover the one 
 true Church ? " 
 
 " Every chance in the world," replied Pas- 
 qualino. " The Catholic is the only church en- 
 dowed with unmistakable unity of faith, wor- 
 ship, and government. She alone has this dis- 
 tinctive mark by which she may easily be recog- 
 nized among all sects, creeds, and religions, as 
 the sheepfold under one shepherd, the house 
 
io8 MEMOIRS OF Zl PRE' 
 
 built upon a rock against which not even the pow- 
 ers of hell should ever prevail, the spouse of 
 Christ, the kingdom of heaven upon earth. ,, 
 Pasqualino had spoken in such an eloquent, con- 
 vincing manner as to completely stagger his op- 
 ponent. The latter remained silent for several 
 moments, not knowing what answer to make in 
 return. The thought of being silenced by the 
 unanswerable logic of a mere stripling whose 
 Catholic faith he had purposely started out to 
 destroy, was indeed galling. At length he said: 
 " My young friend, you have still a great many 
 things to learn." " On that point we agree per- 
 fectly," retorted Pasqualino. " What I don't 
 know, would fill a library. That is why I am 
 still attending college. But there are others — " 
 
 " It will take," interrupted the evangelist, 
 "more than empty declamation and rhetoric to 
 convince me that the Catholic Church, with its 
 history of glaring abuses, has any real claim to 
 the abiding presence of the Holy Spirit." 
 
 " I would gladly discuss the subject with you, 
 but unfortunately have no more time at my dis- 
 posal. Let us reserve it for our conversation 
 next Thursday." 
 
 Then picking up the tiny branch which he had 
 severed from the tree, he offered it to the evange- 
 list, with the remark : " Take this little twig home 
 with you, and see whether you can make it grow." 
 
CHAPTER XII 
 
 SANCTITY 
 
 PASQUALINO had a busy week. In addi- 
 tion to the daily preparation for his class 
 work, he devoted every spare moment to the 
 study of Christian doctrine. So thoroughly 
 posted had he become on the four marks of the 
 Church that the following Thursday found him 
 bright and early in the park, impatiently waiting 
 for the arrival of his adversary. The latter had 
 not been idle. He scoured the book-stores until 
 he discovered what he wanted, viz., a vile publi- 
 cation edited by a squeaky-voiced, excommunica- 
 ted soggarth who paraded the unfortunate off- 
 spring of his infamous liaison before the audience 
 when lecturing against the Church. He had the 
 hardihood to return to Cork where, instead of be- 
 ing welcomed by a brass band, he was chased and 
 hooted through the streets by a crowd of angry 
 citizens who kept ringing a cowbell at his heels 
 until he was finally rescued by the police. His 
 book was a tissue of abominable diatribes against 
 popes, bishops, priests, and nuns. With such a 
 
 109 
 
no MEMOIRS OF ZI PRE' 
 
 formidable weapon the proselytizer felt confi- 
 dent of victory. 
 
 " Good morning ! " he said to Pasqualino, 
 whom he met near the conservatory. 
 
 " I have brought along a publication which, I 
 think, ought to interest you. Listen to this," he 
 continued, opening the book and commencing to 
 read. Scarcely had he read two lines when Pas- 
 qualino raised his hands to his ears and retreated 
 in disgust. " Good day," he shouted. " You 
 can deposit that filth with the scavenger. For 
 me it has no attraction." 
 
 Flushed with anger at the well merited rebuff, 
 the proselytizer advanced within a few feet of 
 him and exclaimed : " No wonder that you are 
 unwilling to hear a few facts ; they might expose 
 your holy church in all its ugliness." 
 
 "Your collection of moral garbage by a scan- 
 dal monger and character assassin, even granting 
 for the sake of argument that all he said were 
 true, would not invalidate the Church's title to 
 holiness. ' It must be that scandals come, but 
 woe to him by whom the scandal cometh/ Our 
 .Lord expressly foretold that His Church would 
 contain many unworthy members. For He com- 
 pared her to a net cast into the sea, and gather- 
 ing together all kinds of fish, bad as well as good. 
 He likened her to a field containing weeds as 
 well as grain. The spots on the sun do not di- 
 
SANCTITY in 
 
 minish his effulgence, nor does the cockle amidst 
 the wheat impair the beauty of the golden har- 
 vest. St. Paul styles the church of Corinth a 
 congregation of saints, yet in the very same epis- 
 tle he reproves some scandalous member among 
 them. Since holiness of life is arduous and op- 
 posed to the strongest inclinations of our corrupt 
 nature, we should not wonder if the Church fails 
 to attain her end in a great many cases. Bad 
 members follow their sinful passions and not 
 her teachings. They neglect to employ the 
 means she affords them for their sanctification. 
 I am perfectly willing to discuss any religious 
 topic so long as the line of argument be kept 
 within the bounds of propriety. But my self- 
 respect and sense of decency forbid me to listen 
 to the vile stuff you started to read." 
 
 " Very well," rejoined the proselytizer, per- 
 ceiving further insistence futile. " I shall con- 
 tent myself by asking a few questions. Can you 
 suggest any plausible reason why the Catholic 
 Church should usurp the title — * holy ' ? " 
 
 " She doesn't usurp, but lawfully claims the 
 title — ' holy/ " replied Pasqualino, " because, in 
 the words of the catechism, her founder Jesus 
 Christ is holy, because she teaches a holy doc- 
 trine, invites all to a holy life; and because of 
 the eminent holiness of so many thousands of 
 her children. It was for the sanctification of 
 
ii2 MEMOIRS OF ZI PRE' 
 
 His Church that our Lord suffered and died upon 
 the cross. ' Christ also loved the church and 
 delivered Himself up for it ; that He might sanc- 
 tify it, cleansing it by the laver of water in the 
 word of life.' She is the mystic body of which 
 Christ is the head, and the Holy Ghost is the viv- 
 ifying principle. Without the Holy Spirit she 
 could not exist. In Him she lives, moves, and 
 has her being. For this reason our Lord, 
 shortly before His ascension, promised to send 
 the Paraclete to abide with His Church forever 
 in order to guide her in the way of holiness and 
 truth. It is from this intimate union with the 
 Holy Spirit that all her attributes and preroga- 
 tives emanate — her unity, sanctity, perpetuity, 
 and infallibility. This is what distinguishes her 
 among all sects, creeds, and religions, and makes 
 her the divinely appointed channel of all God's 
 graces to men." 
 
 " I never noticed anything particularly holy in 
 Catholic doctrines/' remarked the evangelist. 
 " Most of them are medieval superstitions." 
 
 " They belong to the supernatural order and 
 consequently have little attraction for those en- 
 grossed in the gratification of their passions," re- 
 sponded Pasqualino. 
 
 " What do you understand by holiness ? " 
 asked the evangelist. 
 
 " Freedom from filth and union with God," re- 
 
SANCTITY 113 
 
 plied Pasqualino. " The greater the immunity 
 from the former, the closer the union with Him 
 Who is essentially holy. Cleanliness is next to 
 godliness. So long as the mind and heart re- 
 main inordinately attached to the world they 
 cannot be holy, just as gold and silver cannot be 
 pure when mixed with lead or baser metals. In 
 order that the term sanctity may be truthfully 
 applied to a church, it must be holy in origin, 
 principles and means which it employs for the 
 attainment of its end. No church can be called 
 holy if it has even one vicious principle or doc- 
 trine. Good comes from an integral cause, and 
 evil can proceed from any kind of a defect. Of 
 course a few just members may be found in a 
 church teaching false doctrines. Their goodness 
 is not the result of the church's influence. Hence 
 it cannot be called a holy church on account of 
 the good that happens in it by accident." 
 
 " Which doctrines of the Catholic Church do 
 you consider productive of holiness ? " asked the 
 evangelist. 
 
 " All of them without exception/' replied Pas- 
 qualino. " The charity which she exhorts all 
 her members to practise is far superior to the 
 humanitarian philanthropy of the world. For 
 it embraces foes as well as friends. Humility 
 or a candid appreciation of personal unworthi- 
 ness is practically unknown among the sects, 
 
114 MEMOIRS OF ZI PRE 9 
 
 which regard it as altogether incompatible with 
 this wonderful age of progress. A life of cel- 
 ibacy, penance, and mortification is most repug- 
 nant to all the impulses of our fallen nature. 
 Yet such a life has been embraced by thousands 
 of Catholics from the dawn of Christianity down 
 to the present day. When holiness of life is ex- 
 emplified in a heroic degree it is usually accom- 
 panied by miracles. Our Lord promised that the 
 prodigies which His followers should perform, 
 would be no less amazing than those wrought by 
 Himself." 
 
 " Everything that you have said regarding the 
 Catholic Church," remarked the evangelist, " may 
 be asserted of the Protestant denominations." 
 
 " Oh, no, not with any semblance of truth," 
 retorted Pasqualino. " All Protestant sects are 
 man-made, and their founders were certainly not 
 conspicuous for sanctity. Why, Protestant his- 
 torians try to excuse their scandalous conduct 
 on the plea that the age in which they lived was 
 very coarse." 
 
 " Well," insisted the proselytizer, " although 
 their personal morals may have been rather loose, 
 their doctrines were all right." 
 
 " Their doctrines," rejoined Pasqualino, " in- 
 stead of being conducive to sanctity, were the 
 greatest incentives to pride, avarice, and sensu- 
 ality. Their initial act was religious anarchy, 
 
SANCTITY 115 
 
 for they substituted the private judgment of 
 each individual for the divinely established au- 
 thority of the Church. Justification by faith 
 alone eliminates every motive for the practice of 
 good works. Luther declared that no sin except 
 unbelief can cause damnation; that man is justi- 
 fied by faith alone without anything else. By 
 faith he understands a mere reliance on Christ 
 for pardon. That repentance, love of God, of 
 our neighbor, and other good works are not only 
 useless but even hurtful to justification. In his 
 book on Slave Will he denied that man possessed 
 moral freedom. Calvin asserted that God is the 
 author of sin and at the same time its avenger ; 
 that there is no falling from divine grace, but 
 that once in grace always in grace, no matter how 
 grievous the sins one might afterwards commit. 
 He also maintained that God has consigned some 
 men, independently of their acts and without 
 any fault of their own, to everlasting perdition. 
 Every Protestant denomination has sanctioned 
 the gangrene of divorce, which undermines the 
 family and flagrantly violates our Lord's ex- 
 press prohibition. How can any candid Prot- 
 estant have the courage to affirm that such doc- 
 trines are conducive to holiness ? " 
 
 " Many Protestant churches have the sacra- 
 ments just the same as the Catholics/' said the 
 evangelist. 
 
n6 MEMOIRS OF ZI PRE 
 
 u Oh, no, they haven , t, ,, replied Pasqualino. 
 " A few of the sacraments, such as Baptism, 
 Confirmation, Holy Eucharist, and Penance may 
 be found in a mutilated form among certain sects. 
 They never received any authorization from 
 Christ to administer them. The sacraments can- 
 not be regarded as a means of sanctification un- 
 less they be worthily received and properly ad- 
 ministered. The same may be said of the Bible. 
 We believe it to be divinely inspired, and useful 
 for teaching, correcting, and instructing in jus- 
 tice. But it cannot be a means of sanctification 
 merely as a dead letter. It can only benefit us 
 when explained and interpreted in its true sense 
 by the Church appointed by Christ as its custo- 
 dian and lawful interpreter. The mere fact, of 
 possessing a good thing proves nothing in many 
 cases unless that the possessor happens to retain 
 something which doesn't really belong to him." 
 
 " Well/' demanded the evangelist, " if the 
 Catholic Church has such an exclusive monop- 
 oly of holy doctrines and means of sanctification, 
 how does it happen that we find so many good 
 people among Protestants ? " 
 
 " That is easily answered," replied Pasqualino. 
 " They are good in spite of their Protestantism, 
 and not as a result of it. ' A bad tree cannot 
 produce good fruit/ They do not carry out 
 their false principles to their legitimate conclu- 
 
SANCTITY 117 
 
 sions. They follow rather the dictates of nat- 
 ural sense of right and wrong, and fortunately 
 adhere to certain portions of Catholic faith still 
 surviving among them. The Catholic Church 
 alone is entitled to the distinguishing mark of 
 sanctity. She is the greatest moral force in the 
 world to-day. She inculcates respect for au- 
 thority. In time of national peril you will al- 
 ways find her children in the front exposing 
 their lives in defense of their country. Divorce, 
 which threatens to undermine the State, she for- 
 bids to the capitalist just as well as to the laborer. 
 In the confessional, that much abused and slan- 
 dered institution, the plutocrat is bound to re- 
 store ill-gotten goods, just as well as the indigent 
 and outcast. She is the church of the toiling 
 masses, and in accordance with the prediction of 
 her Divine Founder, the poor she has always 
 with her to whom she preaches the gospel." 
 
CHAPTER XIII 
 
 CATHOLICITY 
 
 "TTTHAT right has your church to call 
 \\ herself Catholic?" asked the prose- 
 lytizer. " Romish or Popish would be a far more 
 appropriate title." 
 
 " Sneers and opprobrious epithets," retorted 
 Pasqualino, " assume the importance of argu- 
 ments in the estimation of only the ignorant, 
 usually declaring him victor who succeeds in ap- 
 plying the vilest name to his opponent. The 
 Church has a right to call herself Catholic be- 
 cause she subsists in all ages, teaches all nations, 
 and maintains all truth. She is Catholic in time, 
 place, and doctrine. Catholic in time is simply 
 another way of designating her indefectibility 
 and perpetuity, viz. : that the Church as Christ 
 founded it will last till the end of time. Catho- 
 licity of doctrine naturally follows from unity of 
 faith. Everywhere she both believes and teaches 
 all the doctrines, and administers all the means 
 of sanctification established by Christ. In claim- 
 ing the Church to be Catholic in place, we imply 
 
 118 
 
CATHOLICITY 119 
 
 that she is not restricted to a portion of the earth 
 or to a few nationalities, like the Oriental sects, 
 Judaism, Mahomedanism, or Protestantism, but 
 that she is actually diffused over the whole earth, 
 and counts her children among all nations." 
 
 u Do you think that there are many Catholics 
 in Denmark, Norway, Sweden, or Scotland ? " 
 asked the proselytizer. 
 
 " Not so many as among other nationalities," 
 rejoined Pasqualino. " Our Lord did not pre- 
 dict that His Church must exist simultaneously 
 in all parts of the globe. Heresies were pre- 
 dicted and they exclude physical universality. 
 ' There shall be a time when they shall not endure 
 sound doctrine; but according to their own de- 
 sires they w T ill heap to themselves teachers, hav- 
 ing itching ears, and will indeed turn their hear- 
 ing away from truth, but will be turned unto fa- 
 bles.' " (Tim. ii, 4-3.) 
 
 " It is quality and not quantity that counts," 
 said the proselytizer. " If Christ intended His 
 Church to have the universality that you claim, 
 He never would have designated it by diminu- 
 tive terms. ' Fear not, little flock/ He ex- 
 claimed, ' for it hath pleased your Father to give 
 you a kingdom/ " (Luke xii, 32.) 
 
 l( Our Lord," replied Pasqualino, " addressed 
 those words exclusively to the Apostles who were 
 certainly few in number. Even granting that He 
 
120 MEMOIRS OF ZI PRE' 
 
 referred to all His followers, they were at that 
 time few and indeed a little flock, when compared 
 to the number of unbelievers. Adam and Eve 
 were the only persons created life-size. The rest 
 of us are born babies and must gradually develop 
 into manhood. We don't claim actual univer- 
 sality for the Church in her infancy." 
 
 " But," insisted the proselytizer, " if Catholic- 
 ity be an essential and distinguishing mark of 
 the Church, she could never be without it. Yet 
 Christ declared that at the end of the world very 
 few believers will be found." 
 
 " We only claim for the Church of Christ," 
 answered Pasqualino, " the extension of catholic- 
 ity which He promised — ■ no more and no less. 
 The nature of that promise we learn from Holy 
 Scripture. If the inspired writings indicate that 
 she shall be considerably diminished during the 
 time of Antichrist, that doesn't destroy her cath- 
 olicity. In fact the fulfillment of the prophecy 
 is a confirmation of her divine origin." 
 
 " The Bible says nothing about the Church be- 
 coming Catholic," commented the proselytizer. 
 
 " I am afraid that you never read it very at- 
 tentively," replied Pasqualino. " The Church's 
 destination for actual extension was repeatedly 
 indicated by her Divine Founder. ' Going there- 
 fore teach ye all nations. Go ye into the whole 
 
CATHOLICITY 121 
 
 world and preach the gospel to every creature/ 
 The prophets represent the kingdom of Christ, 
 viz. : the Church as embracing all the nations of 
 the earth. ' He shall rule from sea to sea. All 
 the kings of the earth shall adore Him. All na- 
 tions shall serve Him.' (Ps. lxxi.) The Lord 
 hath said tome:' Thou art my son, this day have 
 I begotten thee. Ask of me and I will give thee 
 the Gentiles for thy inheritance, and the utmost 
 parts of the earth for thy possession.' The 
 prophet foreshadowed the universality of the 
 Church when he wrote : ' From the rising of the 
 sun even to the going down my name is great 
 among the Gentiles, and in every place there is 
 sacrifice and there is offered to my name a clean 
 oblation.' Our Savior predicted that His gospel 
 would be preached to every creature. Speaking 
 of Mary Magdalen when she bathed His feet 
 with her tears, dried them with her hair, and 
 anointed them with balsam and precious oint- 
 ments, He declared : ' Amen I say to you, where- 
 soever this gospel shall be preached in the whole 
 world, that also which she hath done, shall be 
 told for a memory of her.' Before His ascen- 
 sion, He said : ' You shall be witnesses to me in 
 Jerusalem and Samaria and even to the utter- 
 most part of the earth.' " 
 
 " Protestant churches," asserted the prosely- 
 
122 MEMOIRS OF ZI PRE' 
 
 tizer, " have their missionaries in every part of 
 the globe. Hence they are just as universal as 
 your church/' 
 
 " Yes/' rejoined Pasqualino, " in every part 
 of the globe where there is little or no danger to 
 fear from climate or natives. They are usually 
 accompanied by wives and families. It would 
 never do to expose the ladies and little ones to 
 privation and hardship. Among them you will 
 never find a Father Damien who a few years ago 
 sacrificed his life in caring for the leper colony 
 of Molokai. 
 
 " The expenditure of money on their foreign 
 missions is enormous while the results obtained 
 are insignificant. Contrast their converts at 
 home with those of the Catholic Church. Their 
 most distinguished members have entered the 
 • one true fold/ while apostate Catholics are 
 usually intemperate, disreputable characters, nox- 
 ious weeds cast out of the Pope's garden." 
 
 " Well, I fail to see," said the proselytizer, 
 " how mere multitudes can prove the divine ori- 
 gin of a religion. Buddhism then must be divine 
 because its adherents far outnumber the Chris- 
 tians." 
 
 " If the 250 million members of the Catholic 
 Church," replied Pasqualino, " were crowded 
 into one corner of the earth, like the Buddhists 
 in Asia, and belonged to one race, one national- 
 
CATHOLICITY 123 
 
 ity, the name Catholic would be a misnomer. 
 The note of Catholicity lies in the fact that the 
 large membership of the one true Church is not 
 confined to the Turkish, Russian, or any other 
 empire, but comprises many different nationali- 
 ties, characters of opposite temperaments, tastes, 
 and customs. Thus we see realized in the Catho- 
 lic Church the prophecy of Isaias : * The wolf 
 shall dwell with the lamb ; and the leopard shall 
 lie down with the kid ; the calf, the lion and the 
 sheep shall lie down together, and a little child 
 shall lead them.' " (xi, 7.) 
 
 " If your Church," exclaimed the proselytizer, 
 " be composed of so many different nationalities, 
 her name — - Roman Catholic,' is a contradiction 
 in terms, because Roman is indicative of a single 
 city." 
 
 " The term — ' Roman Church/ " responded 
 Pasqualino, " may be misunderstood, if its ori- 
 gin be not clearly kept in mind. The Church of 
 Christ is essentially one. It is therefore suffi- 
 ciently denoted by the simple expression — THE 
 CHURCH, just as we speak of the sun or the 
 moon. But men began claiming the name of 
 Church for other organizations. Hence to avoid 
 equivocation, other expressions were introduced 
 to distinguish the one true Church from her 
 rivals. ' Whether they wish or no/ says St. 
 Augustine, ' heretics have to call the Catholic 
 
124 MEMOIRS OF ZI PRE' 
 
 Church, Catholic. Although they all wish to be 
 styled Catholic, yet if anyone asks where is the 
 Catholic place of worship, none of them would 
 venture- to point out his own conventicle/ Since 
 the reformation the term Roman has been used 
 to designate the one true Church, because its 
 members alone are in communion with Rome, 
 the centre of unity. Hence the appellation — 
 Roman, instead of restricting the universality of 
 the Church, calls attention to her unity of faith 
 and government. Ours is the only Church offi- 
 cially known throughout the universe as Catho- 
 lic. She alone is ' that city seated on a mountain, 
 the city that cannot be hid/ as predicted by the 
 prophets. She therefore must be the institution 
 to which the Apostles referred when in their 
 Creed they penned the words : ' I believe in the 
 Holy, Catholic Church.' " 
 
CHAPTER XIV 
 
 APOSTOLICITY 
 
 "T ADMIT/' said the evangelist, " that the 
 
 X. Church founded by Christ must be one 
 holy, and Catholic. The arguments which you 
 have adduced in support of these three notes are 
 very cogent. Anyone undertaking to refute 
 them will have a difficult task." 
 
 " There is another characteristic feature of 
 the one true Church," remarked Pasqualino, 
 " just as essential as the three we have already 
 discussed." 
 
 " Which one is that ? " asked the evangelist. 
 
 " Apostolicity which, in a general sense, is not 
 really distinct from the notes and attributes of 
 the Church, but rather their continual and per- 
 manent existence," replied Pasqualino. " That 
 church alone is apostolic which can be identified 
 with the one founded by Christ upon the Apos- 
 tles and governed by their lawful successors." 
 
 ' You surely do not mean identified, but sim- 
 ilar to the Apostolic Church," suggested the evan- 
 gelist. 
 
 125 
 
126 MEMOIRS OF Zl PRE' 
 
 " Oh, yes, I mean identified, and not merely 
 similar/' rejoined Pasqualino. " It was the sim- 
 ilarity and not the identity of the Antipholuses 
 and Dromios that caused the comedy of errors. 
 In order to avoid similar mistakes the one true 
 Church must have identically the same origin, the 
 same doctrine, and the same Apostolic succes- 
 sion. In fact apostolic succession presupposes 
 and implies apostolic origin and doctrine. The 
 word apostle signifies ' a person sent with com- 
 mands.' Bishops can be truthfully called Apos- 
 tolic heirs or successors only in so far as they 
 inherit from the Apostles their legacy of faith, 
 their power of teaching and ruling the Church. 
 The Apostles were mortal men subject to death 
 the same as the rest of us. Yet they received a 
 perpetual mission which was to be carried on by 
 their successors until the end of time. It is this 
 hereditary succession or mission inherited by the 
 bishops from the Apostles that constitutes a vis- 
 ible mark of the one, true Church." 
 
 " The schismatic Greek and Anglican bishops," 
 said the evangelist, " are successors of the Apos- 
 tles. Hence they have just as much apostolic 
 succession as Catholic bishops." 
 
 " Oh, no, they haven't," responded Pasqualino. 
 " Leo XIII declared the Anglican orders invalid 
 in his famous bull ' Apostolicae Curae.' In the 
 Apostolic successor two things must be consid- 
 
APOSTOLICITY 127 
 
 ered : consecration and mission. Hence the two- 
 fold power of orders and jurisdiction. The 
 power of orders can never be lost. The priestly 
 and episcopal character remains in the soul for- 
 ever like the indelible spiritual mark of Baptism 
 and Confirmation. Those acts performed by the 
 power of orders are always valid. An excom- 
 municated or suspended priest although sacri- 
 legiously celebrating Mass, would validly conse- 
 crate. An heretical or schismatic bishop could 
 validly consecrate another bishop, provided he 
 observed the matter and form of the sacrament 
 and had the intention of doing what the Church 
 does. Jurisdiction however can be lost, and the 
 juridical acts unlawfully performed are null and 
 void. A deposed bishop or priest in ordinary 
 circumstances does not possess the faculty to ab- 
 solve, which would be an act of jurisdiction. 
 Should either one attempt to do so, the absolution 
 would be worthless, A schismatic bishop cannot 
 impart jurisdiction, for no one can give what he 
 does not possess. Jurisdiction is enjoyed only 
 by those in communion with the centre of unity, 
 the visible head of the Church. A person re- 
 fusing to adhere to the centre of unity, ceases 
 to be a member of Christ's mystic body. He is 
 outside the Church. Those on the outside have 
 certainly no authority to rule or govern the 
 Church." 
 
128 MEMOIRS OF ZI PRE 9 
 
 " So long as the Protestant ministers preach 
 the Gospel of Christ," said the evangelist, " they 
 impart apostolic doctrine, and that is all the apos- 
 tolic succession they require." 
 
 " St. Paul doesn't think so," rejoined Pasqual- 
 ino. " ' Neither doth any man take the honor to 
 himself, but he that is called by God as Aaron 
 was.' In this passage he evidently condemns all 
 self-appointed preachers and reformers. c How 
 can they preach unless they be sent ? ' he asks, 
 and sent by legitimate authority ? Notwithstand- 
 ing this inspired prohibition, you will find even 
 woman revivalists preaching in Methodist and 
 other meeting houses with the sanction of the 
 church elders. Imagine an individual presenting 
 himself at the Court of St. James, Paris, Berlin, 
 or Vienna, and assuming the role of American 
 consul or ambassador without brief or creden- 
 tials from the U. S. Government, what kind of a 
 reception would he get ? " 
 
 " A rather chilly one," answered the evangelist. 
 
 " Everybody would justly regard him," con- 
 tinued Pasqualino, " as either an impostor or a 
 lunatic. Likewise no man should usurp the of- 
 fice of ambassador or minister of Christ, unless 
 divinely commissioned, unless he received his 
 ministerial power of orders and jurisdiction from 
 the chosen twelve Apostles or their lawful suc- 
 cessors." 
 
APOSTOLICITY 129 
 
 " Since apostolicity," said the evangelist, " con- 
 sists in doctrinal and not in ministerial succes- 
 sion, it is a mark that all Christian denomina- 
 tions have in common." 
 
 " But it doesn't consist exclusively in doctrinal 
 succession," rejoined Pasqualino. " We cannot 
 have the same faith taught by the Apostles ex- 
 cept through an unbroken chain of Apostolic 
 teachers. ' Faith cometh by hearing. How 
 shall they hear without a preacher? And 
 how shall they preach unless they are sent ? ' 
 (Rom. x.) 
 
 "If all Christian churches claim to be Apos- 
 tolic," persisted the evangelist, " how can we 
 ever ascertain which one of them is really enti- 
 tled to our belief ? " 
 
 " By carefully examining their claims and 
 adhering to that one alone which is Apos- 
 tolic in origin, faith, and ministry," responded 
 Pasqualino. " All the Protestant churches, with- 
 out a single exception, are of comparatively re- 
 cent birth. They sprang into existence 1,600 
 years after Our Lord's ascension into heaven. 
 He can therefore say to them : ' I know you 
 not/ Their very names betray their origin. 
 They are buildings erected upon a foundation 
 different from the one laid by Jesus Christ. 
 That the Catholic Church was founded by Christ 
 upon the Apostles is admitted by all Protestants 
 
130 MEMOIRS OF ZI PRE 
 
 with any pretensions to scholarship. She cer- 
 tainly has an Apostolic ministry." 
 
 " To me it doesn't appear so certain," com- 
 mented the evangelist. 
 
 " Well, kindly let me make it clear to you/' 
 said Pasqualino. " The history of the primitive 
 church proves that the Apostolic successors 
 were not self-appointed, but received their minis- 
 terial faculties through imposition of hands. 
 * When they (Paul and Barnabas) had ordained 
 to them priests in every church, and had prayed 
 with fasting, they commended them to the Lord.' 
 (Acts xiv, 22.) In his Epistle to Titus St. Paul 
 declares : ' For this cause I left thee in 
 Crete, that thou shouldst ordain priests in every 
 city, as I also appointed thee/ Even St. Paul 
 himself, though miraculously called, was directed 
 to Ananias, who imparted to him the Holy Ghost 
 through the imposition of hands, lest others 
 should be tempted by his example to preach with- 
 out apostolic authorization/' 
 
 " How can you prove that popes and bishops 
 are really Apostolic successors ? " asked the evan- 
 gelist. 
 
 " The pope," replied Pasqualino, " is the law- 
 ful successor of St. Peter, and consequently the 
 visible head of the Church. Why? Because to 
 St. Peter alone our Lord gave universal jurisdic- 
 tion over His Church. Because St. Peter first 
 
APOSTOLICITY 131 
 
 established the Church in the city of Rome. If 
 then the Roman See be truly apostolic and the 
 centre of unity, every diocese in union with 
 Rome must also be Apostolic. Every bishop 
 therefore can trace his lineage back to the Apos- 
 tles, just as the most remote branch of a vine can 
 be followed back to the main stem. The pres- 
 ent gloriously reigning Pius X, Bishop of Rome, 
 is the successor of Leo XIII ; he succeeded Pius 
 IX, who came after Gregory XVI. And thus 
 we can go back century after century to the time 
 when Our Lord said to Peter : ' Thou art Peter 
 and upon this rock I will build my Church, and 
 the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.' 
 Like St. Luke tracing our Lord's genealogy back 
 to Adam and to God, so the Apostolic succession 
 of the present pontiff can be followed back to 
 Peter and to Christ." 
 
 " What about the doctrine of the Apostles ? " 
 asked the evangelist. " Do you really believe 
 that they taught Papal infallibility, indulgences, 
 invocation of saints, the Immaculate Conception, 
 and all those other monstrous innovations which 
 the Roman Church has added to the original de- 
 posit of faith? n 
 
 Poor Pasqualino was totally unprepared for 
 such an onslaught and the color began to mount 
 in his cheeks. After some hesitation and with 
 an effort to hide his embarrassment he said : 
 
132 MEMOIRS OF ZI PRE 
 
 " Really I haven't time to give a complete an- 
 swer to that question to-day, as I must go home. 
 Later on we can examine each one of those so- 
 called additions in detail. I think that I shall 
 be able to prove that, instead of being new arti- 
 cles of faith, they are doctrines implicitly con- 
 tained either in the Bible or in Apostolic tradi- 
 tions. We can discuss them next Thursday. 
 Addio." 
 
CHAPTER XV 
 
 VISIBLE HEAD OF THE CHURCH 
 
 <TT"^HAT was a narrow escape," thought 
 JL Pasqualino, as he wended his way 
 through the park to his uncle's house. The dis- 
 cussion would have become rather embarrassing 
 had it lasted much longer, for he was totally un- 
 prepared to answer the questions proposed by the 
 evangelist. He firmly resolved to be fully 
 equipped for the next encounter. With his tal- 
 ent for languages Pasqualino experienced little 
 difficulty in preparing the Latin and Greek exer- 
 cises for his daily class work. He had, there- 
 fore, plenty of time to devote to the study of 
 apologetics. So absorbed did he become in the 
 defense of doctrinal points which he deemed lia- 
 ble to future attack that he could scarcely think 
 or speak of anything else. From the abundance 
 of the heart the mouth speaketh. In recreation 
 with his companions he ingeniously diverted the 
 topic of their conversation from batting averages 
 and relative merits of base ball clubs to the solu- 
 tion of the theological problems besetting his 
 
 133 
 
134 MEMOIRS OF ZI PRE 9 
 
 mind. Do not imagine that our youthful hero 
 had any aversion to play — which, indeed, would 
 be altogether abnormal in a lad of his age. No 
 student was fonder of it than Pasqualino. He 
 had, however, very decided tastes in the selection 
 of his amusements as well as of his studies. Be 
 it said to his discredit that never would he have 
 shed a tear had algebra, trigonometry and cal- 
 culus been eliminated from the college course. 
 Neither cards nor pool appealed to him, for they 
 were the popular games of saloon frequenters. 
 This peculiar notion he probably derived from 
 Zi Pre', for whom billiards was not merely a pas- 
 time but an emotion with which he strove to im- 
 bue the altar boys. The directors of the quon- 
 dam flourishing Columbus Club presented the 
 priest with a regulation sized table upon which 
 the famous " wizard of the cue," Jake Schaefer, 
 had once given an exhibition of fancy shots. 
 It was installed in the largest room of the rec- 
 tory and upon it Pasqualino was occasionally 
 allowed to practice. He soon became quite an 
 adept in the follow, draw and dead ball The 
 masse shot he never mastered, which even to at- 
 tempt would have been felonious. If there were 
 to be any punctures of the cloth Zi Pre' was fully 
 competent to make them himself. Outdoor 
 sports had for Pasqualino a still greater attrac- 
 tion, such as skating, horseback riding and swim- 
 
VISIBLE HEAD OF THE CHURCH 135 
 
 ming. But he never made a toil of his pleasures 
 and used them judiciously as a break in the mo- 
 notony of his intellectual pursuits. It was about 
 the middle of June, and the weather had become 
 quite sultry. The following Thursday found 
 Pasqualino at the Diversey bathing beach an hour 
 ahead of time in order to enjoy a refreshing 
 swim before entering the arena of polemics. 
 After he had been in the water for about twenty 
 minutes, he swam out to the diving platform 
 which he nimbly mounted and sprawled out at 
 full length on the top of it for a sun bath. Very 
 few had taken advantage of the beach at that 
 hour. Looking towards the land he espied his 
 evangelical friend standing near the water's edge 
 and watching him intently. " Surely he cannot 
 recognize me in a bathing suit from that dis- 
 tance," thought Pasqualino. He did not relish 
 a dive from the height of twenty feet, for he 
 imagined that the sensation produced would be 
 somewhat akin to falling several stories through 
 the shaft of an elevator. Yet what could he do ? 
 There was that evangelist scrutinizing him from 
 the shore, and how cowardly it would look if he 
 crawled down the ladder again to the water's 
 surface! Human respect triumphed. He 
 walked out boldly to the end of the springboard, 
 as if it were a daily occurrence. Hesitating a 
 moment to utter a fervent ejaculation that his 
 
I3'6 MEMOIRS OF ZI PRE 9 
 
 neck might not be broken, he dived in and headed 
 for the shore. 
 
 " Why, how do you do ! " he exclaimed, as he 
 landed on the beach. " I did not think that you 
 would come so early. Please wait for me until 
 I am dried and dressed. It won't take more 
 than ten minutes." Whereupon Pasqualino 
 passed through the turnstile and proceeded to his 
 locker. It did not take him long to don his 
 clothes. After he emerged and joined his 
 friend, the latter remarked : " I am now fully 
 convinced that you are really a doctor of dive- 
 inity." 
 
 " Thank you for the compliment," laughed 
 Pasqualino, " I am merely a tyro. I do wish 
 that you would meet our parish priest He 
 could certainly answer all your objections." 
 
 " My dear young friend," commented the 
 evangelist, " I do not think that even he could 
 improve upon the arguments you advanced 
 against the reformation at our last meeting. 
 They have set me to thinking. Whom do you 
 regard as the head of your Church?" 
 
 " The invisible head of the Church," said Pas- 
 qualino, " is its founder, Jesus Christ. Before 
 His ascension into Heaven He sent the Apostles 
 to preach His gospel, with the assurance that 
 He would assist them from Heaven until the 
 end of time. '.Behold, I am with you all days 
 
VISIBLE HEAD OF THE CHURCH 137 
 
 until the consummation of the world/ The vis- 
 ible head of the Church was St. Peter and the 
 uninterrupted line of popes who succeeded him 
 down to the present gloriously reigning pontiff, 
 Pius X." 
 
 " Poor deluded Catholics," exclaimed the 
 evangelist. " Why do they wrong thus the Sav- 
 ior, as if He couldn't rule the Church from 
 Heaven, and needed someone to take His place 
 on earth ! " 
 
 " Oh, don't feel so bad about it," begged Pas- 
 qualino. " When God establishes a thing, we 
 have no right to whine or complain why He did 
 it, but simply to ascertain what He did. He 
 might have converted the whole world by a single 
 act of His omnipotent will, but He preferred to 
 make St. Peter the head of His Church. It was 
 therefore necessary to let St. Peter have a suc- 
 cessor as head of that institution." 
 
 " But," insisted the evangelist, " doesn't God 
 alone suffice to govern His Church ? What need 
 is there of human help when we have divine as- 
 sistance ? " 
 
 " It sounds as if you merely wish to quibble," 
 rejoined Pasqualino. " The manner in which 
 God established His Church demands a visible 
 head. In the gospel the Church is compared to 
 a great family which in every age must receive 
 all those wishing to join it. The Church is es- 
 
138 MEMOIRS OF ZI PRE 
 
 sentially one, and without a governing head 
 the members would be speedily separated 
 into sects the same as Protestantism. The 
 Church is holy, but how could the members 
 of every tribe and nation preserve sanctity 
 of doctrine and morals without a visible head 
 which in the name of God and with His 
 assistance distinguishes truth from error, vice 
 from virtue? The Church is Catholic or uni- 
 versal, but how could the members scattered 
 over the earth unite in the same faith, cult and 
 sacraments if there was lacking a head to bind 
 them together? The Church is Apostolic, but 
 how could she ever be recognized as such with- 
 out a visible successor and custodian of the 
 truths inherited from the Apostles?" 
 
 " What you say," replied the evangelist, 
 " proves that our Lord made St. Peter the head of 
 the Church ; but after he and the other Apostles 
 died, the gospel had been preached throughout 
 the world. Hence there was no further need of 
 a visible head or of a successor to St. Peter." 
 
 " From what I said," rejoined Pasqualino, 
 " two things necessarily follow : Christ founded 
 a Church that should last until the end of time, 
 and as head of that Church He appointed St. 
 Peter who should govern it during his whole 
 life. Since the Church was destined to continue 
 after St. Peter's death, a successor was needed 
 
VISIBLE HEAD OF THE CHURCH 139 
 
 to govern it. The nation is not made for the 
 ruler, but the ruler is appointed to govern the 
 nation and keep it from going to pieces. Like- 
 wise, the Church was not established for the 
 benefit of the Pope, but he is elected to rule the 
 Church, and so long as it lasts there will be a 
 visible head called the Pope. Do you think that 
 the family should govern the head of the house, 
 or vice versa? " 
 
 11 Undoubtedly the head of the house was 
 made to govern the family," responded the evan- 
 gelist. 
 
 u And how long should there be a head to rule 
 the family ? " asked Pasqualino. 
 
 " As long as the family exists, otherwise it 
 would disintegrate," replied the evangelist. 
 
 " And when the head of the family dies ? " 
 continued Pasqualino. 
 
 " Then," rejoined the evangelist, " the eldest 
 son, if he amounts to anything, or some other 
 competent member becomes the head of the 
 family." 
 
 fl But imagine a family destined to last until 
 the end of time; how could it be best pre- 
 served ? " 
 
 " By having a good head to govern it," an- 
 swered the evangelist. 
 
 f,i I hope," ventured Pasqualino, *' that you 
 perceive who this head and family are." 
 
140 MEMOIRS OF ZI PRE 
 
 " Oh, I see them clearly enough," replied the 
 evangelist. " It is a strong argument in favor 
 of the Catholic Church considered as a great 
 family. I used to believe it when a Catholic; 
 but since joining the Evangelical church I think 
 it a great mistake to regard the Pope as the suc- 
 cessor of St. Peter. Nobody can prove it. I 
 have asked that question a dozen times and have 
 never received a satisfactory answer." 
 
 " Well, listen to me patiently," said Pas- 
 qualino, " while I try to give you one. You 
 have already admitted two things, viz. : that our 
 Lord appointed St. Peter the head of His 
 Church, and that St. Peter after his death should 
 be succeeded by another visible head in the gov- 
 ernment of the Church." 
 
 " Just a moment," interposed the evangelist. 
 " Quote a single text proving that St. Peter lived 
 and died in Rome." 
 
 " I shall," rejoined Pasqualino, " after you 
 have indicated a single text proving that the 
 Lord's Day was changed from the Jewish Sab- 
 bath to Sunday. A great many things occurred 
 in the Apostolic age that are not recorded in the 
 Bible. How do you account for the universal 
 belief of Christendom in the facts that St. Peter 
 was Rome's first Bishop; that he first converted 
 the Romans, and that in Rome he suffered mar- 
 tyrdom? In his letter to the Romans St. Paul 
 
VISIBLE HEAD OF THE CHURCH 141 
 
 declared that ' their faith was spoken of in the 
 whole world/ If St. Peter did not convert 
 them, who did ? " 
 
 " In his letter to the Romans, why did not St. 
 Paul convey his greetings to St. Peter, if he were 
 really their Bishop ? " asked the evangelist. 
 
 " That," said Pasqualino, " is at best a nega- 
 tive argument and cannot be urged as a refuta- 
 tion of facts asserted by positive evidence. In 
 his letter to the Ephesians we find no greetings 
 to St. John, Bishop of Ephesus, nor in the 
 Epistle to the Hebrews do we discover any salu- 
 tations to St. James, Bishop of Jerusalem. 
 Would you, therefore, conclude that St. John 
 and St. James were not Bishops of the cities 
 mentioned? We must attach more importance 
 to the testimony of a few reliable persons assert- 
 ing a fact than to the silence of a hundred indi- 
 viduals who do not deny what the witnesses 
 assert. All historians, heretical as well as Cath- 
 olic, admit the marvelous succession of Roman 
 Pontiffs from St. Peter down to the present 
 Pope. If there be any difference of opinion 
 among them, it doesn't concern the facts of St. 
 Peter's sojourn and martyrdom in Rome, but 
 the exact time in which those events occurred. 
 If you wish to be thoroughly convinced, come 
 over to Guardian Angel Mission next Thursday 
 morning and get our Pastor's views on the sub- 
 
142 MEMOIRS OF ZI PRE' 
 
 ject He is much better qualified than I to im- 
 part information. " 
 
 With this final injunction Pasqualino started 
 homeward. 
 
CHAPTER XVI 
 
 INFALLIBILITY 
 
 44 1 TERE he comes !" exclaimed Pasqualino 
 
 JfjL one Thursday morning, as he peered 
 through the rectory window and espied his 
 friend, the evangelist, at the gate. The latter, 
 after some hesitation, entered the yard and pro- 
 ceeded up the cement walk to the front door al- 
 ready opened by Pasqualino who stood upon the 
 threshold to welcome him. " Come right in ! " 
 said the young man to him encouragingly. " I 
 know that the priest will be glad to see you." 
 
 The evangelist owned that his last reception 
 at the rectory was not over-enthusiastic. 
 
 " Walk in ! " shouted the priest, rising from 
 his desk and proceeding to the door to greet his 
 visitor. " If I mistake not, the last time you 
 called here was on a Sunday afternoon and you 
 found me preoccupied with the closing of the 
 Mission." 
 
 " Well, I came this morning," ventured the 
 evangelist, " at the urgent request of this young 
 man who claims that you are a walking encyclo- 
 
 i43 
 
144 MEMOIRS OF ZI PRE' 
 
 paedia and fully able to solve any difficulty I 
 may propose." 
 
 " Quite a flattering compliment/ ' rejoined Zi 
 Pre'. " Pasqualino has certainly no small opin- 
 ion of his pastor's ability. In case of failure to 
 solve your difficulties you may safely ascribe it 
 to my lack of knowledge, and not to any dearth 
 of reasons which may easily be found in any 
 standard work of Catholic theology. Please sit 
 down and make yourself at home." 
 
 Pasqualino took the stranger's hat to hang 
 upon the hall tree, while the latter planted him- 
 self comfortably in a Morris chair near the 
 window. 
 
 " What seems to be your chief difficulty ? " 
 asked the priest. 
 
 ."Oh, it isn't one, but a hundred of them," 
 avowed the evangelist. " I don't believe in 
 papal infallibility, purgatory, invocation of saints, 
 indulgences, immaculate concep — " 
 
 " You needn't complete the list," interrupted 
 the priest, " otherwise we may not have time to 
 finish. Just let us take up your difficulties, one 
 by one, and thus avoid confusion. Do you be- 
 lieve that the present Pope Benedict XV is the 
 successor of St. Peter ? " 
 
 " Oh, I grant that he lawfully succeeded St. 
 Peter," replied the evangelist, "but that is no 
 reason why he should be clothed with a divine 
 
INFALLIBILITY 145 
 
 attribute. God alone is infallible. To err is 
 human, and the Pope is subject to human frail- 
 ties the same as the rest of men." 
 
 " God alone is essentially infallible/' said the 
 priest, " just as He alone is essentially good, wise 
 and holy. There is nothing to prevent Him 
 from communicating His goodness, wisdom, 
 holiness and other perfections in various degrees 
 to His creatures as He thinks fit and proper. 
 The present Pope is no more prone to human 
 frailties than his predecessor St. Peter and the 
 other Apostles. Don't you regard them as in- 
 fallible?" 
 
 " Having been chosen directly by our Lord 
 Himself," rejoined the evangelist, " they were 
 inspired men, and altogether different from their 
 successors." 
 
 " Did our Lord command us to believe His 
 gospel, or did he not?" asked the priest. 
 
 " I have no trouble in believing His gospel," 
 answered the evangelist. " My difficulty is be- 
 lieving in popes and bishops who are fallible men 
 like myself." 
 
 i You assume the same attitude," commented 
 the priest, " as the individual asserting : ' I ber 
 lieve in the constitution of the United States, 
 but I place no confidence in the decisions of the 
 Supreme Court, because they are rendered by 
 citizens like myself.' The teaching body of the 
 
146 MEMOIRS OF ZI PRE' 
 
 Church is composed of the Pope, bishops, and 
 priests — men like the rest of mortals in many 
 ways, yet differing from them in other respects." 
 
 " I never detected much difference between 
 them and ordinary laymen," said the evangelist. 
 
 " Well," rejoined the priest, " they differ from 
 the laity in the fact that our Lord invested them 
 with spiritual power and divine authority. He 
 divided His Church into two great classes — the 
 instructors and the instructed, the spiritual gov- 
 ernors and the spiritually governed. The for- 
 mer were divinely commissioned to teach, rule 
 and administer the means of sanctification. The 
 latter were obliged to learn, obey and receive 
 these means, viz.: the sacraments. Of those 
 teachers our Lord saith : * He that heareth you, 
 heareth me ; he that despiseth you, despiseth me. 
 He that heareth not the Church, let him be to 
 thee as the heathen and the publican/ The be- 
 lief of the members corresponds as an effect to 
 the teaching authority and must therefore be the 
 same as it holds. As there always will be a 
 vast multitude professing the true faith, so there 
 must always exist a teaching body announcing 
 it. Thus we are careful ' to keep the unity of 
 the spirit in the bond of peace, one faith, one 
 baptism, one Lord, one God, one Father of all/ " 
 
 " Catholics believe that the Pope couldn't 
 make a mistake if he tried, don't they ? " 
 
INFALLIBILITY 147 
 
 "A person in his exalted position will never 
 try to make a mistake," responded the priest. 
 " Catholics firmly believe that the Church 
 teaches infallibly when through the Pope and 
 bishops collectively, or when through the Pope 
 alone as universal pastor, she announces a doc- 
 trine of faith or morals. The bishops may be 
 viewed either as dispersed in their dioceses, or 
 assembled in a general council. In either case, 
 •provided they be united with the visible head of 
 the Church, the Bishop of Rome, their pro- 
 nouncement on matters of doctrine and morality 
 is authoritative and infallible." 
 
 " Why shouldn't their judgment be just as 
 authoritative when they differ with the Pope ? " 
 demanded the evangelist. " Are they not Apos- 
 tolic successors as well as he ? " 
 
 " Because," replied the priest, " the office of 
 teaching infallibly was never given or even men- 
 tioned by our Lord to the Apostles without their 
 leader, St. Peter, being present. Individually 
 they were inspired as well as infallible. This 
 two-fold prerogative was necessary for the first 
 founders of the Church. It wasn't so necessary 
 after the Church became firmly established. 
 The Apostles were also infallible collectively, as, 
 for example, when they met in council at Jeru- 
 salem. This collective infallibility was needed 
 for the Church's preservation in the purity and 
 
143 MEMOIRS OF ZI PRE' 
 
 integrity of her doctrines, just as much as the 
 power to preach, baptize, confirm and ordain. 
 Hence there exists the strongest presumption 
 that infallibility along with other ministerial 
 powers must have been transmitted to the 
 Church. This presumptive evidence can only be 
 destroyed by the strongest reasons to the con- 
 trary. The Church was in undisputed posses- 
 sion. How can she be justly dispossessed of it? 
 Every text bearing on the formation and estab- 
 lishment of the Church favors the transmission 
 of that prerogative." 
 
 " I have read the New Testament over and 
 over," said the evangelist, " and I wish that you 
 would point out a single text favoring infalli- 
 bility." 
 
 " You certainly are familiar with the text of 
 St. Matthew," remarked the priest. " ' Go ye 
 therefore and teach all nations all things what- 
 soever I have commanded. And behold, I am 
 with you all days even to the consummation of 
 the world/ Notice the expression, ' I am with 
 you.' What does it mean ? " 
 
 " What, indeed ! " echoed the evangelist, col- 
 oring with embarrassment. 
 
 " It means help or assistance," continued the 
 priest. " God often used it in speaking to His 
 patriarchs and prophets, and invariably He 
 thereby meant to help them in a special man- 
 
INFALLIBILITY 149 
 
 ner. What imaginable help could the Son of 
 God or the Holy Ghost render the Apostles and 
 their successors in preaching the gospel to all 
 nations, unless to keep them from teaching false- 
 hood ? St. Paul calls the Church ' the pillar and 
 ground of truth/ How could he truthfully 
 apply such a title to the Church were she capable 
 of teaching false doctrine? Don't you think that 
 it would be incompatible with Divine Wisdom 
 and Mercy to deny mankind in the all-important 
 affair of salvation the certainty granted in mathe- 
 matics, physics and the natural sciences ? " 
 
 "Well, I find it hard to believe," said the 
 evangelist, " that Popes like Alexander VI and 
 a few more were gifted with infallibility." 
 
 " Why ? " asked the priest. 
 
 " Because they were so wicked/' rejoined the 
 evangelist. 
 
 u You confound infallibility with impecca- 
 bility/' said the priest. " The unfailing assist- 
 ance of the Holy Spirit was directly intended 
 not for the Pope's personal sanctification, but 
 for the guidance of his judgment. Solomon, 
 Balaam, Jonas and Caiaphas were not very edify- 
 ing in their conduct, yet they infallibly prophe- 
 sied the truth. Many of the Scribes and Phari- 
 sees were wicked. Yet our Lord said of them: 
 'They have sat in the chair of Moses. All 
 things whatsoever they shall say to you, observe 
 
ISO MEMOIRS OF ZI PRE 
 
 and do. But according to their works do ye not, 
 for they say and do not.' We claim infallible 
 assistance for the Pope only in his official capac- 
 ity as universal pastor and visible head of the 
 Church. The long series of Roman pontiffs from 
 St. Peter down to the gloriously reigning Bene- 
 dict XV is composed of most exemplary men. 
 During the first three centuries nearly every 
 Pope shed his blood for his faith. Out of 260, 
 thirty-three were martyred, and eighty-two can- 
 onized. Even granting, for the sake of argu- 
 ment, that the conduct of four or five was rep- 
 rehensible, we have at least fifty-one good 
 Popes for every bad one, while there was a 
 Judas Iscariot among the twelve Apostles." 
 
 "Don't you think," asked the evangelist, 
 " that if our Lord wished to make the Pope in- 
 fallible, He would have given some intimation 
 of such an extraordinary gift?" 
 
 " As a matter of fact," replied the priest, 
 " He did indicate it in unmistakable language. 
 ' Thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build 
 my Church, and the gates of Hell shall not pre- 
 vail against it.' The Church of which Peter is 
 the foundation is declared impregnable, i. e., 
 proof against error. ' Whatsoever thou shalt 
 bind upon earth shall be bound in Heaven.' 
 Since the God of Truth cannot ratify an un- 
 truthful judgment, He must, therefore, preserve 
 
INFALLIBILITY 151 
 
 Peter and his successors from binding the mem- 
 bers of the Church to believe an erroneous doc- 
 trine, and to believe it under pain of eternal per- 
 dition, for He Himself declared : ' He that be- 
 lieveth not shall be condemned.' " 
 
 " But didn't the Pope bind the Church to be- 
 lieve an erroneous doctrine when he condemned 
 Galileo for saying that the earth moved round 
 the sun ? " asked the evangelist. 
 
 " Cusa and Copernicus," replied the priest, 
 " taught the same system advanced by Galileo a 
 century before the latter was born. Cusa was 
 made Bishop of Brixen and later Cardinal, while 
 Copernicus received a life pension. Urban VIII 
 assured Galileo that he would not be molested 
 provided that he confined his astronomical argu- 
 mentations to physics and mathematics, and let 
 the Bible and religion severely alone. This he 
 refused to do. Hence the sentence obliging him 
 to recite the seven penitential Psalms once a 
 week for three years and to remain prisoner at 
 the good will of the court. We might ignore 
 the objection entirely on the ground that the de- 
 cree of the Inquisition was not formally a papal 
 document." 
 
CHAPTER XVII 
 
 VENERATION OF SACRED IMAGES 
 
 "TT^OU remarked to me once," said Pas- 
 J[ qualino, " that when a Catholic you be- 
 lieved certain doctrines which you rejected after 
 you had joined the Protestant church." 
 
 " Oh, not the Protestant, but the Evangelical 
 church," corrected the evangelist. " Well, I 
 would just like to — " 
 
 " Pardon the interruption," said Zi Pre', " but 
 it just occurred to me that we will have quite a 
 number of communions to-morrow morning, the 
 First Friday of the month. I wish, Pasqualino, 
 that you would take that tin box in the sacristy 
 to the Sacred Heart Convent, and ask the nuns 
 to give you about 150 small particles and a dozen 
 large ones. You had better start immediately, 
 as they may not have any baked." 
 
 " Very well, Father," replied Pasqualino, 
 springing to his feet and hurriedly bowing him- 
 self out of the room. After he had closed the 
 door the priest turned to the evangelist and said : 
 " I am curious to know what prompted you to 
 
 152 
 
VENERATION OF SACRED IMAGES 153 
 
 abandon the Catholic Church. Was it in order 
 to lead a more virtuous or a more vicious 
 life?" 
 
 " Why, to lead a more virtuous life," re- 
 sponded the evangelist, who suddenly preferred 
 to let his gaze wander towards the window 
 rather than in the direction of his questioner. 
 
 " That being the case," replied the priest, " I 
 would like to venture one more question/' 
 
 " Oh, you can ask all the questions you like," 
 blurted the evangelist, shifting his glance from 
 the window to the ceiling. 
 
 " When you were a Catholic, did you faithfully 
 observe the commandments of God and the pre- 
 cepts of the Church?" 
 
 " Well, to be candid," said the evangelist, " I 
 used to be fond of amusement like most young 
 men, and frequented resorts that I should have 
 avoided. My folks were of the old fashioned re- 
 ligious type. In fact, I have a brother who is 
 an Apostolic missionary in India. I went to con- 
 fession regularly and then suddenly quit." 
 
 " What was the trouble? " 
 
 " The priest refused me absolution and told 
 me to return the following Saturday. I never 
 went back. My people began nagging me; life 
 became so intolerable at home that I left and 
 came to America. Here I joined the Evangel- 
 ists, who were very kind to me and taught me 
 
154 MEMOIRS OF ZI PRE 
 
 English. I resolved to lead a better life. At 
 present I am in a quandary what to do or what 
 to believe. In the beginning everything seemed 
 so bright and fascinating. It was a relief to 
 think I was freed forever from the tyranny of 
 confessing my sins to a priest. But now the 
 more I study and reflect upon the past, the 
 greater anguish and misery I feel. My conver- 
 sations with Pasqualino have upset me com- 
 pletely. But I am in it, and nothing remains for 
 me but to continue." 
 
 " Yes, unfortunately you are in it/' said the 
 priest ; " but if you found yourself on the brink 
 of a precipice, would you not draw back ? What 
 ever induced you to apostatize?" 
 
 " When I landed in New York I had to borrow 
 money to come to Chicago. Here a fellow 
 townsman, who was an evangelical, obtained em- 
 ployment for me in a large statuary concern. 
 The foreman placed me alongside this companion 
 in the studio where we modeled in clay and gyp- 
 sum. We chatted a good deal at our work, and 
 one remark of my friend produced upon me 
 quite an impression." 
 
 " What was it ? " asked the priest. 
 
 " He said the statues of Christ, the Madonna, 
 saints and martyrs which we made, were the 
 idols worshipped and adored by our ignorant 
 countrymen. Gradually I began to believe that 
 
VENERATION OF SACRED IMAGES 155 
 
 the Catholic Church had really fallen into idol- 
 atry." 
 
 " Oh, no," laughed the priest, " you never be- 
 lieved any such nonsense. It was you yourself 
 who fell into idolatry." 
 
 " Not in a thousand years ! " exclaimed the 
 evangelist, shuffling his feet and wiggling in his 
 chair. 
 
 " Oh, yes, you did, and I can prove it," calmly 
 rejoined the priest. " Idolatry is giving to a 
 creature the worship that belongs to God alone. 
 In your youth you became a slave to your pas- 
 sions. Instead of co-operating with God's grace 
 to overcome them, you simply yielded to every 
 sensual desire and inclination. Your vicious 
 habits became like so many idols which you wor- 
 shipped and adored. The priest evidently de- 
 ferred giving you absolution until you showed 
 some signs of reform and repentance. Unwill- 
 ing to abandon the proximate occasion of sin 
 you went over to the Evangelical camp which ex- 
 acts no sacramental confession. You may find it 
 rather comfortable during life, but woefully be- 
 reft of consolation when you come to die. No 
 practical Catholic ever apostatizes. You never 
 heard of an exemplary virtuous priest becoming 
 a Protestant minister. You cannot mention a 
 single one. We can, moreover, furnish a 
 lengthy list of intelligent, virtuous Protestants, 
 
15.6 MEMOIRS OF ZI PRE 3 
 
 like the Newmans, Mannings and Fabers who 
 have been converted to the Catholic Church and 
 become its brightest ornaments. The real mo- 
 tive of every Catholic apostasy, like in your own 
 case, is either a carnal, temporal or material con- 
 sideration." 
 
 " No matter what my motive may have been, ,, 
 said the evangelist, " it does seem that the Church 
 has fallen into idolatry.'' 
 
 " Nonsense," exclaimed the priest. " How 
 can any sane person accuse the Church of a 
 crime she has vigorously opposed from the very 
 beginning of her existence ! Was it not because 
 the martyrs refused to worship false gods that 
 they were subjected to the most excruciating tor- 
 ments ? What makes you think that the Church 
 fell into idolatry?" 
 
 " Well, she encourages the adoration of saints, 
 their relics and images," rejoined the evangelist. 
 " The first commandment obliges us to adore 
 God alone." 
 
 " What is more natural," asked the priest, 
 " than to venerate the lives of distinguished men? 
 Their memories are honored by imposing monu- 
 ments, national holidays, annual banquets and 
 processions; their portraits adorn the walls of 
 our public buildings ; their names are given to 
 boulevards, parks and cities ; their conduct is ex- 
 
VENERATION OF SACRED IMAGES 157 
 
 tolled and commended as an example for future 
 generations; their words are carefully treasured 
 up and reverently quoted like passages from the 
 Bible. Popular veneration extends even to the 
 inanimate objects associated with these national 
 heroes. Their homesteads, furniture and even 
 garments are regarded as precious souvenirs. 
 Why should we be censured for manifesting sim- 
 ilar respect for the saints and martyrs? Surely 
 you were taught as a child that we simply ven- 
 erate them and their relics, but do not adore 
 them/' 
 
 ' You call your worship of relics and images 
 veneration, but not adoration," said the evangel- 
 ist. " The Bible, however, condemns all such 
 superstitions. ' Thou shalt not make to thyself 
 a graven image or sculpture of any sort/ " 
 
 " How did your delicate conscience ever per- 
 mit you to work for the statuary company ? " 
 asked the priest. " The text, if literally fol- 
 lowed, would put every sculptor, painter and 
 photographer out of business. The meaning of 
 the passage is evident from the context where it 
 says ( Thou shalt not make these things to adore 
 and serve them/ That is why we only venerate 
 the relics and images of the saints. No Catholic 
 adores them." 
 
 u But," insisted the evangelist, " there is no 
 
158 MEMOIRS OF ZI PRE' 
 
 record of the chosen people venerating images or 
 relics, and we should adhere strictly to the Bi- 
 ble." 
 
 " What about the ark of the covenant? " asked 
 the priest. " Was it not a material image? " 
 
 " Oh, yes," acknowledged the evangelist, " it 
 certainly was a material object containing the 
 tablets of the divine law." 
 
 " Did the Jewish people adore it?" 
 
 " No, because that would have been idolatry." 
 
 " You admit, then," said the priest, " that the 
 chosen people had images or material objects 
 which they lawfully venerated, and caused every- 
 body else to respect ? " 
 
 " Oh, those were simply material things, not 
 images. They were not statues," replied the 
 evangelist. 
 
 " The ark of the covenant," said the priest, 
 " was an image prefiguring the Tabernacle of 
 the New Dispensation which contains not only 
 the divine law, but also the Author of that law, 
 our Savior, Jesus Christ in the sacrament of His 
 love, the Holy Eucharist. But perhaps you pre- 
 fer a more specific argument. Do you recall 
 Solomon's temple? God commanded that two 
 golden cherubim should be made and placed 
 above the ark. The people venerated both the 
 ark and the cherubim, which were certainly stat- 
 ues. Moses was divinely commanded to make 
 
VENERATION OF SACRED IMAGES 159 
 
 a brazen serpent and expose it to the view of 
 the Hebrews so that ' whosoever being struck 
 by the fiery serpents shall look upon it, shall 
 live/ Do you think those people were guilty of 
 idolatry ?" 
 
 " You recall facts that I learned as a boy, but 
 never seriously reflected upon. How did this 
 antagonism to images originate ? " 
 
 " Iconoclasm or image-breaking," said the 
 priest, " was a heresy encouraged by Emperor 
 Leo of Constantinople in the eighth century. 
 Like other so-called reformers, avarice really 
 prompted him to cause the statues of bronze, 
 silver and gold that adorned the churches to be 
 melted down and converted into coin bearing his 
 image. Persuaded by Moslems and by an apos- 
 tate Christian that the worship rendered to im- 
 ages of our Lord, the Blessed Virgin and the 
 Saints was idolatrous, he issued an imperial 
 edict to destroy all religious paintings, the in- 
 terior walls of the churches throughout the realm 
 were to be whitewashed, and might be decorated 
 only with pictures of birds, fruits and flowers. 
 People said that the churches began to look like 
 grocery stores and bird shops. Unable to win 
 over to his party the literary men in charge of 
 the imperial library, he simply shut them up in 
 the building and set it on fire. To take revenge 
 on Pope Gregory III, by whom he was excom- 
 
i6o MEMOIRS OF ZI PRE' 
 
 municated, he ordered a fleet to Italy, but it was 
 wrecked in the Adriatic. Shortly afterwards 
 the tyrant died, universally regarded as a scourge 
 to religion and humanity. 
 
 " He was succeeded by his son, Constantine 
 Copronymus, who surpassed his father in fiend- 
 ishness. By his command the eyes of Catholics 
 were plucked out and their nostrils slit. He had 
 a special hatred of religious people. He caused 
 their beards to be overlaid with inflammable mat- 
 ter and then ignited and the images of the Saints 
 to be broken on their heads. His special recrea- 
 tion was to preside at executions and feast his 
 eyes on streams of fresh warm blood. In those 
 days there lived near Nicomedia a holy Abbot 
 named Stephen. The emperor summoned him 
 to Constantinople with the intention of winning 
 him over by argument, for this royal buffoon was 
 just conceited enough to imagine himself quite 
 an adept in dialectics. ' Oh, stupid man ! ' he 
 exclaimed, ' how do you fail to see that we may 
 trample under foot the image of Christ without 
 offending Christ Himself ? ' Stephen drew near 
 the tyrant and showing him a coin that bore his 
 image, said to him : * I may therefore treat this 
 image in the same manner without failing in re- 
 spect.' Then, throwing the piece of money on 
 the ground, he tramped on it. Immediately he 
 was seized by the courtiers and as they led him 
 
VENERATION OF SACRED IMAGES 161 
 
 away to execution, he exclaimed : s Strange, in- 
 deed, that it should be a crime to insult the image 
 of an earthly prince and no harm to trample 
 under foot the image of the King of Heaven ! ' " 
 
CHAPTER XVIII 
 
 VENERATION OF RELICS AND INVOCATION OF 
 
 SAINTS 
 
 "flPSHE veneration of images seems reason- 
 1 able enough/' observed the evangelist, 
 " because it is rendered not to the material of 
 which they are made, but to the persons whom 
 they represent. The fuss, however, made over 
 relics always appeared to me as rank supersti- 
 tion." 
 
 " Superstition/' said the priest, " is a very 
 much abused word often employed by people 
 who do not grasp its meaning. According to St. 
 Thomas, it is a vice opposed to religion by way 
 of excess; not because in the worship of God 
 it does more than true religion, but because it of- 
 fers divine worship to beings other than God, 
 or offers worship to God in an improper man- 
 ner. It differs from the vice of irreligion, which 
 sins by defect. True religion is the golden mean 
 between superstition and irreligious 
 
 " There is no mention of relics in the Bible," 
 said the evangelist. 
 
 162 
 
VENERATION OF RELICS 163 
 
 " I am afraid that you have forgotten your Bi- 
 ble history/' commented the priest. " Don't you 
 remember reading in the IV Book of Kings 
 (xxii) that when some Israelites were carry- 
 ing a corpse for burial they were frightened by 
 thieves and took refuge in a cave where the body 
 of the prophet Eliseus had been buried a year 
 previous? The corpse instantly came to life 
 when it had touched the bones of the Prophet. 
 The bodies of the Saints are entitled to our ven- 
 eration because, according to St. Paul (I Cor. 
 vi) they were once the mystic members of 
 Christ, and living temples of the Holy Ghost. 
 Having been the instruments of all their virtues 
 here on earth, their bodies will share in the eter- 
 nal glory of their souls after the general resur- 
 rection. We read in the Acts of the Apostles 
 that the sick were laid upon couches in the streets 
 so that when Peter came along his shadow at 
 least might fall upon them and deliver them from 
 their infirmities. In chapter xix it is stated that 
 there were brought from the body of Paul to 
 the sick handkerchiefs and aprons, and the dis- 
 eases departed from them, and the wicked spirits 
 went out of them. In St. Matthew's gospel it 
 is related that a woman troubled with an issue of 
 blood for twelve years came behind our Lord 
 and touched the hem of His garment. For she 
 said within herself: ' If I touch only the hem of 
 
164 MEMOIRS OF ZI PRE' 
 
 His garment I shall be healed.' That certainly- 
 looked like superstition, didn't it ? " 
 
 The evangelist nodded assent. 
 
 " Well, our Lord didn't think so," continued 
 the priest. " He turned towards the woman and 
 said: 'Be of good heart, daughter; thy faith 
 hath made thee whole.' If there were no super- 
 stition in the conduct of the persons mentioned, 
 if instead of being censured they were praised by 
 our Lord for their strong faith, why should we 
 Catholics be accused of superstition if we seek 
 miraculous cures at Lourdes, Pompeii, Guada- 
 loupe and other shrines? Did not our Lord as- 
 sure us in the gospel of St. Mark c. xvi. that 
 miracles would be a distinctive mark of His 
 Church? In venerating the relics of the Saints 
 we observe a custom that has prevailed in the 
 Church from its very foundation! The cata- 
 combs of Rome proclaim the truth of this asser- 
 tion. There on the tombs of Christian martyrs 
 may be deciphered earnest supplications to those 
 departed heroes that they may intercede with 
 God for their surviving brethren." 
 
 " Well," remarked the evangelist, " I have al- 
 ways regarded this veneration of relics as a sort 
 of money-making scheme. Very likely the rel- 
 ics themselves are spurious." 
 
 " If in any particular case," said the priest, 
 " grafting happens to develop, it is in direct 
 
VENERATION OF RELICS 165 
 
 violation of the Church laws. The Council of 
 Trent insists that ' in the invocation of Saints, 
 the veneration of relics, and the sacred use of 
 images, every superstition shall be removed and 
 all filthy lucre abolished.' Wherever relics are 
 venerated with the sanction of the Church, the 
 presumption is that they are genuine. Even 
 granting that some of them are spurious and the 
 people have been venerating them in good faith 
 for centuries, it would be very injudicious to dis- 
 turb them unless proof of spuriousness is so 
 overwhelming as to amount to certainty. Hence 
 there is justification for the Church's prudent 
 policy in tolerating the veneration of certain 
 doubtful relics which could not be brusquely set 
 aside without grave scandal and popular disturb- 
 ance. Meanwhile, the more solemn features of 
 their public cult are quietly and gradually omit- 
 ted, and eventually the cult itself will be elim- 
 inated." 
 
 " The veneration of the Saints, their images 
 and relics is one thing," said the evangelist, 
 :< but their invocation is an altogether different 
 proposition." 
 
 " Very true," replied the priest. " Their in- 
 vocation is based upon their power of interced- 
 ing for us. From the objections raised against 
 our custom of invoking the Saints, one would 
 suppose that we placed the Creator on a level 
 
166 MEMOIRS OF ZI PRE' - 
 
 with His creatures ; that we considered the Saints 
 and martyrs more sympathetic and willing to 
 hear us than God Himself, and that they, as well 
 as Christ, are mediators between God and man." 
 
 " When outsiders see Catholics praying to stat- 
 ues," said the evangelist, " it certainly looks like 
 idolatry." 
 
 " Every manual of Catholic doctrine," rejoined 
 the priest, " teaches that it is sinful to give the 
 same worship to Saints as we give to God; that 
 He alone is infinitely perfect and the source of 
 all good; consequently that He alone is entitled 
 to supreme homage. No outsider ever beheld 
 Catholics praying to statues. In childhood we 
 were taught that statues or images have no power 
 to help us, nor sense to hear us. We simply 
 pray before, and not to them, because they en- 
 liven our devotion by exciting pious affections 
 and desires, and by reminding us of the Saints 
 that we may imitate their virtues. Before start- 
 ing to evangelize the world the chosen twelve 
 formulated a creed commonly known as the 
 Apostles' Creed. Every denomination calling it- 
 self Christian has retained this creed. Toward 
 the end of this Apostolic symbol we find the 
 words : ' I believe in the communion of Saints.' 
 If those words have any signification they must 
 mean that between the members of the Church, 
 whether in Heaven or upon earth, there exists 
 
VENERATION OF RELICS 167 
 
 an interchange of mutual good offices, and that 
 one is in some way ready to assist the other. 
 We have the strongest Scriptural assurance that 
 God receives the prayers of the Saints and an- 
 gels, and that they are constantly engaged in sup- 
 plication in our behalf. Although Protestants 
 may exclude the books of Tobias and Machabees 
 from the canon of inspired writings, yet they 
 must be regarded at least as historical evidence of 
 ancient Jewish belief. In the twelfth chapter of 
 Tobias we are told that the angel Raphael said 
 to Tobias : ' When thou didst pray with tears 
 and didst bury the dead ... I offered thy 
 prayer to the Lord/ In the book of Machabees 
 it is said that Onias, who had been high-priest, 
 appeared to Judas Machabeus, holding up his 
 arms and praying for the Jewish people. After 
 this there appeared also another man, admirable 
 for age and glory. Then Onias said : ' This is 
 a lover of his brethren and of the people of Is- 
 rael. This is he who prayeth much for the 
 people and for all the holy city, Jeremias the 
 prophet of God.' We have the same doctrine 
 repeated in the New Testament. In St. Luke's 
 gospel we read : ' Even so there shall be joy be- 
 fore the angels of God upon one sinner that doth 
 penance more than over ninety-nine just that 
 need not penance.' What is here implied but that 
 communion, that social interchange whereby a 
 
168 MEMOIRS OF ZI PRE 
 
 sinner's repenting here below is matter of joy to 
 the angels? And doesn't our Lord assure us 
 that the Saints of God shall be like His angels? 
 Christ warns us not to scandalize any of His lit- 
 tle ones, because their angels always see the face 
 of their Father who is in Heaven! What does 
 this mean but that the guardian angels have an 
 influence with God and will use it to bring down 
 judgment on the offender? In the Apocalypse 
 we are told that our prayers are like perfumes 
 in the hands of the Saints and angels. Prot- 
 estants who lay such stress upon the Bible must 
 acknowledge this clear testimony regarding the 
 communion of mankind and the blessed as the 
 subject matter of a doctrine — a doctrine to be 
 believed and practiced. But where is it found ? 
 Nowhere save in the Catholic Church are pray- 
 ers offered for us by the Saints to God, and we, 
 therefore, seek their intercession." 
 
 " But," exclaimed the evangelist, " is not the 
 invocation of angels expressly condemned by St. 
 Paul in his letter to the Colossians : ' let no man 
 seduce you willing in humility and religion of 
 angels.' " 
 
 " No," replied the priest, " for the Apostle 
 here reproves the idolatry of Simon the magician 
 and other heretics who regarded angels as the 
 creators of all material objects. Feigning humil- 
 ity, they addressed God through these angels 
 
VENERATION OF RELICS 169 
 
 whom they idolatrously worshipped, and set 
 aside the mediatorship of Christ. That is what 
 the passage evidently means, as may be inferred 
 from the commentaries of St. Chrysostom, 
 Irenaeus and other fathers." 
 
 " But why bother with the Saints' intercession, 
 if God Himself can hear us ? " insisted the evan- 
 gelist. " Why not follow the Apostle's admoni- 
 tion, ' and go with confidence to the throne of 
 grace that we may obtain mercy and find grace 
 in seasonable aid ' ? " 
 
 " Your objection proves too much, and there- 
 fore proves nothing," retorted the priest. " Why 
 pray even directly to God, since He knows our 
 wants from all eternity? If it be useless to in- 
 voke the Saints because God can hear us without 
 their intercession, then why did God say to the 
 friends of Job : ' Go to my servant Job and ofifer 
 for yourselves a holocaust, and my servant Job 
 will pray for you, and his face will I accept ' ? " 
 
 " How," exclaimed the evangelist, " can the in- 
 vocation of Saints be reconciled with the Apos- 
 tle's assertion : ' There is one God and one medi- 
 ator of God, the man Jesus Christ, who gave 
 Himself a redemption for all ' ? " 
 
 * Very easily," replied the priest. " Christ 
 alone is mediator in the sense of Redeemer. 
 The intercessory prayers of the Saints are based 
 upon the merits of Christ, who gives them what- 
 
i7o MEMOIRS OF ZI PRE 
 
 ever value they possess. All our petitions to 
 them terminate with the formula : ' Through our 
 Lord Jesus Christ/ thus clearly indicating our 
 belief in Him as the sole mediator between God 
 and man. If intercessory prayer derogated 
 from the mediatorship of Christ, St. Paul would 
 never have asked the Romans and Ephesians to 
 pray for him. But we must not be content with 
 venerating and invoking the Saints; we should 
 endeavor to imitate their virtues. An artist 
 copying some masterpiece, studies carefully each 
 line, shadow and feature in order to render his 
 copy as near the original as possible. In like 
 manner we should study the charity, purity, pa- 
 tience, self-denial and other characteristic vir- 
 tues of the Saints in order to reproduce them in 
 our daily conduct." 
 
 At this juncture Pasqualino returned with the 
 altar breads from the convent. 
 
 " Well," exclaimed Zi Pre', rising and proffer- 
 ing his hand to the evangelist, " we have cer- 
 tainly had enough religious discussion for this 
 session. I must visit a sick person before noon." 
 
 " When may I trespass again on your time ? " 
 asked the evangelist. 
 
 " No trespass whatever," rejoined the priest. 
 " Any morning between nine and eleven, Sun- 
 days excepted, you will be welcome." 
 
CHAPTER XIX 
 
 EXTREME UNCTION 
 
 AFTER the departure of his guest, the 
 priest put on his hat and placing his rit- 
 ual, stole and oil-stock in his pocket, proceeded 
 to Ewing Street. " Anybody sick in this build- 
 ing ?" he inquired of a swarthy, low-sized man, 
 who stood lounging in front of a dingy grocery 
 store, and complacently smoking a pipe. 
 
 The individual addressed critically surveyed 
 the priest for a moment, then leisurely removing 
 the pipe from his mouth, he demanded : " Who 
 told you that there was anyone sick here ? " 
 
 " A person told me this morning after Mass/' 
 said the priest, "that a woman, the mother of 
 several children, was seriously ill at this num- 
 ber/' 
 
 " It's a wonder," muttered the individual with 
 the pipe, " that people can't mind their own busi- 
 ness. My wife is sick, but when she is low 
 enough to have the priest, I will send for him." 
 
 Just then a woman with a shawl on her head 
 scurried across the street, and espying the priest, 
 beckoned him to follow her. 
 
 171 
 
172 MEMOIRS OF ZI PRE' 
 
 " Where are you going? " asked the man with 
 the pipe. 
 
 " Shut up ! " retorted the woman with a scowl. 
 
 She led the way through a narrow passage be- 
 tween the two houses and up a rickety rear stair- 
 case to a flat on the second floor. The man fol- 
 lowed close on their heels. 
 
 "Pax huic domui et omnibus habitantibus in 
 ea. Peace be to this house and all that dwell 
 therein/' exclaimed the priest, as he crossed the 
 threshold. The air was stifling. The windows 
 had probably remained closed since the house 
 had been built. The only change of atmosphere 
 came when someone opened the door. On a cot 
 in a small room off the kitchen lay the invalid — 
 a woman past thirty. Her face was flushed 
 with fever and her lips parched with thirst. Her 
 breathing came in short, fitful jerks and she was 
 evidently in great agony. 
 
 " Wouldn't you like to go to the hospital ? " 
 asked the priest. 
 
 " That's what I told her," interjected a young 
 woman with a baby in her arms. 
 
 " You would have everything neat and clean," 
 continued the priest, " and a Sister to wait upon 
 you. It is impossible for you to obtain proper 
 medical attention here." 
 
 The poor woman shook her head negatively 
 and gasped : " Oh, no, I prefer to die at home 
 
EXTREME UNCTION 173 
 
 surrounded by my children. Nobody would un- 
 derstand me in the hospital/' 
 
 " Oh, you don't want to die for a while yet," 
 said the priest in an effort to encourage her. 
 " While there is life, there is hope. If it be 
 God's holy will you should earnestly desire to 
 live a little longer, at least for the sake of your 
 children until they grow up and are able to take 
 care of themselves. What kind of Christian 
 training would they ever get without their mother 
 to look after them ? Why, this husband of yours 
 didn't want to let me come here this morning. 
 He must have mistaken me for the undertaker. 
 The priest never visits his parishioners to accel- 
 erate their death, but rather to hasten their re- 
 covery. ' Is there any man sick among you ? ' 
 says St. James. - Let them call in the priests of 
 the Church, and let them pray over him, anoint- 
 ing him with oil in the name of the Lord, and the 
 prayer of faith shall save the sick man : and the 
 Lord shall raise him up: and if he be in sins, 
 they shall be forgiven him/ In St. Mark's gos- 
 pel (vi) we read that the Apostles ' anointed 
 with oil many that were sick and healed them/ 
 Of course, this anointing of the sick by the Dis- 
 ciples before our Savior's death, is not to be con- 
 sidered as a sacrament, since it was evidently ad- 
 ministered only for the health of the body. It 
 may, however, be regarded in some respect as a 
 
174 MEMOIRS OF ZI PRE 9 
 
 figure of the sacramental unction which was aft- 
 erwards to be instituted." 
 
 While the priest was engaged in explaining 
 the nature and effects of Extreme Unction, the 
 husband of the sick woman began rummaging 
 in an old trunk at the foot of the bed. He finally 
 resurrected a crucifix and a couple of candles 
 which he placed upon the table. Two empty 
 pop bottles served as candlesticks. " Extreme 
 Unction/' said Zi Pre', " is a sacrament which 
 through the anointing and prayer of the priest 
 gives health and strength to the soul, and even 
 sometimes to the body when we are in danger of 
 death from sickness. Besides the increase of 
 sanctifying grace — an effect common to all sac- 
 raments of the living, Extreme Unction remits 
 venial sin. The words of St. James refer chiefly 
 to venial sins, because mortal sins are remitted 
 through baptism and penance sacraments of the 
 dead. Since a sacrament produces that which it 
 signifies, it is in the very significance of each 
 sacrament that we must look for its principal ef- 
 fect. Extreme Unction is employed under the 
 form of a remedy, just as Baptism is used under 
 the form of an ablution. A remedy being 
 intended to cure, Extreme Unction is chiefly 
 destined to cure the infirmities produced in 
 the soul by sin. Baptism, therefore, is a spir- 
 
EXTREME UNCTION 175 
 
 itual birth, Penance a resurrection, and Extreme 
 Unction a cure or remedy. As a corporal rem- 
 edy supposes the life of the body, so a spiritual 
 remedy supposes the life of the soul in him to 
 whom it is administered. Hence Extreme Unc- 
 tion is not given to remove defects depriving the 
 soul of spiritual life, viz. : original and mortal 
 sin, but to remove those defects rendering the 
 soul sick and depriving it of that perfect vigor 
 which it needs in order to perform the acts of 
 spiritual life. Extreme Unction, however, can 
 also remit mortal sin when it is impossible for 
 one otherwise rightly disposed to receive the sac- 
 rament of Penance. A person after having re- 
 ceived absolution might fall into mortal sin which 
 either he does not know or forgets, and conse- 
 quently will not confess. In that case, if he 
 receives Extreme Unction with sorrow, and 
 places no obstacle to the grace of this sacrament, 
 he will obtain the remission of his faults. 
 
 "Another effect of this sacrament is the re- 
 moval of the remnants of sin, after the guilt has 
 been remitted, as e. g., temporal punishment, 
 weakness of the will, depraved inclination or 
 strong propensity to sin. All these effects are 
 signified by the sacramental matter — olive oil. 
 To oil is ascribed a certain healing power. The 
 Good Samaritan poured oil into the wounds of 
 
176 MEMOIRS OF ZI PRE' 
 
 the man who had fallen among robbers. A fur- 
 ther effect is fortitude in sufferings as signi- 
 fied especially by the words of the Apostle: 
 ' The Lord shall raise him up/ Finally, ' the 
 prayer of faith shall heal the sick man,' i. e., 
 restore him to health, provided it be conducive 
 to his spiritual welfare. 
 
 " Now," he said to the sick woman, " after I 
 have heard your confession, I will anoint your 
 eyes, ears, nostrils, mouth, hands and feet, in a 
 word, all the senses, the organs of our actions, 
 and unfortunately, too often the instruments of 
 our sins. While I am thus engaged, your rela- 
 tives and friends witnessing this solemn cere- 
 mony, should unite their prayers with those of- 
 fered by the Church in your behalf. They 
 should do for you what they would like to have 
 done for themselves were they in a similar cir- 
 cumstance. Everything connected with the ad- 
 ministration of this sacrament reveals man's dig- 
 nity. Under eloquent symbols beams forth the 
 high destiny awaiting us if we die in a Christian 
 manner. What, in fact, are all these prayers, 
 ceremonies, and unctions? Are they not the 
 authorized profession of a truth which is the 
 principle of virtue and the safeguard of society, 
 viz.: that all does not perish with the body? 
 What purpose would they serve if man were 
 only an animal or a machine and did not antici- 
 
EXTREME UNCTION 177 
 
 pate a better life beyond the tomb? No, he is 
 something greater, and by the administration of 
 Extreme Unction the Church reminds him that 
 he is destined to flourish in immortality/' 
 
CHAPTER XX 
 
 INDULGENCES 
 
 "TTTHAT has become of your evangelical 
 yy friend? " asked Zi Pre' one Thursday 
 of Pasqualino. " It is fully two months since 
 he was here. I must have frightened him pretty 
 badly the last time he called." 
 
 " Oh, he intends to return/' replied Pasqual- 
 ino. " I met him the other day on Blue Island 
 Avenue, and he said that he had been ailing for 
 quite a while." 
 
 That same morning he rang the bell about nine 
 o'clock, and was ushered into the priest's study. 
 He looked pale and worn. " I have been under 
 a doctor's care for the last six weeks," he said in 
 explanation of his protracted absence. 
 
 " I have been making a special memento for 
 you every day in my prayers," said the priest, 
 " but I almost despaired of seeing you again. 
 What can I do for you this morning ? " 
 
 " Kindly explain the doctrine of indulgences," 
 ventured the evangelist. 
 
 " Few Catholic doctrines," replied the priest, 
 
 178 
 
INDULGENCES 179 
 
 " have been more savagely attacked, misrepre- 
 sented and misunderstood than the one regard- 
 ing indulgences. The Montanists of the third 
 century and the Novations in the fifth denied to 
 the Church the power of forgiving certain griev- 
 ous crimes committed after the reception of bap- 
 tism. According to them the temporal punish- 
 ment due such faults could not be remitted by an 
 indulgence. In the thirteenth the Waldenses, 
 as well as the followers of Wickleff and Huss 
 impugned the Church's power of granting indul- 
 gences. Martin Luther in the fifteenth century 
 was their greatest foe. He seemed at first 
 wholly absorbed in assailing abuses apparently 
 introduced by John Tetzel rather than the doc- 
 trine itself. Luther's heresy was eagerly em- 
 braced by Zwinglius, Calvin and the other so- 
 called reformers. A few bigoted historians, 
 pandering to the tastes of their prejudiced read- 
 ers, have not scrupled to assert indulgences to 
 be simply license to commit sin, and that such 
 permission was offered for sale in the market 
 places of Germany ! " 
 
 ' Well, what is an indulgence ? " asked the 
 evangelist. 
 
 " It is a remission," replied the priest, " in 
 whole or in part of the temporal punishment due 
 to actual sins after the guilt and eternal punish- 
 ment have been forgiven. Hence the common 
 
180 MEMOIRS OF ZI PRE 9 
 
 distinction between a plenary and partial indul- 
 gence. The guilt and eternal punishment of sin 
 are remitted, not by an indulgence but by 
 the sacrament of penance. An indulgence does 
 not remove the temporal punishment of original 
 sin, as e. g., sickness and death, a strong inclina- 
 tion to evil. Neither does it free one from the 
 temporal punishments involved in the very fact 
 of repentance. It cannot liberate the sinner 
 from the duty of restoring ill-gotten goods, re- 
 tracting calumnies, or of taking the necessary 
 means to avoid future falls. Neither will it free 
 him from loss of health, honor and reputation 
 which are often the temporal punishments accom- 
 panying the transgression of the commandments. 
 " Theologians distinguish between the guilt of 
 sin and its punishment. The guilt or offense is 
 the injury done to God; the punishment is the 
 chastisement which He has a right to inflict. 
 Being infinitely just, He can no more allow a sin 
 to pass unpunished than a good work to go un- 
 rewarded. The punishment is either eternal or 
 temporal according as the sin may be mortal or 
 venial. The guilt of sin and its eternal punish- 
 ment are remitted chiefly through Baptism and 
 Penance. No sin whatever can be forgiven by 
 an indulgence. When the phrase, ' remission of 
 sin/ occurs in the grant of an indulgence, it sim- 
 ply denotes the remission of punishment, not of 
 
INDULGENCES 181 
 
 guilt, just the same as when Scripture says that 
 * Christ bore our sins in His body on the cross/ 
 the evident meaning is that He bore the punish- 
 ment, not the guilt of our sins." 
 
 " What proof is there that our Lord ever gave 
 the Church the power to grant indulgences ? " 
 asked the evangelist. 
 
 " Ample proof," replied the priest. " From 
 the words which He addressed to St. Peter and 
 the other Apostles, ' I give thee the keys of the 
 Kingdom of Heaven. Whatsoever thou shalt 
 bind on earth shall be bound in Heaven; whatso- 
 ever thou shalt loose on earth shall be loosed in 
 Heaven.' By those words our Lord empowered 
 the Church to deliver her children from what- 
 ever obstacle might impede their entrance into 
 Heaven. The Church can certainly remove the 
 greater obstacle, viz. : the guilt of mortal sin and 
 its eternal chastisement through the tribunal of 
 penance, provided the penitents be properly dis- 
 posed. Therefore, she enjoys the faculty of re- 
 moving the lesser obstacle, viz. : the temporal 
 punishment due to their sins. Luther himself 
 before his excommunication declared : ' If any- 
 one deny the truth of the Pope's indulgence, let 
 him be anathema.' " 
 
 " Still," remarked the evangelist, " he was 
 most emphatic against its abuse." 
 
 ' The best of things may be abused," replied 
 
iS2 MEMOIRS OF ZI PRE' 
 
 the priest. " Leo X desired to complete St. 
 Peter's basilica. To this end he proclaimed an 
 indulgence to all who would make some volun- 
 tary contribution to the building fund and fulfill 
 the other conditions, viz. : ' sincere repentance 
 and confession of sins.' To prevent any traffic 
 or sale of indulgences, ' the hand that delivered 
 the indulgence was forbidden under the severest 
 penalties to receive the money/ Now where 
 was the abuse? If Moses rightfully appealed to 
 the Israelites for offerings to adorn the taber- 
 nacle, why should not the Pope be equally justi- 
 fied in soliciting alms for a similar purpose? If 
 our sins, according to Holy Scripture, can be re- 
 deemed by alms to the poor, why not by offerings 
 given in the cause of religion? According to 
 Luther, Tetzel exaggerated the value of indul- 
 gences. But that he offered them for sale was 
 never even hinted at until after his death. The 
 Apostolic nuncio sharply rebuked him for his in- 
 discreet zeal, and the poor man took the repri- 
 mand so much to heart that he retired to a mon- 
 astery where he soon afterwards died without 
 his case ever receiving a judicial investigation.'' 
 " Well, I never cared particularly for indul- 
 gences," observed the evangelist, " because they 
 savor too much of a political pull. They always 
 seemed like giving a bribe to God for a privilege 
 to which we are not entitled. Here in America 
 
INDULGENCES 183 
 
 we believe in equal rights to all and special priv- 
 ileges to none." 
 
 " What is a privilege? " asked the priest. " It 
 is a peculiar favor granted to one individual and 
 not enjoyed by the rest of the community. Re- 
 bates granted by a railroad to one manufacturer 
 and not to his rivals — that is privilege. Now 
 through baptism we all become members of God's 
 Church, and we thereby receive equal rights to 
 her graces and blessings. All have an equal 
 chance to draw abundantly from her spiritual 
 treasury, provided they fulfill the conditions. In 
 the Catholic Church there is no class legislation, 
 no discriminating law benefiting one set of mem- 
 bers and injuring another group. Hence to as- 
 sert that an. indulgence savors of a political pull, 
 is to say what is untrue. If our spiritual sloth, 
 obstinacy and pride prevent us from taking ad- 
 vantage of indulgences in order to lessen our so- 
 journ in Purgatory, then we have only ourselves 
 to blame. Christianity itself is one great indul- 
 gence granted to the guilty human race in con- 
 sideration of the merits of our Lord who was 
 voluntarily immolated on Calvary for the sins 
 of men. Almighty God could demand of us all 
 that we owe Him even to the last farthing. But 
 His infinite mercy permits the innocent to pay 
 for the guilty and that the superabundant merits 
 of His only begotten Son and His saints should 
 
184 MEMOIRS OF ZI PRE 
 
 turn to our advantage and diminish our obliga- 
 tions/' 
 
 M I have heard ministers denounce an indul- 
 gence as the greatest incentive to crime/' said 
 the evangelist. 
 
 "Those poor deluded creatures/' replied the 
 priest, " did not know what they were talking 
 about. Why, to gain an indulgence we must be 
 in the state of grace, i. e., free from all mortal 
 sin. Hence it is the greatest inducement to vir- 
 tue. Not only must we have the intention of 
 gaining the indulgence, but we must fulfill accu- 
 rately the usual conditions of sacramental con- 
 fession, Holy Communion, and the giving of an 
 alms either to the poor or for some praiseworthy 
 purpose. Practical Catholics usually renew 
 every morning the desire of gaining all the in- 
 dulgences attached to the various acts of piety 
 which they may perform during the day. The 
 Our Father, Hail Mary, the acts of faith, hope, 
 love and contrition, the Angelus and Rosary, in 
 fact nearly every prayer or pious ejaculation that 
 we may utter, has a specific indulgence. We 
 should therefore strive to gain as many of them 
 as we can so that we may share in the super- 
 abundant merits of our Lord and His saints. 
 Thus we will shorten the punishment of our sins 
 to be expiated either here or in Purgatory and 
 which could delay our entrance into the eternal 
 kingdom." 
 
CHAPTER XXI 
 
 PURGATORY 
 
 44 1 F ~^\C> you really believe in the existence of 
 
 1 3 Purgatory ? " asked the evangelist. 
 
 " As firmly as I believe in the existence of 
 Heaven or hell, or of Divine Justice," replied 
 the priest. " God will render to everyone ac- 
 cording to his works, and nothing defiled can 
 enter His sacred presence. Would it be right to 
 admit immediately into the heavenly kingdom, 
 along with saints, the sinner who has spent his 
 life in wickedness just because he repented at 
 the moment of death ?" 
 
 " What is your definition of Purgatory ? " de- 
 manded the evangelist. 
 
 " It is a state/' rejoined the priest, " in which 
 the souls of the just who die without having suf- 
 ficiently satisfied Divine Justice for their sins are 
 obliged to expiate them before entering Heaven/' 
 
 " Excuse me/' said the evangelist, " but that 
 differs entirely from the definition usually given. 
 I have heard Catholic preachers call it a prison 
 or furnace. In fact, I have seen pictures of the 
 
 185 
 
186 MEMOIRS OF ZI PRE* 
 
 suffering souls surrounded by flames. Why 
 don't you call it a prison or a furnace? " 
 
 " The Church," said the priest, " has never de- 
 cided whether Purgatory is a particular place in 
 which the souls of the faithful are confined, or 
 in what peculiar manner they are purified, 
 whether by fire or any other way, or what the 
 rigor or extent of their sufferings may be. Cath- 
 olic theologians are therefore free to discuss 
 these questions. The only points defined by the 
 Council of Trent are the following four: (i) 
 After the remission of mortal sin and its eternal 
 punishment in the Sacrament of Penance, there 
 still remains a temporal punishment to expiate. 
 (2) When that expiation is not made during the 
 present life it must be endured hereafter in Pur- 
 gatory. (3) The prayers and good works of the 
 living can be useful to the dead. (4) The Sac- 
 rifice of the Mass is propitiatory, and therefore 
 has the effect of satisfying Divine Justice for the 
 temporal punishment due to sins of both living 
 and dead." 
 
 " And you claim that this doctrine is based 
 upon the Bible?" asked the evangelist. 
 
 " Yes," replied the priest, " and before citing 
 Scriptural proofs, try once for all to understand 
 clearly that for us Catholics the unwritten word 
 of God proposed for our belief by the Church 
 through tradition, has exactly the same weight 
 
PURGATORY 187 
 
 and authority as the written word of God con- 
 tained in the Bible and which she commands us 
 to believe. ' Faith cometh by hearing,' says St. 
 Paul. ' Stand fast and hold the traditions which 
 you have learnt, whether by word or by our epis- 
 tle/ (Thess. ii.) Tradition, therefore, didn't 
 lose its authority because a part of it was com- 
 mitted to writing, any more than the natural law 
 became void when the Decalogue was written 
 on two tablets of stone. There are any number 
 of texts in the Old Testament insinuating the ex- 
 istence of an intermediate state, as e. g., David, 
 who makes those beyond the tomb to exclaim: 
 ' We have passed through fire and water, and 
 Thou hast brought us out into a refreshment.' 
 * Lay out thy bread and thy wine upon the 
 burial of a just man,' which means : feed the 
 poor on the tomb of the just in order that 
 they may pray for him. (Tobias iv.) The 
 custom of distributing bread among the poor 
 on the occasion of a funeral still prevails 
 in many Catholic countries even to this day, 
 notably in Belgium. In Ecclesiasticus (38) 
 it is said : ' When the dead is at rest, let his re- 
 membrance rest, and comfort him in the depart- 
 ing of his spirit.' How could the dead be com- 
 forted unless by the help which the living give 
 through their prayers? In Mach. II xii, we read 
 that Judas Machabeus 'sent twelve thousand 
 
188 MEMOIRS OF ZI PRE' 
 
 drachms of silver to Jerusalem for sacrifice to 
 be offered for the sins of the dead, thinking well 
 and religiously concerning the resurrection. . . . 
 It is therefore a holy and wholesome thought to 
 pray for the dead, that they may be loosed from 
 their sins.' This passage proved too strong for 
 the so-called reformers, who simply rejected both 
 books of Machabees as apocryphal, although they 
 have precisely the same authority as any other 
 part of the Bible. 
 
 " It does more harm than good to adduce an 
 array of dubious texts in confirmation of a doc- 
 trine clearly established from other undoubted 
 sources. Whatever our separated brethren may 
 think of the canonicity of Machabees, they 
 must admit that they indicate the common prac- 
 tice of praying and offering sacrifice for the de- 
 parted—a custom which prevailed among the 
 Jews up to the advent of our Lord. If belief in 
 Purgatory were an invention of Satan, as Calvin 
 claimed, our Lord would have certainly warned 
 the Jews against it. 
 
 " In Matt, xii our Lord says : ' Whoso- 
 ever shall speak a word against the Son of Man 
 it shall be forgiven him; but he that shall speak 
 against the Holy Ghost, it shall not be forgiven 
 him, neither in this world nor in the world to 
 come/ 
 
 " According to St. Augustine these words im- 
 
PURGATORY 189 
 
 ply the possibility of the remission of sin in the 
 life to come; and consequently the existence of 
 a middle state. For, no man in his senses would 
 say ' I shall not marry in this world nor in the 
 world to come/ because the latter is absurd and 
 impossible." 
 
 " In not a single text quoted did I hear the 
 word Purgatory mentioned," said the evangel- 
 ist. " If the Bible doesn't contain the word, 
 much less does it convey the meaning which the 
 word implies." 
 
 " It is not a question of the name," said the 
 priest, "but of the truth. To express that 
 truth we can use any term we please. Call it a 
 place of expiation, an intermediate state, Purga- 
 tory or anything you like, if you admit the truth 
 of its existence, we cannot have any argument 
 about its name." 
 
 " Very true," acknowledged the evangelist, " if 
 we admit a fact we cannot dispute about mere 
 words. But just the same, Catholics believe a 
 thing not contained in the Bible, or at least be- 
 lieve a truth expressed in words which the Bi- 
 ble does not contain." 
 
 " Catholics," retorted the priest, " believe in a 
 state of purgation beyond the grave. If to ex- 
 press the truth we employ words not contained 
 in the Bible, they express at least the truth itself 
 which the Bible contains. Do you really wish to 
 
190 MEMOIRS OF ZI PRE' 
 
 assert that all biblical truths must be conveyed 
 by words literally contained in the' Bible?" 
 
 " Certainly," rejoined the evangelist, " other- 
 wise what you assert is founded not on the word 
 of God, but on the word of man." 
 
 " You believe in the most Holy Trinity, Bap- 
 tism, the Apostles' Creed, and the sanctification 
 of Sunday, don't you ? " asked the priest. 
 
 " Without the slightest difficulty," rejoined 
 the evangelist. " Of course, they are not liter- 
 ally expressed in the Bible, but only as to their 
 sense. If we adhere to the mere letter, accord- 
 ing to the Apostle, we have death, while the 
 spiritual sense gives life. The words Trinity, 
 Baptism, Creed and Sunday are used to desig- 
 nate definite, clear things which are conformable 
 to reason, but the word Purgatory seems to be 
 contrary to common sense." 
 
 " How does it offend common sense ? " asked 
 the priest. 
 
 " Well, it seems ridiculous to believe that a 
 sin can only be half pardoned," rejoined the 
 evangelist. " If God forgives a man his sins, he 
 enters the state of grace and that is the end of 
 it. God's work cannot be imperfect." 
 
 " True," granted the priest, " but in the work 
 of man there is usually a great amount of im- 
 perfection. If the greatest sinner before enter- 
 
PURGATORY igi 
 
 ing eternity could make an act of perfect sor- 
 row, there is no reason why he should not be ad- 
 mitted immediately into Heaven. But nothing 
 defiled can enter Heaven. Who dies so immac- 
 ulately pure as to deserve immediate admission 
 into God's presence? An intermediate state of 
 purification called Purgatory is therefore most 
 conformable to the dictates of common sense." 
 
 " Oh, the idea of Purgatory doesn't seem un- 
 reasonable," vowed the evangelist, " only tell us 
 where it is — what kind of pains does a soul suf- 
 fer there? I have heard and read such extrav- 
 agant notions on that score." 
 
 " I have already told you," said the priest, 
 " that the Church has never defined the loca- 
 tion of Purgatory, nor the exact nature of its 
 tortures. She has simply declared the existence 
 of such a state. You certainly believe in 
 Heaven and hell, although nobody has presumed 
 as yet to indicate their location. Preachers may 
 employ figures of speech, and compare Purga- 
 tory to a lake of fire, a pit, prison, etc. They 
 may use various forms of sickness to denote its 
 pains. The early Fathers did likewise and based 
 their comparisons upon scriptural texts." 
 
 " Is it not an article of faith that the souls in 
 Purgatory suffer the pains of fire ? " exclaimed 
 the evangelist. 
 
192 MEMOIRS OF ZI PRE 
 
 " The general sentiment of theologians is that 
 they do, and this opinion is based upon the words 
 of St. Paul (I Cor. iii) ' the fire shall try every 
 man's work, of what sort it is ... he himself 
 shall be saved, yet so as by fire.' But it has never 
 been defined by the Church." 
 
 " Why, then/' insisted the evangelist, " does 
 Catholic liturgy designate it as tartarus, hell, the 
 mouth of the lion, eternal death, etc. ? " 
 
 " If you consult the works of Pagan and 
 Christian authors," said the priest, " you will 
 find that those words signify a place of torment 
 and privation. When the Church implores 
 God's mercy in favor of departed souls lest 
 ' they fall into obscurity, lest tartarus absorb 
 them, or that they may be rescued from the jaws 
 of the lion/ she supplicates Him to liberate 
 them from the pains of Purgatory." 
 
 " That is all very plausible," said the evangel- 
 ist, " but when at the absolution on the occasion 
 of a funeral you pray : ' Free, O Lord, those 
 souls from eternal death/ etc., it sounds as if 
 you wanted God to liberate the reprobates from 
 hell, out of which there is no redemption." 
 
 " In no part of the burial service will you find 
 the words : ' Free, O God, those souls from eter- 
 nal death/ But you will discover the words : 
 ' Deliver ME, O Lord, from eternal death/ etc. 
 That is a petition, not for the dead, but for the 
 
PURGATORY 193 
 
 living. Formerly those offertories and anthems 
 were recited as prayers for the dying when the 
 soul was in its last agony just before entering 
 eternity/' 
 
CHAPTER XXII 
 
 IMMACULATE CONCEPTION 
 
 ** A FEW nights ago in the Daily News/' 
 
 Ji\, sa id the evangelist, " I ran across an 
 article of yours protesting against Marion Har- 
 land's use of the term ' peasant wife ' to desig- 
 nate the Blessed Virgin. The distinctions 
 drawn by you seemed rather far-fetched." 
 
 " Oh, they could not seem so to any lover of 
 historical accuracy/' rejoined the priest. " The 
 parents of the Blessed Virgin Mary, Joachim 
 and Anne, being descendants of a royal and 
 sacerdotal race, belonged to the highest nobility 
 of Israel." 
 
 " In this age of democracy the title of noble 
 doesn't count for much," commented the evan- 
 gelist. 
 
 " It certainly does not," acknowledged the 
 priest. " Of course, personal virtue rather than 
 distinction of birth really ennobles the individual. 
 But just the same the Son of God, though born in 
 poverty, did not disdain the human advantages 
 of nobility. In fact, it was necessary for Him 
 
 194 
 
IMMACULATE CONCEPTION 195 
 
 in order that the Messianic prophecies might be 
 fulfilled. To prove His claim as the promised 
 Redeemer He should, according to the patriarchs 
 and prophets, descend from the royal house of 
 David. He should likewise be of sacerdotal or- 
 igin, for of Him it was said : ' Thou art a priest 
 forever according to the order of Melchisedech/ 
 The blood of kings and of patriarchs acquired a 
 special dignity in the person of the Blessed Vir- 
 gin, for from her the Son of God was to assume 
 human nature. If for no other reason than for 
 the sake of historical truth, the term ' peasant 
 wife ' is most inappropriate when applied to the 
 Blessed Virgin Mary, for she was not of peas- 
 ant, but of noble origin." 
 
 " What do you understand by her immaculate 
 conception ? " asked the evangelist. 
 
 " For us Catholics/' replied the priest, " it is 
 an article of faith that in the first instant of her 
 conception, by a singular privilege and grace of 
 God in virtue of the merits of Jesus Christ, she 
 was preserved exempt from all stain of original 
 sin." 
 
 ' That practically puts her on an equality with 
 the Son of God," said the evangelist. 
 
 " Nothing of the kind," rejoined the priest. 
 " There is an essential difference between the 
 immaculate conception of the Incarnate Word, 
 and that of His Blessed Mother. Our Savior 
 
ig6 MEMOIRS OF ZI PRE 
 
 was exempt not only from all sin, but free, more- 
 over, from all debt or liability to contract it. 
 Since the Blessed Virgin originated in the same 
 manner as other mortals, she was the descendant 
 of a fallen race. Unlike our Savior, she incurred 
 the debt or liability to contract original sin. In 
 the ordinary course of events she would have 
 been conceived in sin the same as the rest of us, 
 were it not for the intervention of God's mercy. 
 Divine mercy intervened. On account of Him 
 whose mother she was destined to become, and 
 by virtue of His merits foreseen, she was pre- 
 served from the original taint. For this reason 
 Pius IX declared her Immaculate Conception to 
 be, not an inherent right, but ' a singular grace 
 and privilege of God/ " 
 
 " St. Paul declares that * all men have sinned 
 in Adam,' " said the evangelist. 
 
 " By that declaration,*' retorted the priest, 
 '• the Apostle simply wished to emphasize the 
 need which all men have of redemption by 
 
 Christ." 
 
 " But doesn't her privilege derogate from the 
 universal redemption ? " insisted the evangelist. 
 
 " Not in the slightest degree," replied the 
 priest. * She needed a Redeemer as well as we. 
 She was therefore redeemed, but in a manner 
 more sublime than the rest of men. Redemp- 
 tion may be imparted in a two-fold way: the 
 
IMMACULATE CONCEPTION 197 
 
 one, by which the fallen are lifted up, and thus 
 we were redeemed at the Baptismal font: the 
 other, by which one is prevented from falling, 
 and thus the Blessed Virgin was saved in the 
 first instant of her conception. This extraor- 
 dinary privilege is what we should naturally ex- 
 pect when we consider the exalted part she took 
 in the mystery of the Incarnation. Theologians 
 distinguish between active or generative concep- 
 tion by the parents causing the body to be or- 
 ganized and prepared for receiving a rational 
 soul, and passive conception. The soul is not 
 generated by the parents, but created and infused 
 by God into the body. Passive conception is 
 the moment of the soul's infusion, viz. : when it 
 first animates the body. In this latter sense alone 
 do we assert the Blessed Virgin's exemption 
 from original sin in the first instant of her con- 
 ception. Why? Because only when the soul 
 first animates the body can there be question of 
 sinful stain or preservation therefrom. The 
 soul and not the body is primarily capable of 
 receiving the gift of grace or the stain of original 
 sin." 
 
 " That is rather a subtle distinction you make 
 between active and passive conception," observed 
 the evangelist. " I really don't see any reason 
 for it." 
 
 " It is a distinction," replied the priest, " with- 
 
198 MEMOIRS OF ZI PRE' 
 
 out which it would be impossible to explain 
 many passages of the Fathers and ancient writ- 
 ers who apparently deny the Immaculate Con- 
 ception. When St. Augustine, for example, de- 
 clares the flesh of Mary to be ' flesh of sin/ he 
 alludes solely to her active conception, which 
 implies a certain parental concupiscence. It 
 may therefore be called sin in the same sense 
 that concupiscence, though natural and innocent, 
 is designated as sin by the Apostle." 
 
 " What proof have you from the Bible in sup- 
 port of the Immaculate Conception ? " asked the 
 evangelist. 
 
 " No direct Biblical proof whatever," ac- 
 knowledged the priest. " It is, however, a doc- 
 trine strongly insinuated in Holy Scripture, 
 and at the same time re-echoes the universal 
 belief of the faithful from the earliest days of 
 Christianity." 
 
 " Well," mused the evangelist, " I have read 
 the Bible from Genesis to Apocalypse, and I 
 do not recall a single text even remotely indi- 
 cating the doctrine of the Immaculate Concep- 
 tion." 
 
 " Oh, my good man," said the priest, " you 
 must have read it with your eyes closed. The 
 very first Scriptural promise of Redemption in- 
 timates also the Mother of the Redeemer, God 
 said to the serpent ..." I will put enmities be- 
 
IMMACULATE CONCEPTION 199 
 
 tween thee and the woman, and thy seed and her 
 seed: she shall crush thy head/ The serpent is 
 a synonym for the devil. He is frequently des- 
 ignated by the name of serpent in the Bible. 
 All sinners are seed of the devil. They are his 
 children, not by carnal, but by spiritual genera- 
 tion. ' You are of your father, the devil/ said 
 our Lord to the incredulous Jews. The seed of 
 the woman can refer to none else but Jesus 
 Christ." 
 
 " It might refer to all the just," suggested the 
 evangelist. 
 
 " No," rejoined the priest, " because it is pre- 
 dicted that the seed of the woman shall crush 
 the serpent's head, i. e., shall repress his power 
 and rescue man from his grasp. This predic- 
 tion was verified in Christ, who came to over- 
 throw the dominion of Satan and redeem man- 
 kind. Accordingly, St. Paul (Gal. iv) declared 
 that ' God sent His Son made of woman/ viz. : 
 the Blessed Virgin. She is the woman or 
 mother of the seed mentioned. If she be not, 
 then to which woman is reference made? Cer- 
 tainly not to Eve. Nowhere is Christ mentioned 
 as the seed of Eve. He is universally indicated 
 as the son of the Virgin Mary. ' Behold a vir- 
 gin shall conceive and bring forth a son/ By 
 yielding to the tempter Eve became his partisan. 
 The fact of her restoration to the state of grace 
 
200 MEMOIRS OF ZI PRE 
 
 does not warrant the declaration of a special 
 enmity between her and the serpent. Adam also 
 repented of his fault. Why was it not rather 
 asserted: I will put enmities between thee and 
 man? 
 
 " Now, enmity implies horror and detestation. 
 Between enemies there exists no friendly inter- 
 course. Our friendship with the devil is en- 
 gendered through sin. Complete enmity be- 
 tween us and him would imply a complete ab- 
 sence of sin on our part. The enmity which the 
 woman and her seed have in common against 
 the serpent refers principally to original sin. 
 Only original sin existed when that enmity was 
 predicted. Moreover, it was chiefly on account 
 of original sin that Christ would come to crush 
 the serpent's head and redeem the whole human 
 race corrupted through its influence." 
 
 " Well, I don't see/' said the evangelist, 
 "what that has to do with the doctrine you are 
 trying to prove." 
 
 "Just a little patience, my dear friend/' re- 
 joined the priest. " Having made this prelim- 
 inary analysis of the text, we can deduce the 
 following argument: It is declared in Genesis 
 that Mary and her offspring, Jesus Christ, en- 
 tertain one and the same enmity against the ser- 
 pent on account of original sin. Since the en- 
 mity of our Savior in this respect is absolute and 
 
IMMACULATE CONCEPTION 201 
 
 perpetual, the same must be asserted of the en- 
 mity entertained by His Blessed Mother. Her 
 enmity, however, would not be absolute and per- 
 petual, had she been tainted by original sin in 
 the first instant of her conception." 
 
 " You seem to ignore the philological discus- 
 sion about the pronoun in the text," said the 
 evangelist. " Are you not aware that while your 
 Catholic Bible has translated the text, € She shall 
 crush thy head/ the Hebrew rendition is : i It 
 shall crush thy head ' ? " 
 
 " That does not invalidate the argument," re- 
 joined the priest. " It matters little whether 
 you translate the pronoun ' he/ ' she ' or ' it/ If 
 we read it as in the Latin Vulgate, ' She shall 
 crush thy head/ then it means that the woman, 
 in virtue of her seed Jesus Christ, shall conquer 
 the serpent. If we accept the Hebrew version 
 — ' he ' or ' it/ then it signifies that Christ and 
 the woman will completely triumph over the 
 demon. In either case their mutual enmity 
 against him is not mitigated." 
 
 ;( Some of your own theologians," remarked 
 the evangelist, " consider the argument drawn 
 from reason in support of this doctrine as rather 
 doubtful and dangerous." 
 
 " What one is that ? " asked the priest. 
 
 " Why, the argument developed by Duns Sco- 
 tus, viz.: Decirit, potuit, ergo fecit. It was be- 
 
202 MEMOIRS OF ZI PRE' 
 
 coming that the Mother of the Redeemer should 
 be immaculate from the first moment of her con- 
 ception ; God could give her this privilege, there- 
 fore He gave it to her." 
 
 " Yes/' admitted the priest, " when presented 
 in that crude way, it doesn't appear very strong. 
 It doesn't, however, seem credible that while 
 Eve, the mother of the fratricide, Cain, was cre- 
 ated immaculate, the mother of Jesus Christ 
 would be conceived in sin. Whence was de- 
 rived the adorable blood of our Savior shed on 
 Calvary? It came from the blood of His Vir- 
 gin Mother. Can we for a moment suppose 
 that the price of our redemption originally 
 sprang from a source contaminated by the foul 
 disease of sin? No, we cannot, for that would 
 have been unworthy of God, who is infinite pur- 
 ity. Yet such would have been the case, had 
 the Blessed Virgin been stained by original sin 
 in the first instant of her conception." 
 
 " If the faithful from the earliest days of 
 Christianity firmly believed in the Immaculate 
 Conception/' said the evangelist, " isn't it strange 
 that the Fathers never expressly mentioned this 
 fact, or commemorated it by a solemn feast as 
 at the present day ? " 
 
 " I do not find it strange," replied the priest. 
 " The feast of the Holy Trinity was not intro- 
 duced into the Church until the fifth century. 
 
IMMACULATE CONCEPTION 203 
 
 Yet who would dare accuse the primitive Chris- 
 tians of disbelief in the Triune God? As well 
 might Chicagoans be accused of disbelieving the 
 discovery of America by Columbus until the 
 year A. D. 1893, the time of the Columbian Ex- 
 position. For they never solemnly commemo- 
 rated the event until then. As the doctrine of 
 original sin was not expressly declared in the 
 Church's infancy, we cannot expect the Fathers 
 to supply us with special tracts on the Immacu- 
 late Conception. It is, however, implicitly as- 
 serted by them. They frequently urge a com- 
 parison between the Blessed Virgin and Eve, 
 just as they contrast Jesus Christ with Adam. 
 As they regard our Lord as the second Adam, 
 so they look upon His Blessed Mother as the 
 second Eve. Eve surrendered to the angel of 
 darkness: Mary yielded to the angel of light. 
 Eve, through her disobedience, was the cause of 
 our death ; Mary, through her obedience, was in- 
 strumental in securing our spiritual life. Ac- 
 cording to St. Irenaeus, * the knot of Eve's diso- 
 bedience was loosed by Mary's obedience.' If 
 her obedience untied the knot of original disobe- 
 dience, we must infer that she was never bound 
 by it even in the first moment of her conception. 
 " Her immunity from all kind of sin is at least 
 strongly implied if not expressly declared in 
 every Oriental liturgy of schismatic, as well as 
 
204 MEMOIRS OF ZI PRE' 
 
 orthodox Christians. Even the Koran, that 
 Mohommedan plagiarism of the Bible, asserts 
 that Mary, the Mother of Jesus, was always pro- 
 tected from all attacks of Satan (Chap. iii). 
 Devotion to her should be a characteristic of 
 every Christian. She was conceived without 
 sin; we, on the contrary, were born with its 
 stain on our souls. Although regenerated in 
 Baptism, we have repeatedly fallen. You ought 
 to have fervent recourse to her who is i the ref- 
 uge of sinners/ and frequently invoke her inter- 
 cession through that familiar prayer which you 
 certainly must have learned in your childhood: 
 ' Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sin- 
 ners, now and at the hour of our death. 
 Amen.' " 
 
CHAPTER XXIII 
 
 THE ROSARY 
 
 *<TTT has always seemed to me," said the 
 JL evangelist to Zi Pre' one Thursday 
 morning, " that the multiplicity of Catholic de- 
 votions belittle man and degrade him. They 
 make him superstitious, morbid and melan- 
 choly." 
 
 " All the exercises of Catholic piety/' re- 
 sponded the priest, " can be reduced to prayer, 
 fasting and almsgiving. Doesn't the Bible rec- 
 ommend these as most useful and salutary ? " 
 
 " Oh, I had chiefly in mind those women who 
 spend most of their time in church," said the 
 evangelist. " About all they can do is to tell 
 their beads." 
 
 " Well," rejoined the priest, €t if they can do 
 that intelligently without neglecting their house- 
 hold duties, why should they be molested ? " 
 
 " But," insisted the evangelist, " I have always 
 regarded beads as a relic of paganism. You will 
 find them in use among Mohammedans, Bud- 
 dhists and Brahmins." 
 
 205 
 
206 MEMOIRS OF ZI PRE' 
 
 " I admit/' acknowledged the priest, " that it 
 is not an exclusively Christian practice to use 
 beads as a help to memory in the recitation of 
 prayers, but that proves nothing, unless that hu- 
 man nature is pretty much the same all over the 
 globe. In the first ages of the Church beads 
 were employed by hermits in the wilderness and 
 by monks in the cloister. The word bead is of 
 Christian origin and derived from the German 
 word beten — to pray, thus proving by its very 
 derivation the use to which it was first ap- 
 plied." 
 
 " Where did Catholics get the term ' Ros- 
 ary ' ? " asked the evangelist. 
 
 " From the Latin word ' rosarium/ meaning a 
 rosebed," replied the priest. " The German 
 equivalent is Rosenkranz, or wreath of roses 
 which the faithful offer the Queen of Heaven. 
 Catholics very likely took it from the title, * Mys- 
 tical Rose/ by which the Church salutes the 
 Mother of God. A special festival called the 
 Solemnity of the Most Holy Rosary of the 
 B. Virgin is annually celebrated on the first Sun- 
 day in October. Its object is to commemorate 
 the victory of the Christians over the Turks in 
 the battle of Lepanto. For the rosary in its pres- 
 ent form we are indebted to St. Dominic, 
 founder of the Dominicans or Preaching Friars, 
 a religious order providentially organized in the 
 
THE ROSARY 207 
 
 thirteenth century to oppose the heresy of the 
 Albigenses, who devastated the Church in the 
 southeast of France. Like the Manicheans, 
 they taught that the visible world was made by 
 the devil. They attacked the sacraments and 
 ceremonies of the Church, as well as her author- 
 ity and other prerogatives. Although privately 
 addicted to shameful disorders, they made a 
 great display of austerity. This heresy was in- 
 troduced from the East by an old woman. She 
 appeared suddenly and had a great many follow- 
 ers. They were encouraged by certain barons 
 who had confiscated Church property and whom 
 councils were condemning under pain of excom- 
 munication to restore their ill-gotten goods. 
 Through the devotion of the Rosary and the ex- 
 planation of its mysteries St. Dominic succeeded 
 in bringing back a multitude of stray sheep to 
 the one true fold." 
 
 " Well," remarked the evangelist, a I have al- 
 ways regarded it as a devotion suitable for old 
 women unable to read." 
 
 " The sovereign Pontiff, Bishops and priests 
 are certainly able to read," retorted the priest. 
 " And I am sure that they never let a day pass 
 without reciting at least a third part of the 
 Rosary. The simplicity of the devotion renders 
 it suitable for both learned and ignorant. It is 
 naturally adapted for recitation in common, 
 
208 MEMOIRS OF ZI PRE 9 
 
 whether publicly in the church, or privately in 
 the home circle. You know how acceptable 
 prayer in common is to God, for He declared: 
 ' Where two or more are gathered together in 
 my name, behold I am in the midst of them.' " 
 
 " But," insisted the evangelist, " did not our 
 Lord say : ' When ye pray, use not vain repeti- 
 tions as the heathens do, for they think they 
 shall be heard by their much speaking.' Why 
 do you recite the ' Hail Mary ' so often ? Isn't 
 that a vain repetition ? " 
 
 " No," rejoined the priest, " not any more 
 than the chant of the angels recorded in the gos- 
 pel : ' Holy, holy, holy, Lord God of hosts.' The 
 custom of repeating the same form of prayer is 
 most natural to man, especially when he is under 
 the influence of strong emotion. The ancient 
 Jews were familiar with it, as may be learned 
 from various passages of the Psalms, but more 
 particularly from the 135th Psalm, in which the 
 same words : ' for His mercy endureth forever/ 
 are repeated twenty-seven times. Influenced no 
 less by the custom of the Jews than by the ex- 
 ample of our Divine Redeemer, who during His 
 agony in the Garden of Gethsemane, thrice re- 
 peated the self-same word, the Christians early 
 adopted the form of repetition in their private as 
 well as public devotions. The oft-repeated Hail 
 Marys are like so many drops of heavenly rain 
 
THE ROSARY 209 
 
 which, constantly falling, produce an impression 
 upon even the most hardened sinner. 
 
 " Did the rosary suggest no thought for medi- 
 tation, then it might be a vain repetition. But 
 such is not the case, for its joyful, sorrowful 
 and glorious mysteries comprise the entire plan 
 of man's redemption. Hence, it has been justly 
 styled the ' Breviary of the Laity.' What more 
 need we know regarding salvation than those 
 mysteries acquainting us of the Redeemer's ad- 
 vent, that for us He died upon the cross ; that by 
 the merits of His death we cannot fail to be 
 saved, unless we refuse to co-operate with di- 
 vine grace; that if we wish to reign hereafter 
 with Christ in glory, we must take up our cross 
 and patiently follow Him along the thorny path 
 to Calvary? How consoling to the Christian is 
 the mystery of our Lord's resurrection, the de- 
 scent of the Holy Ghost upon the Apostles, His 
 divine mission to guide them and their succes- 
 sors in the ways of holiness and truth all days 
 unto the consummation of the world? What 
 prayers more beautiful than those composing 
 the rosary : the Our Father, uttered by our Lord 
 Himself when the Apostles said to Him : ' Lord, 
 teach us to pray ' ; the Hail Mary, made up of 
 words pronounced by the Archangel Gabriel, St. 
 Elizabeth and the Church? If the recitation of 
 the rosary becomes for some a vain, mechanical 
 
2io MEMOIRS OF ZI PRE' 
 
 repetition, the fault lies, not in the devotion it- 
 self, but in their own voluntary distractions/' 
 
 " Father/' asked Pasqualino, who had been 
 following the conversation intently, " does a 
 pair of beads lose the indulgence if loaned to 
 another ? " 
 
 " Beads," replied the priest, " are indulgenced 
 for one person only. If lent or given to an- 
 other with the intention of enabling him to gain 
 the indulgence, they cease to be indulgenced as 
 well for the lender as for the receiver. Of 
 course, if someone took your beads without your 
 knowledge or consent, they would not lose the 
 indulgences attached to them. None is permit- 
 ted to sell indulgenced rosaries, even though he 
 charges no more than the price demanded before 
 they were blessed. Such sale would cause them 
 to lose the indulgence. To ask a higher price 
 on account of the indulgence would be simony." 
 
 " Mother makes us children say the rosary ev- 
 ery night before we go to bed," said Tasqualino, 
 "and I often wanted to ask you what indul- 
 gences are attached to its recitation." 
 
 u Both plenary and partial indulgences," re- 
 plied the priest, " are granted to those who re- 
 cite the entire rosary, or even five decades and 
 who meditate briefly upon each of the mysteries. 
 For those unable to meditate it will be enough to 
 say the rosary devoutly. When the faithful 
 
THE ROSARY 211 
 
 unite to recite the rosary, either at home or in 
 the church, it suffices if one hold the indulgenced 
 beads. The others can gain the indulgences, 
 provided that ' having rid their minds of all dis- 
 tracting cares they apply themselves to pray 
 along with the person holding the beads, and 
 form the intention of gaining the indulgence.' " 
 
CHAPTER XXIV 
 
 FASTING AND ABSTINENCE 
 
 "T CANNOT see what advantage Catholics 
 JL derive from fasting and abstaining/' 
 said the evangelist. " Surely the miseries of life 
 are great enough without our trying to augment 
 them. What possible homage can be rendered 
 to God by an empty stomach and plastering the 
 forehead with ashes? I am a firm believer in 
 three square meals a day during Lent, as well 
 as at any other time.' 5 
 
 " Did it ever occur to you/' asked the priest, 
 " why all nations of the earth, savage as well as 
 civilized, have adopted fasting as a means of 
 placating the Deity and of obtaining the graces 
 they might need for either soul or body? How 
 do you explain this universal sentiment of man- 
 kind unless it be founded in our very nature? 
 Anyone endowed with even a smattering of bib- 
 lical knowledge must be aware that the proph- 
 ets in the name of God recommended fasting, 
 sack-cloth and ashes to the people. In the Old 
 Law ashes were employed as a symbol of pen- 
 
 212 
 
FASTING AND ABSTINENCE 213 
 
 ance and mortification. When Jonas announced 
 to the Ninivites the destruction of their city, 
 they proclaimed a general fast, and put on sack- 
 cloth and ashes. ' I did eat ashes like bread/ 
 says the royal prophet, 'and mingled my drink 
 with weeping.' Ashes were used as a symbol of 
 penance not only by David, but also by his 
 daughter Thamar, by the patient Job, and the 
 valiant Judith who placed them upon her head 
 and implored God to strengthen her arm that 
 she might overcome the tyrant Holofernes. In 
 announcing the chastisements that were about to 
 fall upon the Israelites, Jeremiah exclaimed: 
 ' Sprinkle yourselves with ashes, ye leaders of 
 the people, for the days of your slaughter and dis- 
 persion are accomplished, and you shall fall like 
 precious vessels.' " 
 
 " Do you think," asked the evangelist, " that 
 the Catholic ceremony of blessing and distribu- 
 ting ashes at the beginning of Lent was intro- 
 duced in imitation of a similar custom in vogue 
 among the ancient Jews ? " 
 
 "There can be no doubt about it," rejoined 
 the priest. " In early days public sinners who 
 wished to atone for the scandal given came bare- 
 footed to the church and implored forgiveness 
 before the entire congregation. Kings and 
 princes formed no exception. The penance vol- 
 untarily performed by Henry IV for three days 
 
214 MEMOIRS OF ZI PRE* 
 
 before the castle gate of Canossa in order to lift 
 from his head the ban of excommunication is 
 historic. The bishop invested these public peni- 
 tents with mourning garments. He placed ashes 
 upon their heads and sprinkled them with holy 
 water. After the recitation of the seven peniten- 
 tial psalms and litany of the saints, he led them 
 out to the door of the church and said : ' behold, 
 you are to-day rejected from the threshold of 
 God's house because of your iniquities, just as 
 Adam was expelled from Paradise on account of 
 his transgressions.' He exhorted them not to de- 
 spair of God's mercy, but by fasting, prayer, 
 almsgiving, pilgrimages and other good works, 
 they should render themselves worthy of being 
 readmitted into the Church on Holy Thursday. 
 These unfortunate sinners immediately under- 
 took the most rigorous works of mortification 
 so that they might be allowed to approach again 
 the sacraments. Public penanc'es have become 
 obsolete, but the custom of putting ashes on the 
 foreheads of the faithful at the beginning of 
 Lent is still in vogue. ' Unless you do penance,' 
 says the Lord, ' you shall all likewise perish.' " 
 
 " But what advantage is derived from fast- 
 ing ? " demanded the evangelist. " Man should 
 follow the dictates of nature. If he feels hun- 
 gry he ought to eat." 
 
 " If a man put no restraint on the dictates of 
 
FASTING AND ABSTINENCE 215 
 
 his corrupt, fallen nature/' replied the priest, 
 " he would speedily land in the penitentiary. As 
 moderation and sobriety are the best supports of 
 health, so fasting and abstinence are the surest 
 means of regaining it. I never yet attended a 
 sick call where the doctor did not command the 
 patient to fast and abstain. The abstinence pre- 
 scribed by the physician is usually much severer 
 than that commanded by the Church. Those af- 
 flicted with pneumonia, typhoid or inflammation 
 of the digestive organs must abstain from all 
 solid food and confine themselves to a liquid diet. 
 A noted physician declared that when he began 
 practice, he had a dozen remedies for nearly 
 every disease, but after a few years' experience 
 he realized that there was only about one remedy 
 for every dozen ailments. Fasting is really one 
 of the greatest specifics known to medical sci- 
 ence. It is the best remedy for a multitude of 
 ailments, the surest safeguard of health, the 
 simplest and easiest means of prolonging life. 
 More people die of gluttony than of starvation. 
 Millions live almost entirely on a vegetable diet. 
 We must not imagine that because animal food 
 is more stimulating it is therefore more nutri- 
 tious. It really seems to contain nothing but 
 what may be found at a much lower price and in 
 a much purer state in vegetable productions. A 
 reference to tables of chemical analysis will 
 
216 MEMOIRS OF ZI PRE' 
 
 clearly demonstrate this. Our wants in regard 
 to food are very few, if we eliminate those arti- 
 ficial wants which self-indulgence has created. 
 It is said that brown bread alone with an occa- 
 sional drink of good water suffices to maintain 
 the body in health and vigor." 
 
 " You must regard Lent as a sort of social 
 blessing/' commented the evangelist with a 
 smile. 
 
 " It certainly is from a hygienic standpoint," 
 replied the priest, " and especially if we con- 
 sider the time in which it comes, viz. : the spring. 
 Spring is the most favorable season to repair 
 the disorders of health. In the spring every- 
 thing that vegetates undergoes a kind of fermen- 
 tation. Fresh herbs supply more wholesome 
 juices in the spring than at any other period; 
 and the best remedy for, or chief preservative 
 against most diseases is undoubtedly abstinence 
 and a vegetable diet. Who can enumerate the 
 variety of vegetable compounds advertised with 
 their list of incredible cures and testimonials ? " 
 
 " Oh, there may be some temporal advantages 
 in fasting," acknowledged the evangelist, " but 
 what spiritual benefit do we derive from it? 
 Our Lord Himself declared : ' not that which 
 goeth into the mouth defileth man; but what 
 cometh out of the mouth, this defileth a man 
 (Matt, xv, ii.) 
 
 > 3> 
 
FASTING AND ABSTINENCE 217 
 
 " These words/' replied the priest, " were ut- 
 tered by our Lord to refute the teaching of the 
 Pharisees, who maintained that by partaking of 
 food with unwashed hands, defilement was im- 
 parted to the food, and this food defiled the soul, 
 just as if the spiritual soul could be contami- 
 nated by material food or drink! To disabuse 
 their minds of this stupid prejudice our Lord 
 teaches them that no food of itself defiles a man, 
 but that defilement proceeds from the sinful af- 
 fections and desires of the heart. He by no 
 means intended to assert the absence of sin, if 
 we partake of food contrary to God's prohibi- 
 tion, as did our first parents; or, as the Jews 
 would, by eating food forbidden them ; or, the 
 primitive Christians, had they violated the Apos- 
 tolic injunction commanding them to abstain 
 from things strangled, and from blood; or 
 Christians, nowadays, if they violate the laws of 
 fasting and abstinence enjoined by the Church 
 whom all are bound to hear and obey. Certainly 
 a man is defiled by drinking to excess, for 
 ' drunkards shall not possess the kingdom of 
 God.' It is not what goeth into the mouth that 
 defiles, but what cometh from it, viz.: disobedi- 
 ence to the law of God and the dictates of right 
 reason. It is absurd to think that our Lord 
 would condemn in theory what He confirmed 
 by His own example. Did He not fast forty 
 
218 MEMOIRS OF ZI PRE* 
 
 days in the desert before entering upon His 
 public mission ? " 
 
 " Well, if we tried to follow His example in 
 this respect/' said the evangelist, " we would 
 speedily land in the cemetery." 
 
 " The primary object of fasting," said the 
 priest, " is to subdue the passions. The Church 
 has always regulated this point of discipline 
 with due regard to age and climate. Now that 
 constitutions seem debilitated she grants many 
 alleviations to our weakness. The sick, the 
 poor, the laboring man who earns his bread by 
 the sweat of his brow, the seamstress who plies 
 her needle and thread, the boys and girls em- 
 ployed in our factories, and those engaged in 
 the arduous labor of teaching are not obliged to 
 fast. They have sufficient motive to be dis- 
 pensed. The universal fast from which no one 
 is exempted, is the fast from sin. This is the 
 perfect fast ' that denying ungodliness and 
 worldly desires, we may live soberly, justly and 
 godly/ ' What will it profit you/ says St. 
 Chrysostom, ' to make your bodies thin and lean 
 with fasting, if your hearts be swelled with 
 pride and envy? What does it avail to abstain 
 from wine and beer, and to be drunk with in- 
 iquity? Let your eyes abstain at all times from 
 vain and criminal objects, from sinful litera- 
 ture; your ears from improper discourse; your 
 
FASTING AND ABSTINENCE 219 
 
 tongues from cursing, swearing, slander, cal- 
 umny and detraction ; your hands from unlawful 
 deeds; your hearts from irregular desires; in a 
 word, your five senses from the proximate occa- 
 sion of sin. Thus you will satisfy by the interior 
 spirit of mortification and penance what your 
 bodily infirmities may not allow you to per- 
 form.' " 
 
CHAPTER XXV 
 
 CHRISTIAN ETHICS 
 
 "T^VATHER," said the evangelist one Thurs- 
 X/ day morning, " I have no further ob- 
 jection against Catholic doctrine. My real 
 trouble is putting it into practice. With one 
 breath I can make an act of faith in all the mys- 
 teries which the Church proposes for my belief, 
 but I find some of her precepts extremely dif- 
 ficult. She is too exacting." 
 
 " Well, my dear friend," replied the priest, 
 " faith alone will never save you. ' Not every- 
 one that saith " Lord, Lord," shall enter the king- 
 dom of Heaven, but he that doeth the will of my 
 Father, he shall enter the kingdom of Heaven/ 
 If you admit articles of faith because divinely 
 revealed, you have no solid motive for refusing 
 obedience to the rules of that faith. If divine 
 revelation forces you to believe them, it also 
 obliges you to obey them. Where is the diffi- 
 culty in their observance?" 
 
 " Oh, some of them are practically impossi- 
 ble," exclaimed the evangelist, " especially when 
 
 220 
 
CHRISTIAN ETHICS 221 
 
 you consider human frailty and the strong 
 temptations continually assailing us. Why, one 
 would have to pass his whole life in anguish and 
 misery. It is enough to drive a man crazy even 
 to learn all the rules and regulations he must 
 observe. God wants His creatures to be happy. 
 He doesn't expect impossibilities of them. 
 Hence I think that we are dispensed from most 
 of the Church laws." 
 
 " The Arabian, Averroes, a Mohammedan, 
 first declared the Christian law impossible. 
 € Lex Christianorum lex impossibiliumf Rather 
 incongruous for a Christian to accept as judge 
 of his law a follower of Mohammed, to adopt his 
 opinion and language! Why should we assume 
 as axiomatic an assertion expressly contradicted 
 by the Founder of Christianity? < My yoke is 
 sweet and my burden light/ said our Lord. Ac- 
 cording to St. John, * His commandments are 
 not difficult/ Christ certainly ought to know 
 something about the law He promulgated, our 
 strength to fulfill it and the help He gives us for 
 its observance. If He has declared His law not 
 difficult, what a presumption for anyone to con- 
 tradict Him ! Besides, to declare his law impos- 
 sible implies the blasphemy that He acts as a 
 tyrant towards men. Christ is a true legislator. 
 Would it be compatible with divine goodness, 
 clemency, mercy and justice to promulgate a law 
 
222 MEMOIRS OF ZI PRE' 
 
 impossible of accomplishment? Let us imagine 
 that when the Lord created man, he called you 
 into consultation regarding the law He was 
 about to make and said, ' Do you think that it 
 would be all right for this man whom I created 
 to have other gods before me? Might he per- 
 haps worship the sun, moon and stars? Should 
 he not be allowed to bow down like the Romans 
 before Jupiter the corrupt and revengeful; like 
 the Athenians before Mercury the robber; like 
 the Gauls before Teutates the eater of children ; 
 like the Corinthians before Venus the prostitute ; 
 like the Egyptians before a crocodile, an onion, 
 or a torn cat ; like the Negroes of Central Africa 
 before a boa constrictor; or should he adore me 
 alone?' Your answer would be undoubtedly: 
 ' O, Lord, to thee alone is due supreme worship 
 and adoration/ 
 
 " ' And what about my name ? Should it be 
 profanely uttered in blasphemy, oaths and im- 
 precations ? ' ' No, Lord,' you would instantly 
 reply, ' nobody should dare to take Thy adorable 
 name in vain.' 
 
 " ' Well, here is the earth with its fruits and 
 flowers, its variegated wealth of riches for your 
 exclusive benefit. Enjoy yourself to your heart's 
 content. And in return will you deny me a 
 couple of hours one day of the week in order to 
 express your gratitude for the favors received 
 
CHRISTIAN ETHICS 223 
 
 and to ask me for additional blessings which 
 you may need for the soul and body ? Will you 
 refuse to visit me for a short while one day out 
 of the seven and show a little respect for the 
 habitation I occupy in a special manner ? ' Most 
 assuredly you would answer that the Sundays 
 and holidays should be sanctified and the 
 churches respected. 
 
 " And what about those who brought us into 
 existence ? " asked the priest. " Should any re- 
 gard be shown for those who nourished and 
 clothed us, who, perhaps, at great sacrifice pro- 
 vided for our education ? " 
 
 " Oh," exclaimed the evangelist, " it is only 
 natural that we should honor our parents, since 
 they hold the place of God and provide for all 
 our wants." 
 
 " Do you think/' asked the priest, " that wilful 
 murder, fighting, anger, hatred, revenge, bad ex- 
 ample or scandal should be tolerated among 
 men ? " 
 
 " These crimes are universally condemned, ,, 
 said the evangelist. " I believe in the command- 
 ment ' Thou shalt not kill/ " 
 
 " What about men wallowing in the mire of 
 impurity," asked the priest, " seducing each 
 other's wives and sisters, and foisting upon the 
 community a progeny without parents responsi- 
 ble for their support and education; in other 
 
224 MEMOIRS OF Zl PRE' 
 
 words, a nation of fatherless children, such as 
 the socialistic advocates of free love desire?" 
 
 " That would change the human race into a 
 herd of swine/' said the evangelist. 
 
 " Does it seem right," continued the priest, 
 "that men should live like ferocious beasts of 
 the jungle, that we should do away with the 
 right of private property and let each one grab 
 and hold what he can ? " 
 
 " I am not a socialist," retorted the evangelist. 
 " I firmly believe in the command, ' Thou shalt 
 not steal.' " 
 
 " Perhaps you may think," said the priest. 
 " that an outward appearance of goodness will 
 suffice, and that with impunity we may enter- 
 tain in our hearts all kinds of depraved desires." 
 
 " Oh, no," rejoined the evangelist, " the Lord 
 is pure and just and His law must be immacu- 
 late. With all my heart I subscribe to the com- 
 mands forbidding us to covet either our neigh- 
 bor's wife, or his goods." 
 
 " Well, my dear friend," remarked the priest, 
 " don't you realize that you have sanctioned the 
 law which you declared impossible? In not a 
 single commandment can be found anything un- 
 reasonable or what is not demanded by our very 
 nature. To declare the law impossible is the 
 same as to assert that man cannot live accord- 
 ing to his reason, that he cannot speak or hear, 
 
CHRIST I AX ETHICS 225 
 
 because he is endowed with a tongue and a pair 
 of ears. You will have to invent some other 
 excuse for the impossibility of the Christian law, 
 because the one alleged is invalid.'' 
 
 " Your explanation," said the evangelist, 
 u was confined to the decalogue. The precepts 
 of the Church comprise so many other things. " 
 
 " I restricted myself to the decalogue," re- 
 joined the priest, " because I have never yet dis- 
 covered anyone willing to observe the command- 
 ments of God who balked at the precepts of His 
 Church. The grumbler usually complains of 
 the sixth and seventh. If these two cause him 
 no inconvenience, the others will not annoy him. 
 The new r doctrines promulgated by our Lord 
 have rendered the observance of the ten com- 
 mandments easy. To become entirely submis- 
 sive to the Divine Will it helps exceedingly to 
 know God better, to have a clearer idea of His 
 infinite goodness, power, majesty and His in- 
 tense love for mankind. This knowledge con- 
 quers our intellect and wins our affection. 
 Christ, our Legislator, has enlightened us won- 
 derfully in regard to these truths, and having 
 placed them beyond all doubt by His authority, 
 has given a powerful incentive to our will." 
 
 u But has He not placed new duties upon us 
 with the sacraments, Mass and other Church 
 precepts ? " asked the evangelist. 
 
226 MEMOIRS OF ZI PRE' 
 
 a Those precepts," replied the priest, "enable 
 us to observe the primary law, viz.: the ten 
 commandments. Supposing that two of my 
 acolytes were ordered to fulfill an errand down 
 town. To one I simply give the message; to 
 the other, for his greater convenience, I say: 
 ' Here is carfare, a horse and buggy and a 
 bicycle; take your choice.' If he complained of 
 so many modes of transportation being placed at 
 his disposal would he not be considered insane? 
 That is precisely our case. The decalogue 
 obliges us to adore God alone, to acknowledge 
 Him as our supreme Lord and Master, to seek 
 His forgiveness when we have offended Him, in 
 a word, to love Him above all things, and our 
 neighbor as ourselves. Now what does our 
 Savior do? In order to adore God properly, 
 He says through His Church : ' Assist de- 
 voutly at the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass which 
 is the greatest act of worship that can be of- 
 fered the Almighty.' To propitiate Him with 
 certainty and to remove all doubt anent the ac- 
 ceptance of your expiation, approach the tri- 
 bunal of penance. As a pledge of your loyalty, 
 you will receive Him at stated intervals in Holy 
 Communion. You are bound by natural and 
 divine law to devote in a particular way some 
 special time to the worship of the Creator. The 
 divinely authorized voice of the Church removes 
 
CHRISTIAN ETHICS 227 
 
 all practical doubt on the subject by telling you 
 * to hear Mass on Sundays and holidays of obli- 
 gation/ By these and similar provisions she 
 has rendered the observance of the Decalogue 
 within the reach of all. Why then complain of 
 the very thing that should arouse your deepest 
 gratitude? The wings of an eagle may be 
 heavy, but they help him to fly. The wheels of 
 a wagon may be cumbersome, but remove them 
 and see what progress you will make. The 
 same may be said of the precepts of the Church. 
 At times they may seem difficult, but they ren- 
 der the observance of the divine commandments 
 all the easier.' 5 
 
 H Christ added more perfect, but very ardu- 
 ous, if not impossible precepts/' said the evan- 
 gelist. 
 
 " He added more perfect precepts," replied 
 the priest, " but He did not increase the difficul- 
 ties of their observance. He has thereby saved 
 us many struggles in less perfect things. Not 
 content that we should abstain from revenge, 
 He wants us to do good to our enemies. It is 
 much easier to forgive a foe entirely and restore 
 him to our friendship, than to nourish a feeling 
 of animosity that does not develop into hatred. 
 He wants us to abstain also from evil desires." 
 
 " Well, that is impossible," exclaimed the 
 evangelist. 
 
228 MEMOIRS OF Zl PRE' 
 
 " No," rejoined the priest, " that is Christian 
 perfection. It is much easier to banish the ini- 
 tial desire than to abstain from translating it 
 into deeds once the desires are deliberately en- 
 tertained. In the first case it is only a question 
 of conquering a temptation appearing as an un- 
 welcome visitor on the threshold of the mind; 
 in the second case it is the arduous work of 
 expelling a welcome desire firmly entrenched in 
 the soul and which perhaps had the senses as its 
 accomplices. It is easier to resist a burglar 
 while he is still on the outside than after he has 
 gained an entrance into your domicile. Hence 
 we should be ever vigilant in guarding the sight, 
 hearing and sense of touch scattered all over the 
 body, because the senses are avenues through 
 which sin usually enters and takes possession of 
 the soul. That man's knowledge of the human 
 heart is very limited who fails to understand 
 how much easier it is to abstain entirely from 
 certain things than to use them even in modera- 
 tion. Our Lord who knew our fallen nature 
 most intimately, has provided for all its infirmi- 
 ties through the channels of His grace, the seven 
 sacraments. Not content with imposing His 
 law, our Lord imparts grace to observe it. The 
 world sees only the difficulties and is frightened 
 at them. Grace being spiritual does not fall 
 under the senses. The individual accustomed to 
 
CHRISTIAN ETHICS 229 
 
 measure everything by what he can feel, see or 
 taste, doesn't even suspect the power which 
 grace communicates to the soul. It enlightens 
 the mind and makes man know how beneficial it 
 is for him to do what he is divinely commanded. 
 It causes him to view the purpose of the law 
 from a desirable aspect. He appreciates it? un- 
 derlying motives of wisdom and goodness. In 
 his soul is aroused the holy desire of observing 
 the law. His heart, which at first was cold and 
 indifferent, becomes suddenly transformed by 
 ardent love for the author of the law. The 
 more intimately he grows in the knowledge and 
 love of the Divine Legislator, the more eager 
 and devoted he becomes in His service. 
 
 " Real, genuine love is undaunted by labor, 
 hardship or sacrifice. Look at it in the natural 
 order. What induces men to spend days, weeks 
 and even months in the jungle, depriving them- 
 selves of life's comforts and exposing them- 
 selves to the attacks of ferocious beasts? It is 
 the love of hunting and adventure. Why do 
 scientists devote days and nights toiling and ex- 
 perimenting in their laboratories, scarcely taking 
 time to eat or sleep? It is the love of knowl- 
 edge. Why does a mother pass many a weary 
 vigil at the bedside of the sick? It may be the 
 love of a husband or a darling offspring. In a 
 similar manner the love of fame or military 
 
230 MEMOIRS OF ZI PRE* 
 
 glory will incite a soldier to undergo the sever- 
 est hardship and even shed his blood on the 
 field of battle. The love of gain furnishes an 
 incentive to the merchant to undertake perilous 
 journeys, to deprive himself of the ordinary 
 comforts and all this, simply to increase his bank 
 account. But why multiply illustrations? Will 
 the love of Jesus Christ, so pure and fervent, 
 produce no effect in the heart it dominates? 
 Will it not furnish a powerful incentive for the 
 observance of His law? It certainly spurred on 
 the martyrs to undergo the most excruciating 
 tortures. What induced the Gentiles, steeped in 
 every vice and abomination, to conquer them- 
 selves and lead a truly Christian life? Those 
 idolaters were men of the same temperament as 
 we. Like us they were subject to the same 
 weakness and passions. Explain how so many 
 of the present day, surrounded by all manner of 
 temptations, manage to control their appetites 
 and to lead exemplary Christian lives. These 
 facts can only be explained by the power of God's 
 grace and the ardent love which it inspires to 
 follow in the footsteps of His only begotten Son. 
 The observance, therefore, of His law is not 
 impossible. He himself has assured us that His 
 yoke is sweet and His burden light* 
 
CHAPTER XXVI 
 
 THE EVANGELIST'S DESPAIR 
 
 THE evangelist's health did not improve, — a 
 circumstance which brought upon him fre- 
 quent fits of melancholy. Instead of making a 
 virtue of necessity by suffering patiently his ill- 
 ness in atonement for his misspent life, he sought 
 to drown his sorrow and to stifle the qualms of 
 conscience in worldly dissipation. Within a very 
 short period he became a physical as well as 
 spiritual wreck. Unable to bear the monotonous 
 strain of remaining continually in his room, he 
 found diversion watching the players in a gam- 
 bling den on South Clark Street. One of them 
 he knew personally, at least he imagined so. He 
 did not, however, realize that this individual, al- 
 ways unusually lucky when observed by him, was 
 connected with the establishment, and acted the 
 role of stool-pigeon. " If this fellow can win 
 so regularly, why not I ? " soliloquized the unsus- 
 pecting evangelist. Several months of enforced 
 idleness had diminished considerably his hard- 
 earned savings. And as if they did not dwindle 
 
 231 • 
 
232 MEMOIRS OF ZI PRE' 
 
 fast enough through the weekly payment of room- 
 rent, board, doctor's bills and prescriptions, he 
 resorted to gambling. One evening he brought 
 along the remnant of his earnings and sacrificed 
 them on the altar of fickle fortune. He saw with 
 feverish anxiety his stack of chips gradually van- 
 ish down to the last one. Huge crystal beads of 
 perspiration studded his brow while his heart 
 thumped like a trip-hammer. He finally placed 
 his solitary chip on the color red, and awaited 
 results. The little ball spun around, and settled 
 on the black space. Despair was depicted upon 
 his countenance, while the face of the stool pi- 
 geon wore a broad grin. " You mustn't mind my 
 smiling," said the latter, " because I always laugh 
 when I'm sorry.'' 
 
 Staring for a moment at the Sphinx-like banker 
 of the roulette table who was busy raking in the 
 coin of the other players, the evangelist arose 
 abruptly and descended to the street. He pro- 
 ceeded west on Jackson Boulevard and reached 
 the bridge just as it began to swing open to let 
 a steam barge pass through the draw. While 
 leaning against the rail and gazing at the murky 
 waters beneath, a horrible temptation took posses- 
 sion of his soul — the thought of self-destruc- 
 tion. " Why continue the agony? " he muttered. 
 "What have I to live for?" When a man 
 reaches this point of depravity, he is either in- 
 
THE EVANGELISTS DESPAIR 233 
 
 sane, or he has lost all idea of God, the soul, and 
 eternity. He has extinguished every spark of 
 faith. He has decided upon a plan, and it only 
 remains for him to carry that plan into execu- 
 tion. 
 
 The bridge closed ; autos and pedestrians scur- 
 ried past the solitary figure at the railing. " This 
 place," he thought, " is altogether too public. 
 Some busybody would surely see me take the fatal 
 plunge, and fish me out. The bridge at Taylor 
 Street is more secluded and less frequented. 
 There I shall not be noticed." Accordingly to 
 that deserted locality he directed his steps. Had 
 he even a particle of faith, he would have reasoned 
 in the following manner : " I am not master of my 
 life ; it belongs to God Who gave it to me. I must 
 use it for the end for which He gave it. By de- 
 stroying it, I violate His most sacred rights. I can 
 imagine myself a corpse, and foresee an end to my 
 present misery. But supposing it were really 
 true what religion teaches, viz., that man is not 
 like a dog whose destiny terminates here below? 
 If there really be an eternity and a hell . . . what 
 will become of unfortunate me who deprived God 
 and society of my life by the crime of murder? " 
 
 But no such salutary reflections entered his 
 mind. At that particular crisis he was utterly be- 
 reft of all religious sentiment. In fact, as he 
 afterwards acknowledged to Zi Pre^, his one con- 
 
2$4 MEMOIRS OF Zl PRE r 
 
 suming regret before shuffling off this mortal coil y 
 was that he did not have a gun to murder all the 
 gambling thieves connected with the den in which 
 he lost his money. Wending his way south on 
 Canal Street, he came unmolested to the Taylor 
 Street Bridge, and actually had one leg over the 
 railing to take the final leap when he was startled 
 by the deafening report of a pistol the bullet of 
 which seemed to whiz within a few feet of his 
 head. Then from the east end of the bridge came 
 a gruff voice exclaiming : " Hey ! What are you 
 trying to do? Get down off that rail, or I'll put 
 a hole through you." By the light of the moon 
 he deciphered the outline of a burly night watch- 
 man holding in his right hand a very unattractive 
 looking revolver. If the evangelist were really 
 bent upon self-destruction, it could hardly make 
 much difference to him by which route he went. 
 What more natural than to invite the intruder 
 to blaze away? Yet he did nothing of the kind. 
 For some unaccountable reason he was frightened 
 out of his sinister purpose by the shot fired in 
 the air to scare him away. Not only did he get 
 down instantly from the railing, as commanded, 
 but started west on a Marathon, scarcely slack- 
 ening his speed until breathless and exhausted he 
 landed in front of Guardian Angel Church. A 
 mission happened to be in full swing, and evi- 
 dently thinking that his pursuer was still after 
 
THE EVANGELISTS DESPAIR 235 
 
 him, he entered the sacred edifice, and was soon 
 lost in the congregation. 
 
 The missioner was a venerable septuagenarian 
 with snow white hair and a deep baritone voice 
 that easily penetrated every corner of the build- 
 ing. His sermon, were it specially prepared for 
 the benefit of our would-be suicide, could not have 
 been more appropriate. 
 
 u Holy Scripture tells us," exclaimed the 
 preacher, " that ' the fool hath said in his heart : 
 there is no God/ He hath said it in his heart, 
 the seat of human affections ; in his heart, which 
 having transgressed the divine law, and being 
 corrupted by his vices, wishes there were no God 
 to witness and punish them. He wants no im- 
 mortality, no eternity, no hell, since they would 
 be for him so disastrous. He hath said it in his 
 heart which clouded by the darkness of passion, 
 cannot bear the dazzling light of faith. He hath 
 said it in his heart which execrating whatever 
 might restrain his sensual appetites, naturally 
 hates religious truths that condemn his excesses 
 and open to them the infernal abyss. 
 
 " He has said it in his heart which wields in- 
 deed too great an influence over his intellect, 
 making truth appear odious, and rendering false- 
 hood fascinating and attractive. 
 
 " Scan the pages of history, and you will find 
 that the most notorious apostates who abandoned 
 
236 MEMOIRS OF ZI PRE' 
 
 their faith, that faith which they at one time pro- 
 fessed and practised, began by trampling under 
 foot the most sacred laws of morality. Their in- 
 itial step was crime, then a sinful habit followed 
 by deep corruption, and finally impiety. Luther 
 kept the faith so long as he kept his vow of chas- 
 tity. No sooner did he lose the angelic virtue than 
 he began to be dominated by his animal nature 
 which had to be indulged. The religious habit 
 proved an obstacle. Therefore he will cast it 
 aside, blasphemously asserting that man has al- 
 ways the right to gratify his appetites. Religious 
 vows are in the way. Very well, he will break 
 them, teaching that vows are not binding and that 
 religious profession after all is an invention of the 
 devil. Church laws are a barrier. Well, what 
 more simple than to trample them under foot, and 
 declare that the Church has degenerated from her 
 primitive spirit? The Pope opposes this lustful 
 monk. But he will discredit the Visible Head of 
 the Church and call him Antichrist, heaping upon 
 him all manner of abuse and vilification. Pas- 
 sion demands the sacrifice of faith, and he will 
 gladly immolate it on the altar of passion. In the 
 beginning of his reign Henry VIII had the faith 
 to such an extent as to be styled ' Defensor 
 Fidei ' and the great adversary of Luther. But 
 he developed in his heart a miserable passion for 
 one of his courtesans. To gratify this unlawful 
 
THE EVANGELISTS DESPAIR 237 
 
 desire he must forget the teachings of religion. 
 Passion commands and he obeys. For the sake 
 of a woman the champion of Catholicism will be- 
 come the Church's greatest scourge, and for their 
 Christian loyalty he will destroy the flower of the 
 English nation. 
 
 " Ask an Augustin why from a fervent Catholic 
 he became a follower of the Manicheans. As the 
 cause of his defection he will point out, not the 
 books he studied, but the illicit friendships he cul- 
 tivated. He will tell you, blushing in his con- 
 fessions, that the excesses of his passions were 
 the cause of his mental aberrations. 
 
 " And you, my dear friends, acknowledge it sin- 
 cerely ; if there were ever a moment in which the 
 light of your faith was in danger of going out; 
 if the love of religion ever grew cold in your 
 heart, was it when you practised mortification and 
 held in check your sinful inclinations? Was it 
 when you conducted yourselves properly before 
 God and man, or was it not rather when your ac- 
 tions betrayed a moral decadence? Ask your 
 conscience, and hear the answer. Be thankful to 
 the Lord who enabled you with His grace to over- 
 come yourselves, and to stop before plunging over 
 the precipice. The sinner begins by declaring to 
 God : ' I will not serve Thee/ and ends by saying : 
 * There is no God/ Inexperienced youth falls 
 into the company of wicked associates who, under 
 
23% MEMOIRS OF ZI PRE' 
 
 the pretext of making him happy, corrupt his 
 heart. He abandons every pious practice. He 
 thinks only of diversion, pleasure, and the grati- 
 fication of his passions. To his corrupted heart 
 religion appears only as a tissue of superstitions 
 and fables. Faith has no longer for him any at- 
 traction. It becomes in fact odious, impossible, 
 full of sorrows and afflictions. There no longer 
 remains for him a vestige of what he once loved 
 and adored. While the world with its sensual 
 amusements and deceits robs him of his health, 
 honor, and wealth, it deprives him of the conso- 
 lations of religion. Nothing remains but black 
 despair, and eventually the criminal desire of self- 
 destruction. But you, my dear friends, by at- 
 tending the mission, have given me proof that you 
 love your holy religion. The passions may have 
 occasionally whispered into your ear their seduc- 
 tive language; the world. may have tried to cor- 
 rupt and drag your souls into the mire of iniquity, 
 but you no doubt have shown a courageous re- 
 sistance. You have manfully repelled the seduc- 
 ers and exclaimed : ' Free me, O Lord, from the 
 lions that roar about me; keep me under Thy 
 powerful protection. My enemies shall fall right 
 and left, but I will preserve my independence. I 
 will be free with the freedom of the sons of God. 
 My faith I will keep as a most precious treasure 
 and defend it with all the strength of my soul/ 
 
THE EVANGELISTS DESPAIR 239 
 
 Thus when you reach the end of your earthly pil- 
 grimage, you will be able truthfully to repeat with 
 the Apostle : ' I have fought the good fight, I 
 have finished my course, I have kept the faith. 
 As to the rest there is laid up for me a crown of 
 justice.' (II Tim. iv.)" 
 
 The sermon made a deep impression upon the 
 evangelist who rested his weary head upon the 
 seat in front of him and kept his face buried in 
 his hands during the Benediction. His whole 
 life seemed to pass in review before him. He re- 
 called the days of his childhood when he was in- 
 nocent and happy. What delight he then took 
 in the practice of his religion ! The scene of his 
 father's death came vividly before him. How 
 he had contemptuously ignored all the paternal 
 admonitions given him! What an amount of 
 grief and shame he brought upon his poor mother 
 and brothers through his scandalous misbehavior ! 
 When assembled about the death-bed of their 
 father, how fervently they recited for him the 
 litanies and prayers for the dying. With what 
 fervor and devotion the father kissed the crucifix 
 a few moments before entering eternity. Bitter 
 indeed was the remembrance of his flight to Amer- 
 ica, and subsequent apostasy from the faith. 
 
 Most of the people had filed out of the church, 
 but he still remained. Lines of penitents began 
 forming on either side of the confessional, but 
 
240 MEMOIRS OF ZI PRE 
 
 he could not summon up sufficient courage to join 
 them. He lingered in his seat long after the 
 missioner had gone into the rectory. 
 
 " When does the mission close ? " he asked of 
 the sacristan who stood waiting impatiently in the 
 vestibule to extinguish the lights and lock the 
 door. 
 
 " Sunday night," was the curt reply. 
 
 All desire for a watery grave had vanished com- 
 pletely from the evangelist's heart. Emerging 
 from the church he went straight home and to 
 bed. 
 
CHAPTER XXVII 
 
 
 
 THE EVANGELIST'S DREAM 
 
 OF all the nights through which the evangel- 
 ist ever lived during his chequered career, 
 the one following his attempted suicide was by 
 far the most horrible and unforgettable. After 
 tossing restlessly upon his bed for more than an 
 hour he fell asleep. In his slumber he experi- 
 enced not only the agonies of a drowning man, 
 but also the terrors of the particular judgment. 
 His first sensation was that of jumping from the 
 Taylor Street Bridge and striking the water with 
 terrific force. Down, down he went into the 
 water at least eight or ten feet when his body 
 began gradually to rise. " Oh for a breath of 
 air ! Will I never reach the top ? M he asked him- 
 self. Kicking convulsively with his feet, and 
 waving his arms in desperation, he managed some- 
 how to reach the surface and take one short 
 breath. In breathing, however, he swallowed 
 such a quantity of water that he commenced to 
 cough and choke as he sank the second time. 
 Then came a deafening roar in his ears, while his 
 temples began to ache and throb as if they would 
 
 241 
 
242 MEMOIRS OF ZI PRE' 
 
 burst. Again he vainly attempted to breathe, but 
 instead of air he inhaled into his lungs the filthy 
 water of the river, and strangulation ensued. His 
 body then descended like a lump of lead to the 
 bottom of the river where it remained for quite a 
 while. Afterwards it began to swell and rise to 
 the surface where it floated like the carcass of a 
 dog. His heart had long ceased to beat, and yet 
 he felt that he was not altogether dead. His soul 
 has left his body which it now views with the 
 greatest horror and repugnance. The city is 
 shrouded in darkness, yet on the river bank he 
 observes the majestic figure of one whose face 
 shines like the sun and whose garments are whiter 
 than snow. That countenance seems so familiar. 
 Where has he seen it before? Why that is the 
 very face his father looked upon when dying. 
 That same figure the artists so often modelled in 
 clay and gypsum in the studio ! He recognizes 
 him now, for it is the figure of Jesus Christ. In 
 statues and in pictures he usually saw Him with 
 His hands and feet pierced by cruel nails, in His 
 side a gaping wound, and upon His head a crown 
 of thorns. But now He is crowned with a diadem 
 of ineffable glory. Jesus is looking at him with 
 eyes of fire, and he turns away from that pene- 
 trating gaze to the other two figures of the group. 
 He certainly ought to recognize them, for they 
 followed him faithfully from the cradle to the 
 
THE EVANGELISTS DREAM 243 
 
 grave. One is his guardian angel concerning 
 whom the Lord declared : " Behold I will send 
 my Angel who shall go before thee, and keep thee 
 in thy journey, and bring thee into the place that 
 I have prepared." (Exodus xxiii.) The other 
 is a black and hideous demon. He scoffed at 
 Pasqualino's child-like faith when the latter told 
 him at the Zoo that " the devil went about like a 
 roaring lion seeking whom he might devour." 
 And here sure enough he appears like a ferocious 
 beast with looks full of hatred, malice, and tri- 
 umph as well. But what is the meaning of this 
 strange aggregation? Why does the Savior of 
 Mankind appear in such company ? Great God ! 
 He appears not as a gentle, merciful Savior, but 
 as inexorable Judge. There is going to be a trial, 
 and I am the unhappy defendant. I foolishly 
 imagined to escape all this by drowning, and I 
 have only hastened it. Everything is clear to 
 him now, but unfortunately the knowledge comes 
 too late. He is standing a trembling culprit be- 
 fore his Eternal Judge. He is going to be tried 
 by the Decalogue which he had discussed so flip- 
 pantly with the priest a short while ago, and the 
 observance of which he declared impossible. 
 God had said to him : " I am the Lord thy God, 
 thou shalt have no strange gods before me." And 
 he had deified his animal passions for love of 
 which he forfeited his immortal soul. God had 
 
244 MEMOIRS OF ZI PRE' 
 
 declared : " Thou shalt not take my name in 
 vain " ; and oh, how often he had dishonored that 
 Sacred Name by his imprecations and blasphe- 
 mies ! God had said : " Remember that thou keep 
 holy the Sabbath day." He had neglected Mass 
 for years, and spent the day in gambling and de- 
 bauchery. The Lord had said : " Thou shalt not 
 kill." And here he is with the sin of suicide upon 
 his soul, to say nothing of the other souls he 
 ruined through scandalous conduct. Looking 
 back upon his earthly career he beholds every sin 
 of thought, word, deed, and omission rising up 
 against him. The demon is there as his accuser 
 bold and defiant. " This soul belongs to me," he 
 shrieks. " Scrutinize it closely. Doesn't it re- 
 semble me?" The evangelist regards himself 
 and beholds the horrid sight of one dead and rot- 
 ting in mortal sin. Each crime has left its own 
 peculiar stigma on his soul. He sees the foul 
 corruption of lust, the putrid scars of anger and 
 hate, the horrid seals of sordid avarice. Once it 
 was effulgent as the sun, radiant and pure as the 
 angel by his side. Then it was a living temple of 
 the Holy Ghost. But now what an abominable 
 transformation! It has become a sink of un- 
 cleanness and a den of demons. 
 
 " This body also belongs to me," exclaims the 
 demon pointing to the bloated corpse upon the 
 water's surface. " I claim those eyes as mine by 
 
THE EVANGELISTS DREAM 245 
 
 all the lustful looks they have ever given. I claim 
 those ears as mine by all the scandal, calumny, 
 and detraction they have so greedily devoured. 
 I claim that mouth as mine by all the immodest 
 words, curses, and blasphemies, it has ever ut- 
 tered. I claim those hands as mine by all the 
 thefts and improper acts they have ever com- 
 mitted. I claim those feet as mine ; for they were 
 ever swift to carry him to the haunts of vice, and 
 slow to bring him to the house of God. Don't 
 you notice the mark of the beast upon his body ? " 
 And as he spoke the demon pointed to the shame- 
 ful marks of disease which the poor evangelist 
 knew so well how to hide in life, but which could 
 no longer be concealed in death. 
 
 " This is a Christian soul/' exclaimed the 
 Guardian Angel. " Don't you behold upon it the 
 indelible marks of baptism and confirmation?' 3 
 
 " Oh yes," retorted the demon with a mock- 
 ing sneer, " but instead of being for his honor and 
 glory, they can now increase only his shame and 
 punishment. In baptism he solemnly promised to 
 renounce me, and all my works and pomps. How 
 has he kept that threefold pledge? Through 
 Confirmation he received the Holy Ghost in order 
 to become a strong and perfect Christian, a val- 
 iant soldier of Jesus Christ. What kind of a 
 soldier has he really been? Did he not barter 
 away his priceless gift of faith for a mess of 
 
246 MEMOIRS OF ZI PRE' 
 
 pottage? Have you not solemnly declared that 
 you will deny before your Heavenly Father those 
 who have denied you before men? Is there a 
 single commandment of God or His Church that 
 he has not broken? He has ever boasted of his 
 shame and of the souls he ruined. He stands be- 
 fore you now with a chain of iniquity reaching 
 from early childhood to the very moment in which 
 he took his suicidal plunge from yonder bridge. 
 Does my testimony need corroboration ? " 
 
 Instantly there sallies forth a horde of repro- 
 bates from the lower regions. Glaring, they fix 
 upon him a look of recognition. " Aha ! " they 
 shout in fiendish glee. " Don't you recognize 
 us ? We are your unfortunate paesani whom you 
 induced to apostatize through your blandishments 
 and flatteries. You brought about our ruin, and 
 we shall escort you now to hell." 
 
 " Enough ! " thundered the Judge in righteous 
 indignation. Then turning to the unhappy soul, 
 He added : " Depart from me — " 
 
 At that critical moment the evangelist felt him- 
 self sinking rapidly as it were into the very bow- 
 els of the earth. He never heard the completion 
 of the dreadful sentence, because falling heavily 
 upon the floor he suddenly awoke. 
 
 " Thank God," he fervently exclaimed, " it was 
 only a dream. But oh how near it came to real- 
 ization ! " 
 
THE EVANGELISTS DESPAIR 247 
 
 Weak from exertion he remained for quite a 
 while on the floor, pondering over the harrowing 
 details of his dream. He gradually fell into a 
 peaceful slumber and when he awoke the morn- 
 ing sunlight was streaming through the window. 
 Letting his gaze wander about the room, not a 
 single object escaped him. He must have had a 
 terrific struggle in his nightmare, for the bed- 
 sheet was torn to shreds. Upon the walls hung 
 mezzotints of actresses in scant attire, while the 
 mantelpiece contained an array of pornographic 
 statuettes. u Managgia!" he exclaimed in a fit 
 of anger, " you have tyrannized over me long 
 enough, and to-day your infernal reign is going 
 to end." Suiting the action to the word, he 
 jumped up and seizing the nymphs and goddesses 
 he dashed them to pieces on the floor ; the pictures 
 he tore into small bits. The work of demolition 
 proving too much for his exhausted strength he 
 fell into a deadly swoon from which not even a 
 loud rapping on the door was able to arouse him. 
 The Toscano who had received no answer to his 
 repeated knocking finally forced the door open 
 and was amazed at the spectacle confronting 
 him. The room looked as if it had been visited 
 by a cyclone. The floor was littered with the 
 debris of broken statuary and fragments of pic- 
 tures. Near the centre table lay the prostrate 
 form of the evangelist who to all appearances 
 
248 MEMOIRS OF ZI PRE 
 
 was dead. The first impulse of the visitor was 
 to notify the coroner, but upon second thought he 
 drew forth a pocket mirror which he held to the 
 nostrils of his friend. To his delight he discov- 
 ered a slight impression upon its surface. Gently- 
 raising the limp body, he placed it upon the bed, 
 then darting down stairs and into the street, he 
 hastened to the nearest drug-store in quest of a 
 physician. 
 
CHAPTER XXVIII 
 
 THE AWAKENING 
 
 **^TT^HE evangelist has an acute case of dia- 
 
 I betes and is not expected to live/' said 
 
 Pasqualino to Zi Pre' one morning during Lent. 
 
 " Where does he reside ? " asked the priest. 
 
 " In a nest of evangelists on Congress Street, 
 near Halsted," replied the boy. "A grizzled 
 old Toscano, who resides with him, told me that 
 Antonio was very strong in Scripture, that both 
 of them were sculptors and that they used to 
 make the statues which we adored in our 
 churches ! I asked him if he had sent for the 
 priest. ' Oh, he doesn't want any priest/ 
 sneered the old reprobate. ' If he wants to con- 
 fess his sins, he can confess them to God/ Just 
 the same I feel certain that Antonio would 
 be glad to see you in spite of what the 
 old fellow said." 
 
 u . I will try to get over there to see him some 
 time during the day," commented the priest. 
 " Meanwhile you ought to offer up a fervent 
 prayer for his conversion." 
 
 249 
 
250 MEMOIRS OF ZI PRE 9 
 
 That same day the priest visited him, but with 
 little or no success. The elder apostate remained 
 in the sick man's room during the priest's visit, 
 and nothing was accomplished. 
 
 A few days later came a note from His Grace, 
 the Archbishop, saying : " Dear Rev. Sir : The 
 enclosed letter reached me a short time ago. 
 Kindly endeavor to locate this unfortunate man 
 and do what you can to bring him to a sense of 
 his duty. That the good Lord may crown your 
 efforts with success is the fervent prayer of 
 yours sincerely." 
 
 The Italian communication addressed to the 
 Archbishop ran as follows : 
 
 "Your Excellency: Kindly pardon this in- 
 trusion on your valuable time, while I humbly 
 implore Your Grace to render what assistance 
 you can in bringing back a stray sheep to the 
 fold. I am an Apostolic missioner in far-off 
 India, and my parents in Lucca have always been 
 practical Catholics. It is with deepest shame 
 and sorrow that I must inform you that my 
 brother, Antonio, four years younger than my- 
 self, has not only fallen away from the practice 
 of his religion, but what is still worse, has joined 
 a false one, and is doing all in his power to 
 spread it among his fellow countrymen in Amer- 
 ica. I cannot imagine what has come over him. 
 
THE AWAKENING 251 
 
 I really think that his mind must be affected. 
 His downward career began shortly after my 
 father's death. After my departure for the mis- 
 sion in India there was nobody at home to con- 
 trol him and he had practically his own way. 
 My poor mother remonstrated with him repeat- 
 edly about his conduct, but in vain. His un- 
 natural, unfilial behavior has driven her almost 
 insane. Finally, to escape her constant nagging, 
 as he expressed it, and without even bidding her 
 good-bye, he suddenly stole away with another 
 worthless character to America. He has a good 
 education and at one time had serious thoughts 
 of entering the priesthood. In fact, he made two 
 years of theology and was dismissed from the 
 seminary for lack of vocation. I learned of his 
 apostasy through an acquaintance who wrote 
 about him to relatives in Lucca, and told them 
 that I might display my missionary zeal a little 
 nearer home before attempting to convert the 
 natives of India. I have written to him repeat- 
 edly in order to make him realize the enormity of 
 his crime. I told him that he would be guilty of 
 matricide by hastening my mother to an early 
 grave. Once he condescended to favor me with 
 an answer full of insolence. He informed me 
 that I did not know what I was talking about, 
 that he had finally seen the light and intended to 
 follow it; that he would go his way and I could 
 
252 MEMOIRS OF ZI PRE 
 
 pursue mine, and that he would not brook any 
 interference with his religious views. All my 
 subsequent letters to him have remained unan- 
 swered. What is still more aggravating, I am 
 unable to give his present correct address, for 
 he has changed domiciles several times since he 
 went to Chicago. I feel confident that if Your 
 Grace should instruct some zealous Italian priest 
 to look up this unfortunate brother of mine, with 
 a little kindness and patience he might be brought 
 back to the one true Fold. Down in his heart of 
 hearts he is only shamming. I can only offer 
 your Grace the profoundest gratitude and prayers 
 of his grief-stricken mother and brother for the 
 paternal interest you may take in his behalf. 
 Kissing your episcopal ring, I beg to remain, 
 " Your most humble and obedient servant, 
 
 Signed. 
 
 Zi Pre' had little difficulty in locating Antonio, 
 at whose bedside he had spent fully an hour in 
 vain just a few days before the arrival of the 
 biographical sketch from his brother. Still he 
 did not despair. It happened to be Friday and 
 the children were to assemble in the Church at 
 half past three in order to make the Stations of 
 the Cross. 
 
 " Children," he said, " I want you to make the 
 Way of the Cross this afternoon with all the fer- 
 
THE AWAKENING 253 
 
 vor possible for a special intention, viz.: for the 
 conversion of an unfortunate sinner. Beg Al- 
 mighty God to enlighten his mind and strengthen 
 his will so that he may realize the importance of 
 his eternal salvation." 
 
 The devotion at which the grown-up people as- 
 sisted in the evening was prefaced by a similar 
 request. Whether it was in answer to the ap- 
 peal of the children and parents at the Way of 
 the Cross on that Friday of Lent, or the fervent 
 prayers of a sorrow-stricken mother and brother, 
 or to the petitions of all concerned — we are not 
 prepared to say. The ways of Divine Provi- 
 dence are inscrutable. 
 
 One thing certain, somebody's prayers were 
 heard. For the very next morning after Mass, 
 a messenger was anxiously awaiting the priest 
 in the sacristy to have him go to the house of An- 
 tonio as soon as possible. 
 
 Zi Pre' lost no time in complying with the re- 
 quest. No sooner did he enter the room of the 
 unfortunate man than the latter greeted him with 
 the words : " Padre, io sono un porco, un ingrato, 
 un animale!' (Father, I am a pig, an ingrate, a 
 beast.) Then rising to a sitting posture in the 
 bed, he made the sign of the cross very devoutly, 
 perhaps the first time in years. Motioning to the 
 grizzled evangelist he said to him : " Please get 
 out of here and shut the door after you. I want 
 
254 MEMOIRS OF ZI PRE 
 
 to talk to the priest alone." The latter arose sul- 
 lenly, and muttering all sorts of imprecations 
 proceeded to the door which he viciously slammed 
 behind him as an indication of the way he felt 
 over the priest's arrival. 
 
 Poor Antonio made a general confession of his 
 whole life, a profession of faith and received ab- 
 solution. " Father," he said, " I want to repair 
 the scandal given as far as it lies within my 
 power. Would you mind writing to the Rev. 
 
 Mr. , Evangelical Minister, and tell him 
 
 kindly to scratch my name off the register of 
 his sect, as I desire to have it inscribed in the 
 Book of Life? Tell him that it is my wish to 
 live and die in the bosom of the one, Holy Cath- 
 olic, and Apostolic Church, the one true Fold, 
 outside of which there is no salvation." C 
 
 " My dear friend," said the priest, " it will be 
 one of the greatest pleasures of my life to fulfill 
 your wish." 
 
 " There is another favor I would ask," said the 
 sick man. " If you think that it would do any 
 good, you can publish my profession of faith and 
 retraction in the Italian newspaper." 
 
 " If it does no good," replied the priest, " it 
 can certainly do no harm." The following week 
 on the front page of the local Italian newspaper 
 there appeared a two-column article under the 
 caption "CONVERSIONE DI ANTONIO," 
 
THE AWAKENING 255 
 
 etc., with his letter of resignation to the evangel- 
 ical minister. This little news item evoked from 
 the latter a four-paged communication of ram- 
 bling vituperation which Zi Pre' promptly con- 
 signed to the waste-basket. After a month or so 
 Antonio was able to leave his bed and walk with 
 the aid of a cane. He attended Mass every 
 morning and became a weekly communicant. 
 Thus he lingered on for nearly two years, w r hich 
 he spent in edifying reparation of the scandal 
 previously given. A second stroke overtook 
 him, from which he never recovered. After a 
 week's illness and conscious up to the last mo- 
 ment, he finally died in the odor of sanctity. 
 
 As for Pasqualino, the Lord evidently did not 
 intend him to follow the commercial career of 
 his father, notwithstanding the picturesque vari- 
 ety of vows made by the latter to the contrary. 
 
 From early childhood the lad had given unmis- 
 takable signs of a priestly vocation and his 
 mother determined that no obstacle should be 
 placed in the way of its attainment. 
 
 " God gave him to us in the first place," she 
 used to say to her husband, " and He therefore 
 has the best right to his service. Think of that 
 unfortunate apostate Antonio whom he brought 
 back to the Fold. Zi Pre' assured me that our 
 Pasqualino, more than anyone else, was instru- 
 mental in his conversion. The Lord only knows 
 
2 5 6 MEMOIRS OF ZI PRE' 
 
 how many more wretched sinners he is destined to 
 save. To force him into a secular pursuit for 
 which he has neither taste nor talent would be 
 nothing short of criminal. It would be placing 
 both our own as well as his salvation in jeop- 
 ardy." 
 
 Pasqualino was, therefore, allowed to continue 
 his classical studies in the college, as far as rhet- 
 oric inclusively. Upon the recommendation of 
 Zi Pre' the Archbishop sent the promising lad 
 to a European university where he obtained the 
 laureate both in philosophy and theology. 
 
 At present he is laboring zealously in the Lord's 
 vineyard, a credit to himself and a source of in- 
 effable joy to his devoted mother who, like the 
 mother of the sons of Zebedee, fondly imagines 
 no position in the hierarchy too exalted for her 
 darling offspring. 
 
 THE END 
 
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