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for the foiling ef a. College In this Colony"

' Y^LH-WlMHYIEI^SflirY- » ILKIBI^^IElf »

Deposited by the
Linonian and Brothers Library
1908

FATHER TOM BURKE

VOL. I.

f^J-C^CyL^iyl^-l, A.i-t C--!^^!^^ L

y//.^-,n-i

THE LIFE

OF THE VERY REV.

THOMAS N. BURKE, O.P.

WILLIAM J. FITZ-PATRICK, F.S.A.
AUTHOR OF * THE LIFE, TIMES, AND CORRE.SPONDENCE OF THE RIGHT REV. DR DOYLE
BISHOP OF KILDARE AND LEIGHLIN' * IRELAND BEFORE THE UNION'
'THE SHAM SQUIRE AND THE INFORMERS OF 1798 ' ETC.

VOLUME L

LONDON
KEGAN PAUL, TRENCH, & CO., i PATERNOSTER SQUARE
1885

{The rights of translation and oj i eproduction aic rnoifd)

PREFACE.

The name of one Irish Dominican Father was mentioned as
likely to write the life of Fr. Burke, and it was only on
finding that he had relinquished the idea that I determined
to apply myself to the task. Although the good friar would
have been in some respects better qualified, it is certain that
no priest could spare from graver duties the time and labour
I deemed it my duty to bestow upon the work.
To verify a few facts I have travelled from Dublin to
Gloucester and from thence to Northumberland, not to speak
of various other journeys. And here let me thank the Pro
vincial of the English Dominicans for the facilities of access
and cordial reception which he ensured to me in every Domini
can convent in England. Some of my informants — Dr. Utili,
amongst others — are since dead, and probably if I had delayed
these personal inquiries, a few years more would have ren
dered this part of my task impossible.
I also beg to thank the Very Rev. J. T. Towers, Pro
vincial of the Irish Dominicans. He promised help in the
first instance, and that promise has since been amply fulfilled.
Il everybody who assisted me were to be named in detail,
the list would be a long one. The contributions of Major
Haverty however demand, perhaps, distinct mention because
he wishes it to be known that they have been entered by him.
for copyright, in America.

VI PREFACE.
I took up the subject with diffidence, but it was en
couraging to receive the assurance of one of the ablest
Dominican fathers in Ireland, that the 'life of Fr. Burke
could be best written by a layman, especially if thstt layman
had been already the biographer of an ecclesiastic' It was
probably this view of Fr. Burke's character that led the
Bishop of Galway to say, when unable to take the chair —
October, 1883 — in furtherance of the then contemplated
memorial, that ' as Fr. Burke's mission was primarily with the
laity, there was a special fitness in a lay gentleman taking the
lead to perpetuate his memory.'
There may be some persons so strait-laced or so im
pervious to all sense of humour as to deprecate its existence
in a priest. But, as Fr. Burke himself says, writing to Miss
Rowe, ' There is no law that good people should be stupid.
They may be Sa>ikejmonious without being Aloody!
To suppress evidence of his irrepressible humour would
be to destroy the individuality of the man quite as much as
if one were to ignore his great attribute of humility. The
reader, therefore, must be prepared to see ample illustrations
of both interwoven with the records of his more public career.
But there was another life, of which the world knew nothing
— the wonderful inner life of Fr. Burke — in attempting to de
pict which I have been aided by the men who knew him best.
Some may think that this book ought to be a grand
panegyric — that too much of Fr. Burke as a humourist is
shown and not enough of the great preacher whose appeals
earned for him so high a reputation. But Fr. Burke's ser
mons are already familiar to all, while this pleasant side of
his character will be new to many. At a public meeting in
Dublin, convened to commemorate his fame and name, Judge
O'Hagan spoke of the image of Fr. Burke himself risinq

PREFACE. vii
before him 'with his native laugh of playful scorn mocking at
the idea of doing honour to him the poor, sufifering, pain-
struck friar. In no man whom I have ever known,' he added,
' was a contempt of this world and its honours more deeply
rooted. He had it by nature as the concomitant of that
priceless gift of humour with which he was largely endowed,
and which led him with a keen and discerning vision to see
through and rate at their proper value the objects of the vain
desires of men. But he had it also from a far different source,
from that grace of humility which his prayers had won for
him, and which he felt to be the root and basis of all real
good that man can achieve.'
It will be found that Fr. Burke, as far as possible, is made
to tell his own life. Some things, of small import, no doubt,
he sometimes mentions, but I was unwilling to exclude any
personal reminiscence which Fr. Burke thought fit to record,
the more so as his remarks are invariably permeated by a
vein of that original humour which was so salient a charac
teristic of him.
I once thought that perhaps the better title for this book
would have been ' Recollections of Fr. Burke b)'^ Himself
and His Friends.' Until a year ago my part in it was little
more than the laborious one of gathering illustrative aita
from various sources both in America and nearer home. Of
course I sought to prepare myself for the task by revisiting
the various convents in which he had lived and laboured, and
where the traditions of his inner life are tenderly enshrined.
Sometimes the fear has occurred to me that my details
have been too full ; but then it must be remembered that they
largely describe traits and customs hitherto veiled from
secular eyes, and therefore have their interest. Nor ought
the words of Goethe to be forgotten, that ' On the lives of

Vlll PREFACE.
remarkable men ink and paper should least be spared.' My
ink, it is well to say at the outset, has not been expended in
chronicling any very eventful career. Great as Fr. Burke was
as an orator, he would have stood higher as a thinker had cir
cumstances arisen to reveal the depth and resources of his mind.
But it was not his lot to be mixed up with any great public
questions ; his history is little more than a personal one.
Readers who expect to find in this book any ambitious
composition will be disappointed. The testimony of succes
sive witnesses in an interesting inquiry makes no pretension
to artistic style ; but the evidence thus marshalled has its
value nevertheless. If my purpose was to produce a full
biographic essay like that of Sir J. Stephen on St. Francis,
no doubt it could be done, though not so well. Still I think
it might be more easily accomplished than to gather, as I
have done, from so many sundered sources, the testimony of
men whose knowledge on the subject had been previously
confined to themselves.
After what I have said about the consumption of ink, it
would be justly regarded as indefensible if I omitted any fact
of personal importance. It ought, therefore, to have been
mentioned at p. i66 of the first volume, had the matter then
been communicated to me, that Thomas Burke, not havin<3-
yet attained the canonical age at the date indicated in the
text, it became necessary to obtain a dispensation from Rome
before he could receive Priest's Orders.
May I also add— touching a passage in the book— that
there is some conflicting testimony as to whether an ancestor
of Fr. Burke was called MacAndrew or MacAuley.
W. J. F.
49 FiTZwiLLiAM Square, Iiublin.

CONTENTS OF
THE FIRST VOLUME.

INTRODUCTORY  1
I. BIRTH AND BOYHOOD OF NICHOLAS BURKE . . . 8
11.. THEATRICALS AND THEOLOGY— GALWAY DAYS CONTINUED 50
III. A.D. 1847. ^TAT. 17 . . ... 80
IV. MASTER OF NOVICES AT WOODCHESTER . . -133
V. AT TALLAGHT . .... . . 179
VI. WORK IN IRELAND . . . . . . 195
VII. CARDINAL CULLEN AND COMEDY . . . . 23I
VIII. PRIOR OF SAN CLEMENTE, ROME  245
IX. DOINGS IN THE ETERNAL CITY . . . . .280
X. THE VATICAN COUNCIL  3-1

LIFE OF
FATHER THOMAS BURKE.

INTRODUCTORY.
Father Burke, during one of the ovations with which
America hailed him as a great Irish patriot, surprised his
audience by declaring that he was a very humble representa
tive of the Norman invasion. He said this in reply to Mr.
Froude, who had included among the rebel Irish chieftains
the Burkes and the Desmonds.
The Norman arrived (Fr. Burke added). The Butlers and Fitz-
geralds went down into Kildare, the De Burgs or Burkes entered
Connaught. The people offered very little opposition, gave them a
portion of their lands, welcomed them, and began to love them as if
they were their own flesh and blood. . . . When they passed from
the English portion of the Pale, and went out amongst the people,
what is the first thing we see? They began to forget their Norman-
French and their English, and learned to talk Irish. They took
Irish wives, and were glad to get them, and adopted Irish customs j
until we find, two hundred years after the Norman invasion, these
proud descendants of William, Earl of Clanricarde, changing their
names from Burke to Mac William.
Passing on to the reign of Henry VIII. he said that —
During all these years the Norman Desmonds, the Geraldines,
the De Burgs, were the head and front of every rebellion. The
English complained of them and said they were worse than the Irish
rebels — that they were constantly fomenting disorders. Why?
Because they, as Norraans, were under the feudal laws, and the
VOL. I. B

2 LIFE OF FATHER THOMAS BURKE.
King's sheriff could come down on them at every turn, with fines and
forfeitures of the land held from the King. So, by keeping the
country in discord, they were always able to defy the sheriffs, and
they preferred the Irish freedom to the English feudalism; therefore
they kept up these discords. It was the boast of my kinsmen of
Clanricarde that, with the blessing of God, they would never allow a
King's writ to run in Connaught.
This was the only occasion on which Fr. Burke claimed
kinship to the lords of Connaught. A fine lady having
asked him if he belonged to the Burkes of Glinsk or to the
Clanricarde Burkes, he humbly replied that he was only the
son of a poor baker. Once, indeed, he styled his father ' the
Master of the Rolls ; ' but, as he jokingly added, he was a better
hand at making a bun than a pun.
Throughout the long dark night of penal persecution the
scattered descendants of the once proud Norman pursued the
uneven tenor of their way, grasping by turns the staff of the
pilgrim and the sword of the rebel.
My name of Burke, it is true, is a Norman name (he said), but it
is a name that has come down to me, through seven hundred years,
from sires and grandsires that knew how to bleed and to die for
Ireland. Thanks be to God, a man gets more of his nature — of his
heart and of his blood — from his mother than he does from his father ;
and my mother was a M'Donough, from Connemara, a stock that is
as purely Irish as ever was that of Hugh O'Neill, or Red Hugh
O'Donnell — as fiery in temper as ever St. Columbkille was, and he
was a true Irishman — as poor as England could make them, and,
God knows, that was poor enough— as proud as Lucifer, and as
Catholic as St. Peter. •
His grandmother was a MacAuley, or, as it is spelt in
Irish, MacAmhailgaidh. Mary MacAuley, according to the
family tradition, was so beautiful a woman that Martin,
commonly called 'Prince of Connemara,' got her portrait
painted and hung in Ballinahinch Castle. The MacAuleys
are said to have claimed kindred to the Martins, and to
5 ' On Temperance,' at Newark, New Jersey, U.S., October 23, 1S73.

introductory. 3
have shared in the vicissitudes of their race. Fr. Burke's
mother is described as Margaret MacDonough of Moycullen.
Sir Bernard Burke ^ states that the estate of the Martins
embraced Moycullen. The MacDonoughs were probably
tenants of Dick Martin, famous for his boast that he had an
avenue to his door thirty miles long. His last representative
died in destitution many years ago.^
How the senior branch of the Connaught Burkes became
Protestants like the Martins let Fr. Burke tell. Wentworth,
afterwards Earl of Strafford, Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland, had
obtained for King Charies I. from the Irish Pariiament six
' Vicissitudes of Families, 1st ser. p. 68.
^ The Marlins had conformed to the creed of the State ; and their house con
tinued to be represented through successive generations by prominent, if not
polished, men. Fr. Burke had preserved several traditions of Dick Martin, of
which one may be cited to show the humour of both. The Dominican,
when vindicating his countrymen against the charge of intemperance, said,
in a lecture at Boston, U.S., September 22, 1872 ; 'No enemy of ours ever
yet alleged that we were gluttons. Thanks be to God for that ! The Irishman
is a small eater, my friends. There was an Irish gentleman by the name of
Colonel Martin, of Ballinahinch. He was over in England, and made a bet with
an Englishman on this point. The Englishman said (he was a member of Par
liament also) : " You Irish are not worth anything ; you are not able to eat as
well as our people." Martin foolishly said : " I will bet you five hundred pounds
that I can bring you a man from my estate who can eat more than any English
man you bring. " The Englishman took the bet readily. The Irishman was brought
over, the Englishman also appeared — a fine, big, strapping man, with a mouth
reaching from ear to ear, and a great long body and short legs — plenty of room —
and, to put him in trim, he did not eat anything for two days. The poor Irish
man was brought in — a ploughman, with the fine bloom of health upon his face —
as well able to give an account of a sceagh of potatoes, with a ' ' griskin " or a bit
of bacon, as the best of you ; but he was no match for the Englishman. They
sat down to the work of eating. It was roast beef they got. The Englishman
stood behind his man's chair, and the Irishman stood behind /^z'j- man's chair, look
ing at them eating. After a while, the Irishman had got his fill, while the English
man was only beginning to eat in earnest. There was a turkey on the spit roasting
for the gentleman's dinner. Martin saw that his man was failing, and he spoke to
him in Irish. "Michael," said he, "what do you think?" And the man
replied, in the same tongue, "Oh, master, I'm full to the windpipe." Ashe
spoke in Irish, the Englishman did not understand him, and he asked Martin,
"What does the fellow say?" "He says," replied Martin, "that he is just
beginning to get an appetite, and he wants you to give him that turkey." " Con
found the blackguard," says the Englishman, " he shall never get a bit of it. I
give up the bet."' B 2

4 LIFE OF FATHER THOMAS BURKE.
subsidies of 5,000/. each. Great boons and graces were
promised to Ireland, but Strafford violated his pledge ; ' and,'
adds Burke, replying to Froude,
he instituted a Commission for the express purpose of confis
cating in addition to Ulster — that was already gone — the whole
province of Connaught, so as not to leave an Irishman or a Catholic
one square inch of ground in that land. This he called 'The Com
mission of Defective Titles.' They were to inquire into the title
that every man had to his property with the purpose of finding a
flaw in it, so that they could confiscate it to the Crown. Strafford
began by packing the jury. He told the jurors that he expected
them to find a verdict for the King; and between bribing them and
threatening them he got juries that found for him, until he came into
my own county of Galway. And to the honour of old Galway, be it
said, that as soon as the Commission arrived they could not find
twelve jurors base enough to confiscate the lands of their fellow-sub
jects. What was the result? The County Galway jurors were called
to Dublin before the Castle Council Chamber, and every man of
them was fined 4,000/., and put into prison until the fine was paid.
Their property was taken, and the High Sheriff of Galway died in
gaol because he was unable to pay the fine. Not content with
threatening the juries and coercing them, Strafford told the judges
they were to get four shillings in the pound for the value of every
piece of property they confiscated to the Crown. Then he boasted
publicly that he had made the judges attend to this business as if it were
their own private concern. . . . Strafford instituted another tribunal
called the ' Court of Wards.' It was found that the Irish people,
gentle and simple as they were, were very unwilling to become
Protestants. I have not a harsh word to say of Protestants ; every
high-minded Protestant must admire the strength and fidelity with
which Ireland, because of her conscience, clung to her ancient faith.
This tribunal was instituted in order to get the heirs of the Catholic
gentry and to bring them up Protestants ; and it is to tjfis Court of
Wards that we owe the significant fact that some of the most ancient
and the best names in Ireland — the names of men whose ancestors
fought for faith and fatherland — are now opposed to their Catholic
fellow-subjects. It was by such means that the men of my own
name became Protestants. There was no drop of Protestant blood
in the veitis of the dun Earl or red Earl of Clanricarde. There
was no drop of other than Catholic blood in the veins of the heroic

INTRODUCTORY. 5
Burkes who fought during the long five hundred years that. went
before this time.'
The penalty which followed the Martins overtook not the
MacDonoughs, who, nerved with self-reliance, held on their
course with industry and a good name. The brother of
Margaret MacDonough.familiarly known among the peasantry
by the name of Pedre Gow, continued to live at Moycullen
until his death. Margaret had been led to the altar by a man
who, probably without knowing it or bestowing a care on such
thoughts, bore an historic name in Galway. This was Walter
Burke, the father of the great Dominican. Heralds, when
seeking to identify an ancestor, are always glad to find his
distinctive Christian name transmitted through successive
generations. ' In 127 1,' writes Hardiman, 'Walter Burke, or
the Burgo, died in the Castle of Galway ; ' and under a sub
sequent Walter Burke the trade of Galway is described as
having greatly increased.^
Mr. O'Hartenumeratesseveral Walter Burkes who flourished
from A.D. 1332.^ Walter is the Christian name of Lord
MacWilliam Bourke in 1420.'' It is also found in the ennobled
branch of Baron Bourke.^ Previous to and after the Williamite
wars a further batch of Walter Burkes are named by Mr.
D'Alton, some of whom sat in the Parliament of 1689, and
others sat in cells as prisoners of war.^ Others embarked in
trade. In 1791 Walter Burke was Mayor of Galway.^
Another Walter Burke, having engaged in the Rebellion
of '98, lost a little property which he held on the Quay of
Galway. This man was the grandfather of Father Tom
Burke. He left four sons : i, Walter, father of the Domi-
' Fr. Burke's Reply to Mr. Froude, New York, November 19, 1872.
Lecture IV. — 'Ireland under Cromwell.'
2 Hist. Galway, p. 259. ' Irish Pedigrees, p. 418.
< Burke's Dormant and Extinct Peerage, p. 66. ' Ibid. p. 67.
' King James's Irish Army List, v. 2, p. 136. ' Hardiman, p. 259.
VOL. I. * B 3

6 LIFE OF FATHER THOMAS BURKE.
nican ; 2, Loughnan ; 3, Edmund (now Captain Burke, who
still lives and has given us these details), and, 4, Thomas,
who died young.
Concanon was the name of our friar's maternal grand
mother. If the Burkes were Norman, the Concanons were
Celtic to the marrow. 'The ancient Milesian family of
O'Concanon,' writes Sir Bernard Burke, ' derives its descent
from Dermot, brother of Murias, 29th king of Connaught, in
the ninth century.' But all such pride of ancestry our friar
held in small esteem. However, just as the Child in the
lowly house at Nazareth was related through Mary to the
royal race of David, such points, though no matter for boast,
are fair subject for history.
The date of Wat Burke's marriage with Margaret
MacDonough cannot be fixed. Her daughters say that she
never furnished any closer approximation to the time than
' we were fifteen years married when such and such an event
occurred.' The contracting parties attached small importance
to festive dates or social vanities. The oppressions of the
Penal Code left all Papists only too glad to pursue in peace
the humble crafts of their choice, while they saw the more
ambitious vainly try to soar with the chains of disability
clanking at their heels. Many became hewers of wood and
drav^ers of water.
I have more than once asked myself (said Fr. Burke) what is
it that condemns this race, whom God has blessed with so much
intellect and genius, upon whom He has lavished so many of His
highest and holiest gifts, crowning all widi that gift of national faith,
that magnificent tenacity, that, in spite of all the powers of earth or
hell, has clung to the living Christ and His Church — what it is that
has condemned this race to be in so many lands the hewers of wood
and the drawers of water? Q,uce. regio in tcrris nostri mvi plena
laboris ? Where is the nation or the land that has not witnessed our
exile and our tears ] '
' Lecture on the E.\iles of Eiin, New York, M.iy 22, 1S72.

INTRODUCTORY. 7
Some of Wat Burke's people became involved in the
common vicissitude. When returning thanks for his health
at a civic banquet in 1877, Fr. Burke said that he had replied
to an English lady who once ridiculed his brogue, ' " My
father had it before me, but some of his progenitors had no
brogue." " How is that .-' " said she. '' Because they wore
only traheens," said I.' '
Well, if they wore not brogues, perhaps their ancestor
wore, like Malachi, a collar of gold.
In the ' Act to prevent the further growth of Popery,' the
importance of Galway being garrisoned by Protestants is
distinctly stated, and ' that no person professing the Popish
religion shall or may after March 24, 1703, take any house or
tenement or come to dwell in the city of Galway or its
suburbs.' Be this as it may, Wat Burke was found here early in the
present century, always busily engaged in assisting the friars
in their humble chapels, exercising his vote in favour of
Bowes Daly, the friend of Grattan, and earning a reputation
for baking good bread and for singing good songs.
' Brogue is the name of a heavy shoe. Traheens leave the naked sole un
protected, and are confined to the upper leathers.

LIFE OF FATHER THOMAS BURKE.

CHAPTER I.
BIRTH AND BOYHOOD OF NICHOLAS BURKE.
Brother Thomas Burke, called in the world Nicholas, the son of
Walter Burke and Margaret MacDonough, who were joined in lawful
wedlock, was born in the city of Galway, in the kingdom of Ireland,
on the eighth day September in the year 1830, as appears from the
credible testimony of the Rev. George Commens, parish priest of
that town.
This entry, dated ' Die vigesima nona Decembris, anno
1847,' appears in the records of the old Dominican Convent
at Perugia, where Nicholas Burke made his novitiate and
solemn profession.' September 8 is the Feast of the Nativity
of the Blessed Virgin Mary, towards whom, as will be seen,
he always manifested special devotion ; and it is no less note
worthy that, while in his last illness he invoked ' Mary, Help
of Christians,' he lingered until the Feast of her Visitation.
His pious mother had often quoted the words of St. Bernard
in the twelfth century, ' Devotion to Mary is a mark of
predestination.' ^
My mother had presentiment that I would be born on Sep
tember 10, the Feast of St. Nicholas of Tolentine, and made almost a
' The entry is in Latin:— 'Fr. Thomas Burke in sceculo vocitus Nicolaus
filius Walthieri Burke et Margaritse McDonough legitimorum conjugum, natus
in civitate Galvi.iain Hybernice Regno die octava Septembris anno 1830 ut constat
ex fide Rev. Georgii Commens Parochi ejusdem.'
^ Among other distinguished men born in Galway may be mentioned the
eminent preacher Walter Blake Kirwan; Roderick O 'Flaherty, author of the
Ogygia ; John Lynch [Cambrensis Eversus); Patrick d'Arcy, author of .-;;-^«wf«/
for Ireland (A.D. 1641); James Hardiman, the historian of Galway; and the
eminent chemist Richard Kirwan, who, like Walter Blake Kirwan, Dean of
Killala, had been also a Catholic.

BIRTH OF NICHOLAS BURKE. 9
vow that in such case I should follow his ' order,' but if I turned out
to be a girl, I was to become a Sister of Mercy.'
So long a period elapsed between the birth of the third
sister and of Nicholas, that the parish stared when he
appeared. Margaret MacDonough, of Moycullen, his mother,
had been a woman of some beaut}-, and her appearance to
the last was striking. Wat Burke had been a stooped
elderly man as long as most Galway people could remember
him, but noted for his vivacity, and he took with good humour
the congratulations which greeted him on all sides after the
birth of little Nicholas. It has been naturally assumed and
generally asserted that Nicholas received that name in com
pliment to St. Nicholas of Myra, the patron saint of Galway ;
but it was the Augustinian St. Nicholas of Tolentine to whose
patronage he was consigned. Such intimate relations sub
sisted between the Burkes and the Augustinian Friars of
Galway that hopes of his adhesion to the order had long been
cherished. The selection of his second name was due to the
fact that Mrs. Burke had early evinced a special devotion to
' Good Saint Anthony.' When anything was lost by the
neighbours they prayed her to use her known influence with
that saint to effect its restoration, and the result was on
the whole satisfactory. It is told in Galway by persons quite
unconnected with her family that her last success was the
discovery of some heifers which had strayed away from Mr.
Ferguson, of Windfield.
That ' Father Tom ' was christened ' Anthony ' as well as
Nicholas will be new even to Galway. How it came about
must not be ignored, though the circumstance is one of
sacredly domestic interest. Fr. Ralph, O.P., having visited
Mrs. Burke during her decrepitude, she made some marked
allusion to St. Anthony in course of conversation. 'I see
you are a client of St. Anthony,' said the priest. 'Why
' Fr. Burke to Miss Edith Moore.

10 LIFE OF FATHER THOMAS BURKE.
shouldn't I be.?' was the reply; 'didn't St. Anthony send
him to me .' ' She had indeed prayed that God, through the
intercession of this saint, might manifest His power and good
ness by sending a baby boy ; and at last one came to fill the
long disused nursery-chair and brighten by its prattle the
heart and hearth of the old man.'
How old Mrs. Burke must have been when she gave birth
to Nicholas may be inferred from his assurance to Fr.
Reginald that she would describe to him scenes she had
witnessed in the last century.
Two sons had previously died, to the parents' great
sorrow, but it afforded them some satisfaction to think that
if five of their children were born helots, Nicholas at least
came into the world emancipated.
On April 13, 1829 (he records), emancipation was proclaimed, and
seven millions of Catholic Irishmen entered the nation's legislature
in the person of O'Connell. It was the first and the greatest victory
of peaceful principle which our age ever witnessed ; the grandest
triumph of justice and of truth, the most glorious victory of the
genius of one man, and the first great act of homage which Ireland's
rulers paid to the religion of the people.^
The house in which Nicholas was born stood in Kirwan's
Lane, off Cross Street, Galway, and is now reduced to ruins.
The family afterwards removed to Dominick Street. ' My
mother,' observes Fr. Burke, ' had been a Franciscan Tertiary,
or a member of the Third Order of St. Francis. All the
confraternities looked grave when she approached the altar
' Margaret Burke rather reminds one of Jane d'Aza, the mother of St.
Dominic, who with a similar object used to go to an old monastery and pray
over the tomb of a sainted abbot of that name. One night Jane d'Aza dreamt
that the coming child — also a third son — was born, under the form of a dog,
who, with a burning torch in his mouth, was setting the world on fire. This
dream caused Jane intense sadness lest her child should be a turbulent man ; ' so
she prayed with increased fervour, and later it was revealed th.at the child
would be a faithful watchdog of the Church, setting the world on fire by his
burning faith.'
' Fr, Burke's Funeral Oration on O'Connell, Glasnevin, 1869.

NURSED BY BIDDY. II
of Hymen.' In point of fact, however, it is only cloistered
Tertiaries who require leave to marry. How thoroughly
her association with the rule of St. Francis spiritualised her
mind and shaped the future of her son the sequel will afford
abundant proof. ' Not content with sanctifying his sons in the
cloister by his holy rules,' Father Burke says, ' the saint, in his
zeal and love for souls, went out, and in the foundation of his
third order instituted a tradition of sanctity and grace which
were peculiarly his own.' ' Unlike Jane d'Aza, no startling
revelation was made to Margaret Burke— a matter-of-fact
woman who paid no heed to dreams. But the night her tiny
son was born — Fr. Eustace states— a distinct belief pre
vailed in the house that it was destined to hold in anointed
hands the Banner of the Cross.
Mr. Kyne, a merchant of Galway, a man of robust
common sense and decision of character, stood sponsor. Mrs.
Burke chose Mrs. Keene as godmother because of her great
holiness. After she had discharged her duties at the bap
tismal font, she said, as Miss Burke well remembers, handing
back the baby to its mother, ' Here now is Father Nicholas
for you.'- The baptism took place two days after his birth
— namely, September lo, the Feast of St. Nicholas of
Tolentine. Those were not the days of feeding-bottles. Mrs. Burke,
being unable to do much for the baby herself, made inquiries
for a healthy nurse. At last ' Biddy,' a woman who seemed
fitted to fulfil all requirements, was found and duly installed.
In after years Fr. Burke's great fame afforded her natural
pride ; and during his ovations she made pilgrimages to see, and
if possible to kiss, her lovely boy. Nor was it in Connaught
' Panegyric on St. Francis of Assisi, Oct. 4, 1884.
' ' Of what avail to me that a man pour water on my head and say, ' ' I baptize
thee in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost," unless that baptism, that
water, have sacramental influence, instituted by the Lord, endowed with a peculiar
power for this purpose — the cleansing of the soul —and be tinged mystically wilh
the saving blood of the Redeemer ? ' — F&. Thomas Burke.

12 LIFE OF FATHER THOMAS BURKE.
alone that she followed his career thus literally. When Father
Burke was giving a mission at Manchester in 1863, who should
come upon the scene, radiant with ' love and pride,' but Biddy
herself .? Her love for Father Tom was increased by the fact
that all her own children had died.'
Besides the two brothers deceased, three sisters had
preceded Nicholas ; and baby soon became ' the pet of the
petticoats.'^ The names Bridget and Mary — those of his
surviving sisters — he ever after regarded with peculiar ten
derness. Lecturing on St. Patrick in America, he spoke of
devotion to Mary as a great feature of Ireland's Catholicity.
They called her in their prayers ' Miden dheelisk,' their darling
Virgin. In every family the eldest daughter was a Mary ; every
Irish maid or mother emulated the purity of her virginal innocence,
or the strength and tenderness of her maternal love. With the keen
ness of love they associated their daily sorrows and joys with hers ;
and the ineffable grace of maiden modesty which clung to the very
mothers of Ireland seemed to be the brightest reflection of Mary
which had lingered upon the earth. Oh, how harshly upon the ears
of such a people grated the detestable voice which would rob Mary of
her graces, and rob the world of the light of her purity and the glory
of her example ! Never was she so dear to Ireland as in the days of
the nation's persecution and sorrow. Not even in that bright day,
when the Virgin Mother seemed to walk the earth, and to have made
Ireland her home, in the person of St. Bridget, was her name so
dear and the love of her so strong, as in the dark and terrible time
when, church and altar being destroyed, every cabin in the land
resounded with Mary's name, and invoked in the Holy Rosary the
great devotion that saved Ireland's faith.
Until he became a regular schoolboy the child was not
distinguished for precocity. We do not hear of him, as of St.
Dominic, that he would creep out of his warm cot and lie on
' Fr. Albert Buckler, now Prior at Haverstock Hill, was his companion in
this mission. He tells us that Fr, Burke seemed not less delighted to see Biddy
and gave her, on leaving, a nice present.
2 Honor, of whom anon, is dead. Miss Bridget Burke, now of Galwav,
and Mary, married to Mr. Patrick Ferguson, of Windfield, survive.

THE ANGEL'S WHISPER. I 3
the ground as a commencement of his ascetic life. Whether
our babe felt so inclined, certain it is that Biddy, his nurse,
would not permit it. He heard from her, however, some little
incidents to which he made allusion at St. Gabriel's Church,
New York. Speaking of what he described as the excess of
credibility, or Irish superstition, which makes it so easy to
realise the unseen, he asked—
What could be more beautiful than some of its forms, as for
instance when the mother rocks her infant in the cradle and it smiles
in its sleep ? There is a mysterious ray of gladness and sunshine that it
never remembers, but which certainly passes over the innocent young
soul. Now the Irish mother rocking her child, as soon as she sees it
smile, bends down, kisses the child, and says it is an angel that has
come to whisper to her infant something of the joy it itself feels
before God. How beautiful the idea is ; how delicate is the thought
and the sentiment ; how motherly is the act and the faith which that
act proves ! We believe as Catholics that the child baptized becomes
as an angel of God ; that no sin nor approach of sin is there ; that
until that child comes to years of reason, and consequently is capable
of committing a personal sin, it is in the eye of God even as one of
His angels. This we Catholics beUeve, because we believe in the
efficacy of baptismal regeneration. There is no fear of a Catholic
priest, as I have known other ministers do, take ten or twelve
children in a district and baptize them all together by dipping his
finger into the water and giving them a sprinkle. There is no fear of
a Catholic priest denying baptismal regeneration and then fighting
his bishop on it, holding it as the truth.
His sisters describe him in childhood as so puny that his
mother never regarded him in any other light than as a loan
from God. This delicacy kept him a good deal indoors. A
kinswoman of his, now a Sister of Charity, informs us — and
he himself told the same to others — that he used to equip
himself from his mother's wardrobe, and taking his place in
an upper window discourse fine music from some instrument
that puzzled the street, but which was by tuiais a shoe-horn
and a comb. The neighbours were so much interested that
they called to ask the name of the lady on a visit with the

14 LIFE OF FATHER THOMAS BURKE.
Burkes. Fr. Burke told Mr. Hodgens that sometimes he
would put his mother's muff on his head and personate a
Grenadier drummer.
By degrees his nerves and muscles strengthened, and the
irrepressible vitality of his nature began to assert itself
beyond domestic bounds. It will be remembered that Galway
carts have projections behind almost rivalling in length the
shafts in front. He told Mr. M. O'Flaherty, J.P., that when
he observed an empty cart leaving the town he flung himself
upon the projection ; up went the shafts, ' and if,' as he said,
' the horse had any kick in him, a sensation scene took place,
all the attention of the driver became directed to his horse,
and in the midst of the confusion the cause of it — convulsed
with laughter — would decamp.' Another confession was that
he threw a mouse into the churn of an incurable scold. This
act so roused the ire of her household that half the parish
was searched for the offender, who, with the agility of a lepre-
caun, eluded grasp after grasp.
To the Pastor of Galway Fr. Burke mentioned that some
times, when Mrs. Burke happened to call her husband from
another room, he, mimicking his father's voice, would answer for
him, and generally contrive to introduce some pert or gro
tesque word which could hardly fail to rouse retorts. Anon,
still personating the father, he would call out to his mother
from the foot of the stairs some protest againgt an imaginary
act, the more irritating because undeserved. One word led to
another, much to the glee of the concocter, and, indeed, also
of the father as soon as he became alive to the trick.'
> Other members of the family besides "Wat Burke showed that marvellous
humour which descended to our hero. Augustus Burke, familiarly known as
'Augy,' performed many tricks on his townsfolk, which Mr. Lynch often
heard the Dominican beg his father to recount. So confidently is the following
attributed in Galway to ' Father Tom's boyhood ' that we at fir.st expressly gave
it to him in this page ; but rigid tests at last dethroned it : —
A tinker named Greene lived in a cellar and exhibited at his door for sale
crubeens, lobsters, and eggs, not of the freshest. Like Bill Sykes, a dog usually
attended him. One day when ' Bounce ' was meandering, Augy Burke tied to

BEATEN BY A NUN.

iS

' Nicholas was gifted with the power of being able to catch any
form of sound, and reproduce it to perfection,' writes Canon Burke.
' From the crow of a cock to the cackle of a hen, from the volubihty
of the turkey to the chirp of the goldfinch, he puzzled the neighbours
by his vocal tricks.' In this respect, at least, he did not resemble
St. Guthlac, of whom it is recorded : ' Non variorum volucrum di-
versos crocitus, ut adsolet ilia Eetas, imitabatur.'
A community of nuns at Galway, who had survived the
rigours of the Penal Laws, possessed some energetic habits
which nowadays would not be found in their more gentle
representatives. From my boyhood (said Fr. Burke) I had a keen sense of the
ludicrous. When acting as an acolyte something occurred which
stirred my risible faculties. One of the Dominican nuns brought me
into the Convent and gave me a beating. Sobbing I went home to
my mother : ' Oh ! my blessed boy,' she cried, ' did the Lord's
anointed lay their hands on you ? ' '
He remarked that on a subsequent occasion he had been
beaten in error by the same nun, and she said, ' I am
very sorry for the mistake, Nicholas, but your own good sense
will tell you that often when you richly deserved a whip
ping you escaped.' Mrs. Burke finally felt grateful to the
his tail a can and then hastened to the tinker's to watch the result. Soon the dog
was in full speed, followed by boys, with vpild halloos, flinging missiles. Down
rushed Bounce into his master's den, overturning lobsters, cans, kettles, crubeens,
eggs, and dust-pans. The tinker, suspecting Augy Burke, hurled a lobster at his
head, and amid renewed uproar chased him to the Claddagh.
Galwegians to this day give ' Father Tom ' the credit of the following inci
dent ; but on strict inquiry it appears that of this Augy Burke was also the hero.
Old Wat Burke, while tears streamed down his cheeks with laughter, used to tell
his son for the hundredth time the adventure of ' Uncle Augy : ' —
A large heap of manure remained exposed in one of the back streets of the
ancient town. The owner was urged to remove it, but in vain. Burke on a
market day affected to sell it, and an amusing altercation subsequently took place
at the heap between two men who had brought carts, each believing himself the
buyer. A crowd collected, and in the midst of the row the owner appeared,
demanding to know 'Who dar sell his dung?' 'I'd almost say that is he,'
replied one of the buyers, pointing to Burke, ' only the man who sould it to me
was blind of an eye. '
' When telling this story Fr. Burke sometimes said ' the .Spouse of the Lord '
— which is more likely to have been the phrase Mrs. Burke used.

1 6 LIFE OF FATHER THOMAS BURKE.
energetic sister. Some years before his death Fr. Burke, his
mother, and the nun met. The incident he himself described.
' You ought to throw yourself on your knees in gratitude to
this good nun, who by her correction has helped to make you
what you are.'
Wat Burke was the senior of his wife. He was a little
thick-set man, and his son, after silently studying him for
some minutes, asked, ' Was it his dancing, or what, that
took your fancy, mother .' ' His family, however, say they
never saw him dance, though his small feet seemed naturally
formed for ' steps.'
Music was Wat's ruling passion. His worthy friend Andrew
Lynch has often seen him, his hand reposing in his breast,
slowly follow a ballad-singer from street to street, and com
pletely absorbed in the song. And it is to be feared that
while the burning words of the minstrel lured him onward,
the staff of life was sometimes suffered to burn in the oven.
In the father's footsteps the son followed. His sister
Mary tells that Fr. Burke, when one day hurrying to keep
some important appointment, happening to hear a minstrel
play an air from Meyerbeer's ProfMte, in the streets of
Rome, stood spell-bound, and lost his appointment.
When we consider the nature of music (says Fr. Burke), the
philosophy of music, do we not find that it is of all other appeals to the
senses the most spiritual ; that it is of all other appeals to the soul the
most powerful ; that it operates not as much by the mode of reflec
tion as in exciting the memory and the imagination, causing the
spirit and the affections of men to rise to nobler efforts, and to thrill
with sublime emotions and influences ? And, therefore, I say it is of
all other sciences the most noble and the most godlike, and the
grandest that can be cultivated by man on this earth.
' He went on to say that he was not speaking of the laboured
compositions of some great master — of a wonderful Mass or
a grand oratorio — works that appeal to the ear refined and
attuned by culture — works that delight the critic.

A ROMAN CATHOLIC BISHOP MARRIES. 1 7
I speak of the song that lives in the hearts and voices of the
people, the true national minstrelsy that conies down traditionally
from remote ages, until, in a more cultivated era, it is interpreted
into vn-itten characters, and then the world discovers beautiful
melody in the music that has been murmured in our mountain
valleys for hundreds and thousands of years.
Speaking of the passion of Irishmen for music, and how
it helped to relieve care, he said : —
Over and over again, on a Saturday, when the market day in
Galway had closed, and when perhaps the evening was wet, I have
seen some poor man returning home, walking along by the side of
his little cart ; and whilst the miserable horse was often hungry and
inclined to stand on the way, I have heard this poor man crooning
an old song, the beast with ears hanging down wending its weary
way.' Wat Burke did not know any musical instrument scien
tifically, but he taught his daughter Mary by ear a large
repertoire of fine Irish airs, which she still performs on the
piano. He was delighted to welcome the humblest musical
talent. A poor man used regularly to wait upon him to play
on the flute what is described as ' the most doleful of airs.'
Wat sat out the performance quite as much from a sense
of duty as from pleasure. One day he was sitting at his shop
door, when a piper began to play. ' It strikes me,' said Wat,
' that it is thirty years since I heard you play ; where have
you been since .' ' 'In America.' ' And in all that time have
you learned no new air t ' ' Not one,' said the piper. As
years advanced and decades gathered he became a little
absent— finally a little childish, and tears fell as some plain
tive song, familiar in boyhood, caught his ear. He sang many
Irish ditties,
but in no song (observes Mr, Lynch) was he more effective than in a
ballad which narrated feelingly the fall of Dr. Buder, Lord Dunboyne,
whom he had seen officiate as Roman Catholic Bishop of Cork. He
would describe him, mitre-crowned, singing the High Mass at St.
Finbar's, and on a subsequent occasion conducting a lady from his
1 Speech at the concert for St. Xavier's Schools, Liverpool, October 18, 1880,
VOL. L C

1 8 LIFE OF FATHER THOMAS BURKE.
carriage whom he married to perpetuate the peerage of Dunboyne.
His recantation, the failure of all his plans, and his final return to
the bosom of holy Church, were all sung with touching pathos by old
Wat Burke.
' The Jolly Miller ' and ' The Miller and his Men ' were
very favourite songs fifty years ago. Some people seem to
have supposed that so musical a baker must necessarily be a
miller, and we have heard persons who visited Galway de
scribe his big wheel near the bridge, suggestive of that in La
Somiambula. But that wheel was not Wat Burke's, and he
was a miller only so far that he often bought the rough grain
in the market and then sent it to the mill to be ground.
He was a large-hearted man, and his generosity to all was
restrained only by the limitation of his means. In his wife he
found a worthy ally. After her marriage she became a
member of the Sodality of Mount Carmel at the Augustinian
Friary, and daily heard Mass there. Galway then, as now,
abounded in professional beggars, but her motto was, ' Give
unto all, lest he whom you refuse should be Christ.' When
going out she would bring a bag of coppers with her, and
' feed the beggars the whole way.'
How different was all this to the cruel trick which
Colonel O'Malley played on the beggars of Galway ! They
had often worried him, and at last he told them to meet him
at his hotel next morning at ten. They assembled in their
hundreds, some borne on the backs of others, all full of fer
vent praise of O'Malley, only to find the heartless humourist
on the balcony of the hotel with a Bible in his hand, and
swearing by its contents that while he lived he would not give
one of them a penny.'
• We owe to Dr. Burke, Local Government Board Inspector, this and some
other curious traits of a bygone type of humourist. He adds that O'Malley had no
sooner spoken than the surging crowd, as if by one impulse, fell on their knees
and cursed him. Whenever the mail-coach containing O'Malley would stop to
change horses all the beggars thronged to the windows, some trying to arouse his
attention by prodding him with their horny fingers. He would rapidly raise the
gtu-„s, and by squeezing their fingers compel them to withdraw. One old crone

THE MACDONOUGHS. 1 9
To the solemnity of Margaret Burke her worthy husband
presented a marked contrast. Miss Bridget Burke informs
us that such was the congeniality of disposition between old
Wat and his son that they seemed more like brothers. Often
she has seen them walking together, the son laughing im
moderately at the sire's stories, and vice versa. ' You'll be
the ruin of that boy, teaching him such folly ; why not show
him an example of gravity and decorum .' ' became a daily
remonstrance with old Mrs. Burke. This sort of intercourse
continued for years ; and when in the zenith of his fame
Fr. Burke visited his aged father, he would amiably encourage
the more than twice-told tales by counterfeiting fits of laughter.
It will be remembered that Margaret Burke's race — the
MacDonoughs— hailed from Connemara. Fr. Burke told the
Rev. D. Mulcahy that her relatives, whenever they paid her a
visit at Galway, always knelt down and recited with her the
' Rosary ' in Irish, and that their very name Donoch was
derived from ' Domnach,' signifying ' Sunday.'
Andy MacDonough acquired by his gravity quite a
judicial repute. He lived at Killeen, in the barony of Dun-
kellin. No Petty Sessions Court was held nearer than Spiddal,
a distance of nine miles. A dispute about a goose once
arose, which cost the litigants 10/. owing to adjournments of
the case. It was finally agreed upon by the people that
henceforth Andy MacDonough should decide all disputes. He
regularly held his Arbitration Court, the chair supported on
either side by the local priests. Fathers Quinn and O'Dwyer.'
tied a cloth round her wrist and protruded her hand for a coin. It held its position
stoutly. ' I swear by this book, ' he said, 'that never  ' 'Don't swear,' she
said, ' your honour's word is as good. '
' Fr. Quinn— now the esteemed Pastor of Oranmore, to whom we owe this
fact — is the cousin of Fr. Burke.
How is it that the Burkes, unlike the MacDonoughs, were noted for pleasant
buoyancy ? Those who have heard the lecture of Dr. Geikie, F.R. S., on ' Types
of Landscape : their Origin and Infiuence on Human Temperament and Flistory,'
may seek in his arguments for some solution of the divergent natures which
marked the two races. The Donochs, or MacDonoughs, hailed from the Irish
Highlands. 'The Highlander,' says Dr. Geikie, 'found himself pent up in
c 2

20 LIFE OF FATHER THOMAS BURKE.
' I remember a time in my life when not one word of the
English I now speak to you was on these lips, but only the
sweet old rolling Celtic tongue that my father and mother
spoke before me.' These words occur in Fr. Burke's lecture
at New York on St. Laurence O'Toole. Knowing how
generally English was spoken at Galway, this statement led
us to make some inquiry. ' Nicholas,' writes Canon Burke,
'was put out to nurse at Oranmore, where he remained until,
at least, his fifth year. He heard no language spoken but the
Irish, and his childish prattle was lisped in it.' He eventually
acquired a command of the vernacular; and we learn from
one of his American interviewers that ' among the poems which
he first committed to memory were the most popular of
Archbishop MacHale's Irish translations of the Melodies.'
Luckily he did not live in the days of Edward III., when as
he tells us in replying to Mr. Froude,
Lionel, Duke of Clarence, the King's son, came to Ireland and
held a Parliament, and passed, among other laws : ' If any man speak
the Irish language, or be found keeping company with the Irish, or
adopUng Irish customs, his lands shall be taken from him and
forfeited to the Crown of England.'
Galway suffered forty years ago from the inconvenience
of having no water supply for the houses of the citizens, unless
by the purchase of bucketfuls from men who fetched it throuo-h
the streets. A wild member of the craft was known by the
nickname of ' Ma-the-bucket.' Whenever Nicholas Burke or
narrow glens and surrounded by sombre mountains, and had to make out his
existence from a stony soil in a wet and cheerless climate. The natural charac
teristics of the race had been consequently replaced in his case by a serious tinge
of melancholy deepening into gloom and a sternness of character. Those in
fluences were even traceable in the features of different people. In the Highlands
the grim-set, clenched aspect of the faces was suggestive of strife with the'sur-
rounding elements. He had been told that where the country N,as very flat, the
people all had a broad grin more or less stamped on their faces, and the reason
given for it was that the roads were very straight, and people meeting each other
recognised one another so far off before they met that the smile of recocrnition
gradually developed into a grin, and this had become confirmed in the features of
the inhabitants all about the place. The characteristics of landscape had also
affected the poetry and the literature of districts.'

' THE GALWAY CURSE.' 2 1
others shouted out this nickname, it stung him to fury. Lay
ing down his buckets on the pavement, and seizing up stones,
clods, turf, and sometimes even bad fish, he hurled them after
those who manifested disrespect. He was quite regardless
whom he hit, and the innocent sometimes suffered while 'the
lads ' escaped. • Indeed, it more than once happened that while
' Ma ' was directing a fusillade in front, his arch-foe got rapidly
round by a dtftoitr to the rear, and upset the contents of his
buckets. Another odd character was a cobbler who worked at a
stall exposed in the street. He was known only by the nick
name ' Egypt,' and Burke when passing always greeted him
by it. The cobbler would start up, drop the brogue he was
hammering, and, seizing his great knife, rush down the street
in pursuit. These scenes, in addition to the comicality of a
pantomime, bore at times the glow of actual battle. ' By the
people,' Fr. Burke said, ' I was more than once threatened
with the Galway Curse.' 'And what might that be .?' ' Itching
without scratching,' was its rude translation.
Some of the queer people that thronged Galway in those
days were idiots whom the county asylums have since
received. Fr. Burke told his cousin the priest that, inte
rested by his father's stories, and retaining himself piquant
recollections of several queer fellows, he, long after, accosted
a survivor of the band, and asked what had become of ' Dick.'
' Ah, yer reverence,' was the reply, ' he left Galway about the
same time as yourself and another fool'
There were other strange characters and customs which
Fr. Burke must be allowed to describe. Condemning at
Hartford, U.S., a boast often heard — ' This is a free country,
where we can all do as we like ' — he said —
AVhen I was a young boy, a beggar in the West of Ireland was in
the habit of threatening people. He would meet a man or a woman
in a lonely place, and walk up and say : ' Give me something, or
else  ' (drawing off in a menacing attitude). One day a burly fellow

22 LIFE OF FATHER THOMAS BURKE.
as big as he was met him. The beggar drew up as usual and said :
' Give me something, or else  ' 'Or else what?' thundered the
other. 'Or else I shall have to go without it,' said the beggar,
viewing the strong shoulders before him. In those days beggars
were the only free men in the land. One of them went into a
farmer's house, and sat down to the table and helped himself without
saying as much as ' By your leave.' He stayed* several days, till
finally the farmer said : ' As you have taken so much liberty, I will
take the liberty to kick you out,' which he did.'
Fr. Burke went on to say that liberty does not consist in
every man doing what he- likes. Liberty consisted in every
man, high or low, having his own rights, knowing them, and
being protected in the exercise of them. He added that he
would rather live in Russia with three rights than in a country
where every one could do as he pleased.
Scattered through his discourses, delivered in many lands,
homely pictures are found which may be pressed into the
mosaic of his life. That the innocently wild boy was yet an
observant boy, and could think deeply, is shown in some of
those retrospects. In the midst of his grandest orations his
voice would suddenly drop to trace some grotesque image.
After describing the nobility of man, made in the image
and likeness of God, he drew a picture of the victim of
drunkenness. Stand over him, my friends, and look at him as he hes there.
Speak to him. You might as well speak to a corpse. Reason with
him. You might as well reason with that table. Ask him to look
at you. There is no light in his eyes. Did you ever see a man
stupidly drunk and look into his eyes ? I remember, when I was a
little boy, seeing, at home, in the kitchen, in Galway, hanging up on
a hook behind the kitchen door, a hake, that my mother had bought
the day before. I was curious enough to go up and look at its eyes.
It had been dead about twelve hours. That same day I saw a man
drunk, lying in the gutter. Boy as I was, I said to myself, ' The
hake's eye again ! ' ^
Lecturing on the ' Evils of Ireland and their Remedy ' at
' ' On Civil and Religious Liberty. '
2 ' Drunkenness the Worst Degradation,' New Jersey, September 17, 1872.

DISGUISED AS A BALLAD-SINGER. 23
Harlem, U.S., October 14, 1872, he alludes to 'his grand
father,' who seems to have been in arms in '98. His hearers
were democratic, and as usual he sought to enlist the sympa
thies of his audience.
I remember, when I was a boy, hearing at my own home the whole
story, from an old grandfather, who was himself a strong man in '98
and saw the whole thing pass before his eyes ; and he said these
words — that the united effort would have been successful, but ' the
boys ' got drunk. It was the drink that filled the river Slaney with
Irish dead bodies on the day when they made their last stand on
Vinegar Hill.
Three days after, lecturing at New York, he said : ' My
fathers before me were the sufferers, and I myself have beheld
the remnants of their sorrow.'
The dark era of the Rebellion Wat Burke remembered
with that mingled tear and smile in his eye Avhich descended
as a little heirloom to his son. Lecturing on the Church at
Brooklyn, U.S., in 1872, Fr. Burke mentioned : — ¦
There was a fool in the county of Galway in '98, the ' year of the
troubles,' and General Merrick went down to Galway and com
manded the troops. They were hanging the people then. The fool
saw the General ride up with his cocked hat and the white feather in
it, at the head of his troops. The fool made a cocked hat for him
self, and put a white feather in it. Then he walked around the town
and said he was General Merrick.
Father Burke told this in reply to an evangelical opponent
who, denying Catholic infallibility, claimed himself the right
to guide, to lead, and to teach.
It is about this time that he is described by his kinswoman
the nun as going into the street as a ballad-singer, his features
disguised by a slouched hat, and his purpose kept a secret
from the family. He moved on slowly, carolling the while,
followed by a small crowd, until he at last halted before the
parental homestead. Wat Burke, a man inferior to his wife
in acumen, happened to be at his door, and was so moved by
the ditty that, not suspecting who the recipient was, he pressed
some money into the singer's hand.

24 LIFE OF FATHER THOMAS BURKE.
His next freak was to counterfeit the appearance of one
of the grotesque cripples with which Galway, even to this
day, is full. But his sister Mary is not aware of his attempt
ing the trick on anyone except his father, along the step of
whose door he stretched himself one evening when the old
man was seen in the distance wending his way home.
' Nicholas must go to school,' said Mrs. Burke sternly ;
and accordingly he was placed under the preceptorial care
of Mr. Magrath. This man, who partook of the character
istics of Mr. Wackford Squeers, liked to inflict corporal chas
tisement on his pupils. Learning and blows were with him
almost convertible terms. ' If I cannot drive it into your
head, I'll drive it into you somewhere,' was a phrase of his
as stroke after stroke fell on the screaming victim.
Old Magrath and his eldest son (writes Mr. Winston Dugan)
were two very queer-looking men — awkward, ugly, ungainly — real
old types of the pedagogue. Their school was in Cross Street.
Burke was constantly mimicking and playing tricks such as he well
knew how upon these men.
Among the schoolboys was Mr. J. J. Brady, now C.E.,
Galway. One day (Mr. Brady says) Magrath struck with a blackthorn
a youth named Bodkin. Before a second blow could fall a small
ink-bottle was hurled against Magrath's nose. The name of the
child who threw it did not fully transpire, but it is my full impres
sion that the lucky interposition was accomplished by Burke.
The circumstances under which Burke left Magrath's
school must not be concealed. This man had a dog of un
prepossessing aspect. By dint of dividing his lunch with it,
however, Burke was able to take liberties which others dare
not attempt. An apartment off the schoolroom, known as
' the masther's sanctum,' contained a pile of slates and books,
surrounded by ink jars, and some eatables so placed that they
might be out of the dog's reach. Nicholas got half a dozen
school slates, and passing a string through the orifice of each

SCENE AT MAGRATPI'S SCHOOL. 25
tied them to the tail of Magrath's dog. Away ran the
animal with deafening din until, penetrating the sanctum,
he overturned with a crash the crazy pyramid just described.
Straightway Mr. Magrath sallied forth, his brows black as
midnight. Citing Nicholas before his terrible tribunal, he
ordered him to be stripped and to be placed on the back of
Magrath, jun., in order to afford facilities for the applica
tion of the rod already in pickle. Retreat was hopeless. But
young Burke was equal to the occasion. He placed firmly
between his teeth a pin, to be used as a wasp wields his sting.
He was duly hoisted — a blow fell heavily. The sufferer
seemed to kiss, not the rod, but the back of the neck of
Magrath's son. The latter screeched, dropped his burthen,
and ran down Buttermilk Lane yelling, followed by Nicholas,
the schoolmaster himself, and most of his pupils.' Nicholas
fled on, got into Lombard Street Churchyard, thence into
Cross Street, Magrath still in pursuit, till Burke dodged him
by rushing through a drove of pigs going towards the quay,
and afterwards escaping by some of the lanes of Middle Street.
If, as has been seen, two of the tricks hitherto fathered on
our hero failed to stand the searching inquiry we. prosecuted
on the spot, there are fully half-a-dozen in which an act of
faith may be made.
The child one day observing an empty cart which had
just delivered its load of turf, jumped into it, and, whilst the
owner was taking a drink, beat the donkey into a canter for
the sake of a jaunt. When Nicholas returned to the starting
point the driver struck him across his face with a whip. The
boy proceeded homeward, debating in his mind how best to
punish this cruel carter.
A citizen resided near the Burkes who did not hesitate to
comport himself haughtily towards the hope of their house.^
' This is given on the authority of Father Kernan, an esteemed priest of
Galway, who retired from the mission and joined the Patrician Brothers. He
was present when the strange scene occurred.
^ Hardiman tells us, in 1820, that the Galway merchants were famous for

26 LIFE OF FATHER THOMAS BURKE.
He had just got his hall-door painted a gaudy colour, and
the boy resolved to give him and the turf man a touch at the
same time. He watched for the carter until he again
happened to enter the town with turfi Affecting to have
been sent, he oft'ered the man one shilling less for his load
than was at first asked, and said he would not put him to the
trouble of carrying it in by baskets, but that he might upset
his load at the hall door, which, he added, could be easily
distinguished by its brilliant hue. The rude man from the bogs
overturned his load right against the freshly varnished door,
raising at the same time a cloud of bog-dust. Under cover
of this, Nicholas fled with all his might, while the master of
the house rushed out, collared the carter, and lashed his back
soundly for what he regarded as a most exasperating outrage.
Meanwhile Nicholas was in full speed, his heart beating
wildly, when on turning a corner he ran full tilt against the
imposing person of Father Rush, the Prior of the Dominicans,
and who will be found later on receiving him into their Order.
The boy struck headforemost in very much the style that a
negro charges his foe. 'What! Nicholas,' exclaimed the
good friar, as soon as he had recovered his breath from the
effects of the collision, ' this looks badly. What means
yonder crowd, and wherefore such anxiety to get away }'
The boy having made a clean breast. Father Rush took
him by the hand into his mother's house. H^e told her with
great gravity all that had occurred, and urged her to keep
Nicholas somewhat more within doors. Father Rush had no
sooner retired than Mrs. Burke brought her son into an
inner room, where, locking the door, she knelt down and
began the prayer, ' Direct, O Lord, our actions and carry them
on by Thy gracious assistance,' &c.
' When I saw my mother enter the room,' said Fr. Burke as
he told the story, ' make the sign of the Cross, and solemnly
pride ; but he adds, ' This empty quality is gradually disappearing '—one, we may
add, characteristic of the old Spaniards.

TAUGHT BY BROTHER PAUL. 27
invoke the light of the Holy Ghost to direct her, I knew I
could expect no mercy ; I never got such a beating as that one
directed by the Holy Spirit, and I have never forgotten it.'
' I got another flogging,' he said, ' simply because I was
not like Eustace Murphy.' This was the model youth in
Galway. He was senior to Nicholas, and, at an early age,
entered the ecclesiastical state.
Bodily fears were now succeeded by supernatural ones.
When delivering a pleasant lecture in England he referred to
the Irish faculty of realising the unseen, from which arose
the excrescence of superstition. He spoke of the fairies and
peshouges which plagued the lives of Irish children. If a
green tuft of grass was seen in a meadow, not only the
children who were foolish, but also the old men and women
would tell you that 'the good people were dancing there.'
If a child seemed wasting away, the mother would be easily
persuaded that it was not her child at all that was there —
that, in fact, the ' good people ' had spirited away her beautiful
baby and left this sickly child in its place.'
In the year 1830 Brother Paul O'Connor, armed with the
' God speed ' of Bishop Doyle, proceeded from Tullow to
Galway, and there founded the Brotherhood of St. Patrick,
an educational body having for its object the preservation
of youth from the contagion of vice. Mrs. Burke placed her
boy under the special care of Brother Paul. It is right to
add that though the instruction of the poor was ostensibly the
mission of the monks of St. Patrick, a special arrangement
was made whereby Wat Burke acknowledged handsomely
the care bestowed upon his son, and in point of fact, with the
exception of Magrath's, no other school existed at this time
in Galway.^' Lecture at Liverpool for All Souls' Schools, October 5, 1S80.
^ It has been said that, notwithstanding the atmosphere of decorum breathed
under the monastic rule of Brother Paul, Burke's nature still remained untamed. Mr.
Dugan, who knew him well in early life, has furnished an anecdote on the authority
of another which we are inclined to think may be a confused version of the

28 LIFE OF FATHER THOMAS BURKE.
' I was the monitor of Nicholas Burke in Brother Paul's
school,' writes a man who has attained in another walk high
distinction. ' He was then not more than nine years of age,
and to my mind a singularly handsome boy. We did not
meet again until 1864 in Rome, when I became sincerely
attached to him.' '
Replying to the Galway address and presentation on his
return from America, in March 1873, Father Burke said :—
I have been in many climes and have visited many lands, and
nothing that I ever heard could be compared in value to the words
of wisdom that fell from the lips of Brother Paul O'Connor.
And again : —
In some of the great cities of America that I visited I often
witnessed with regret the indifference to religion of people of other
countries. Not so with Irishmen. As soon as it was announced that
Father Tom Burke was to preach, every Galway man came to hear
him ; and when the faithful Irish people thronged around me, and
received my name with applause, I valued it only inasmuch as it
incident at Magrath's school. ' A few days ago I was speaking to one of
the brothers attached to the monastery in Galway, who confirmed the reports
of young Burke's boyish freaks. One day Burke played some practical joke
so audacious that Brother Paul, the Superior, pursued him through the rooms
and from thence into various ramifications of streets.' On my submitting the
story to the Vice- Guardian of the Patrician Brothers at Galway, he was
disposed to doubt it — firstly, because during the many years he was associated
with Paul O'Connor he never heard him allude to any such incident ; and
secondly, the attitude imputed to him was entirely at variance with his character
and system. A notice of Fr. Burke, written by Mr. Edmund O'Flaherty, who
knew O'Connor well, says that he was ' a monk of much learning, love, and
patience, the three great characteristics of a teacher. ' Whether he would have
deserted the several hundred pupils who comprised his school for the purpose
of pursuing one through a labyrinth of streets, is a question which, though
it may be argued on the probabilities, cannot be settled by any appeal to direct
evidence. We have been given the privilege of access to the papers of Brother
Paul O'Connor, and have found several remarkable letters from Dr. Doyle. One
thus concludes : —
' Be always lenient to the children, and not angry even with the perverse ;
don't hope to make them all good, nor require the practice of much piety from
any of them, lest the yoke of religion become heavy to them ; rather permit than
encourage the devotions of those whom natuie may dispose to be fervent. In
all things have a firm reliance on God,'
' Letter of Marquis Oliver, San Francisco, November 7, 1SS3.

THE PATRICIAN BROTHERS. 29
proved the love they had for the Catholic Church, of which I
am a priest, and for our dear mother Erin, whose child I am ;
but when they would crown me with honour, I laid that crown first
at the feet of Almighty God, and then at the feef of Brother Paul
O'Connor. This school was, indeed, the cradle of his career.
Among the proudest recollections of my life (he continues) is
that I was monitor of No. 7 in this school, and that month after
month I came to Brother Paul to answer the inquiry made in a
gentle whisper, ' whether I had attended my monthly confession and
communion,' and how he taught me that next to the God that made
me I should love the Old Land of my birth.
Part of Paul O'Connor's work was to organise a society
known as ' the Aloysian,' for the practical training of youth
in Christian morality. This young Burke joined in 1841,
and it may be mentioned that since its foundation it has
given sixty priests to the Church. How Paul prospered so
signally in his good work seems little short of a miracle.
When he first arrived in Galway, his old pass-book records,
' Cash in hand one shilling 1 ' This institute throve so
marvellously that in 1 846 we find him able to instruct and
feed 1,020 boys.
It was stated in different obituaries of Burke, and even in
a separate brochure, that he attended the High School of
Erasmus Smith. This statement gave some annoyance to
Fr. Burke's famil\-, and they desire to give it emphatic con
tradiction. So uncompromising were his mother's principles,
that she would be about the last to place her son in any
school not under Catholic supervision.
Now in order that education may be bad (he says), it is not
necessary to teach the child anything bad. In order to make
education bad, it is quite enough to neglect the religious portion of
the education. By that very defect the education becomes bad.
And why ? Because such is our nature — such the infirmity of our
fallen state — such the atmosphere of the scenes in which we live
in this world  such the power of the agencies that are busily at work

30 LIFE OF FATPIER THOMAS BURKE.
for our destruction, that, educate the child as carefully as you may,
surround him with the holiest influences, fill him with the choicest
graces, you still run great risks that, some day or other, the serpent
of sin will gain an entrance into that yottng soul in spite of you.
How much more if that young heart be not replenished with Divine
grace ! How much more if that young soul be not fenced round
by a thousand appliances and a thousand defences against its
enemies ! And thus do we see that the principle of bad education
is estabhshed the moment the strong religious element is removed.
Thus he spoke at New York in a lecture on ' The
Catholic Church.' Another, which has never been reprinted
outside that city, furnishes an important anecdote. This
anecdote we find translated into Dutch in a memoir of Fr.
Burke, ' by W. Van Nieuwenhoff, 'sHertogenbosch, W. Van
Gulick, 1882.'
Both here and in Ireland we have to bear the common burden
of State education, which is hard, especially when we cannot avail
ourselves of it. Not only in America, but in the old land, it is too
bad that Catholics cannot send their children to the Queen's College
or the Model School ; indeed, I remember a man coming into our
house when I was being educated, and he said to my mother, ' A
great fool you are, paying 1 2/. a year for a classical education for
your son, when, if you send him to the Queen's College he wiH be
educated for nothing; and if he gets a prize he will bring you home
twenty pounds.' ' He will bring me home twenty pounds ! ' exclaimed
my mother. ' Not for ten thousand pounds would I allow him to cross
the threshold of their Queen's College ; for the lessons that I want
my child to be taught are that he shall know his duty to God and his
duty to me ; and there he won't be taught either one or the other.' '
My recollections of Fr. Burke date from a very early period of his
life (writes Mr. Charles Dugan in a document whose important details
are reserved for later stages of this narrative). At that time Galway was
not well supplied with schools for Roman Cathohcs, and all boys of
that persuasion who pretended to receive any sort of liberal educa
tion met together at one school.'^

The scarcity of good schools was one of the direst effects
' ' The Catholic View of Education. ' Lecture at St. John's Collepe
loklyn, U.S.A. •¦ i= .
2 Letter of C. W. Dugan, Esq., Adelaide House, Clonmel, October 6, 18S-.

DR. O TOOLE'S SCHOOL. 3 I
of the Penal Code. Fr. Burke, in his lecture on 'The
Genius of the Irish People,' says : ' The worst law that ever
England made was that enacted during the penal times, by
which it was declared that if an Irish Catholic father sent his
son or daughter to an Irish Catholic school, that man became
guilty of felony, and liable to transportation.'
Dr. Johnson has said that ' not to describe the schools or
the masters of illustrious men is a kind of historical fraud by
which honest fame is injuriously diminished.' The reader
must, therefore, breathe a little longer the close atmosphere of
the schoolroom.
At a time when Tyrone Power was drawing crowded
houses to see him play ' Dr. O'Toole, the Irish Tutor,' a
veritable Dr. O'Toole opened school at Galway, and acquired
popularity and support. But the Galway pedagogue was a
distinguished D.D., and afterwards became Vice-President of
the Queen's College. His school, which Nicholas Burke is
now found attending, was the most ambitious academic step
ever attempted in Galway.
There (observes Mr. John J. Brady, C.E.), Burke made the most
marvellously rapid progress, leaving all his schoolfellows far behind.
He ran through the Greek grammar at a stroke. He was brightness
itself, and in all studies threw us into the shade. His good nature
was equal to his genius, specially in showing those less gifted how to
construe and master their often tough tasks. Bryan O'Toole, the
brother of the principal, taught him French, and was a highly per
fumed petit mattre, whom Burke nicknamed ' Briney.' A boarding-
school was attached, and on the common playground Burke was the
hfe and soul of his companions. Football and hurling were favourite
games with him.
He greatly amused us by his stories and powers of mimicry, and
even the Sanctuary was penetrated by his searching eye. One day
he would be Bishop O'Donnell singing the ' Ite, Missa est.' On the
next he would treat us to a sermon from Dr. Kirwan, marked by all the
peculiarities of style that rendered him the most powerful preacher
of his day. But his personation of Dr. O'Toole amused us most be-
cause it came thoroughly home to us all. In assuming those various

32 LIFE OF FATHER THOMAS BURKE.
characters, his power was such that the very shape of his features
wholly changed, and we forgot in the contemplation of those matured
portraits the fragile figure which produced them.
Galway priests describe Bishop O'Donnell as a splendid
vocalist. The boy, therefore, found as grand an exemplar in
that line as was Kirwan in the other.'
In reading these descriptions of our friar preacher in boy
hood, one is forcibly reminded of the great Dominican, St.
Vincent Ferrer.
The boys of his own age (we learn) looked up to him more as a
master than an equal. St. Vincent, having great facility for imitation,
would frequently assemble his companions, and, assuming the gestures
and manners of the different preachers in the town, would repeat
parts of the sermons he had heard, together with stories, which were
certain to interest his youthful audience.^
The aptitude for learning described by his schoolfellows
would seem to have been hereditary with the Burkes. Some
of his race, too, had become priests, and in sight of the gibbet
had preached the Gospel. More than one had passed through
the vicissitudes of the poor scholar. Of these a glimpse is
caught in a lecture on the ' Irish People,' delivered in New
York ;—
In spite of imprisonment and fines, the Irish people, who never
have been serfs, refused to be the slaves of ignorance. In the worst
day of our persecution and misery, there was one man who was
always respected next to the priest ; and that was the ' poor scholar,'
with a few books under his arm, going from one farm-house to the
other, with a ' God save all here ! ' He got the best of the house,
the best bed, the cosiest place in the straw-chair. And the children
were all called in from the neighbouring houses and from the village.
' Fr. Mullins, now Dominican Prior of Galway, attended in 1843 at some
examinations which were given at Dr. O'Toole's academy. Among the boys
called up, Fr. Mullins was particularly attracted by the answering of 'Wat
Burke's son.' He was examined first in science and afterwards in Plomer,
Cicero, Virgil, and Sallust, The boy proved himself /ar/Ze princefs. Bishop
O'Donnell cordially congratulated him when presenting successively fourteen
premiums. * Dominican Saints, p. 73.

THE POOR SCHOLAR. 33
He could spend a week from one house to another. Each was
turned into a school-house at times Hence I have known men —
old men of my own family — who remembered 1782. I have seen
them, when a child, in their old age, and these men, brought up in
days of penal persecution, with its enforced ignorance, were first-
class controversialists. They knew how to read and write ; they knew
Dr. O'Gallagher's sermons by heart. No swaddling minister could
hold his ground five minutes before them.
Another American lecture, which took a fling at the law
of divorce, said : —
The seed to be planted — the formation of the soul — is in the
mother's hands ; and therefore it is that the character of the child
mainly depends on the formation which the mother gives it. The
father is engaged in his office, or at his work, all the day long. His
example, whether for good or bad, is not constantly before the obser
vant eyes of the child as is that of the mother. All depends upon
the mother ; and it is of vital importance that that mother should
blend in herself all that is pure, holy, and loving, and that she
be assured of the sanctity of her position, of which the Church
assures her by the indissoluble nature of the marriage tie.
Jealous lest the vocation which she hoped to see develop
should be in any way imperilled, his pious mother watched
over him like a guardian angel. The organ of the Irish
priesthood and people, in an able notice of Fr. Burke's career,
stated that he possessed a wealth of irrepressible and even >
boisterous mirth, that made the wiseacres shake their sapient
heads and mumble that ' the contemplated vocation of the
youth was not what nature had intended him for.' '
' Mrs. Manning, in a brochure of some hundred verses, makes the same
statement : — ' They shook their heads and looked most w ise.
And more than one foretold
That, in the flashing of those eyes,
As he some story told,
' They read vocation not so high,
Nor deep, nor broad, nor long.
As that he chose for bye-and-bye
From mother's words and song.'
VOL. I. ^*

34 LIFE OF FATHER THOMAS BURKE.
This passage has been reprinted in a brocJntre largely
circulating, and by some readers has been misunderstood.
Lest worse should be inferred, it is well to make a completely
clean breast as regards those pranks which pained his mother.
He smoked, and until five years before his death continued
a smoker. He performed perilous passages as a swimmer.
It is even said that one day he wandered from school to fish
in Lough Corrib, and when asked if he caught anything,
replied — ' Not until I got home.' He could thrash belligerent
school-fellows, and continued to play practical jokes spiced
with good-humoured mischiefi
Overflowing with vitality (writes Mr. Sherlock), he thought nothing
of swimming, in conjunction with the more daring of his young
companions, across the arm of Galway Bay that dips into the land
close by the schools of Erasmus Smith, and on more than one occa
sion made the perilous passage in the depth of winter. '
He told his American friends that when playing among
the ships in Galway Bay he would climb up the ladder- rigging,
go out on the yard-arm, and drop into the sea.
More than once Nicholas incurred chastisement for going
to see a faction fight. When lecturing at St. Gabriel's, New
York, he spoke of the distinction won by Irishmen on every
battle-field in the world, adding —
Out of this very courage of our race there spring certain defects,
just as we see that fairies, ghosts, and supersdtions of that kind may
even grow out of our exaggerated faith. I grant you that an Irish
man is a litde too pugnacious. I myself have seen a fellow in
• Fr. Burke, to the end of his life, was fond of swimming in the open sea. While
thus employed fine thoughts swam through his surging brain. Thus, in his preface
to the Gold and Alloy of his friend, Pere Monsabre, we find : ' The ordinary
man barely escapes sin, like a weak swimmer rising laboriously on a wave ; the
saint dashes aside the temptation wilh a fury of energy, like a strong swimmer
who rises on the crest of the billow with brow erect and scarcely smitten with its
spray. '
Again, when lecturing on the 'Church and Science,' at the Rotunda,
Dublin, in 1874, he says that 'there are two ways of going into the water. One
man sneaks in, which is very uncomfortable. Another man gets upon a rock
and boldly takes a " header." You will permit me, wilh your kind courtesy, to
take a " header " into my subject this evening.'

BATTLE WITH THE NAILER. 35
Ireland trailing his coat after him through the streets of Galway,
flourishing his stick, and asking everybody that passed, as a special
favour, if he would not be kind enough to stand on the tail of it.
But, after all, just as we see that there are some beautiful features
attaching to their superstition, so there are fine features attaching to
their courage, which often leads them to make a fight for the sake of
the fight. For instance, nothing is more common in Ireland, when
a row is going on at a fair, when sticks are seen in the air and men
are tumbling about on every side, than for a quiet, peaceable farmer,
coming along with his scythe on his shoulder, to throw it down,
quietly take off his coat, roll it up and place it on the roadside, then
taking his stick, and, after looking on for a moment to see which side
was \rinning, which was the weaker side, would then plunge into the
thick of the fight and disable the first head that came to him. At
any rate, it was a comfort to think that he hadn't the meanness to
take the side which was winning. That is not an Irishman's way.
When a side is winning because there is generally little fighting the
other side want to run, but at Galway they go in for fighting and not
running. The same lecture — which has been overlooked in the
printed collection — reveals him in a more interesting attitude.
Oh, how often have I spoken in Ireland with the father and the
mother, left there in their old age, when the two or three strong,
stalwart sons went away from them to America ! Oh, how often
have I seen the eye brighten with pleasure when they told me that on
such a day a letter would come that would bring them a little money
and a little relief 1 They were enabled to lean with perfect confidence
upon the heart of that far-away, because that heart was the generous,
manly heart of a Catholic Irishman.
A large crowd was collected, in 1878, in front of the Jesuit
Church at Galway, previous to the great sermon which Fr.
Burke delivered on that occasion. An intelligent-looking
old man surprised those about him by saying, ' There was a
time when if I could have laid my hand on the same youth
you would have had no sermon here to-day.' He was a
retired nailer, and explained that his workshop stood in a
recess partly under the road, to which he could only descend
by a ladder-like gradation indented in the edge of a small

30 LIFE OF FATHER THOMAS BURKE.
cliff. Nicholas Burice got a basket of rotten apples, with
which from the road above he continued for ten minutes to
pelt the nailer vigorously, leaving upon him marks seem
ingly sanguineous. The nailer declared that he never felt his
gorge rise to such a pitch before or since. He placed in his
furnace a rod of iron, with which when red hot he determined
to scorch and sear his tormentor. Before this could be
accomplished the ammunition of apples was exhausted, and
the boy withdrew to achieve on another field some fresh feat.
If brought to bay he was well able to hold his own. One
of his schoolfellows at Dr. O'Toole's, Mr. Morris, now at
the head of a Government department, and who himself
supplies the anecdote, having indulged in some chaff,
Burke gave him a sound beating. This incident created
quite a local sensation. But the father of Mr. Morris took
the matter so good-humouredly that when Wat Burke went
to apologise for the assault committed by his son, old Mr.
Morris said, ' Devil mend him ! Why wasn't he able to box
his share ? ' Both boys became thoroughly attached friends.
Mr. Morris states that Burke was the first who taught
him to smoke. Much confidence and intercourse subsisted
between them in after-life, and we owe to Mr. Morris different
details elsewhere embodied.'
What ascetic, however exacting, would expect us to add
that as his career advanced he disciplined and controlled
such Celtic impulses as seemed to clash with the second
Bearitude ? But strangers thought that they could discern
a something in his face that, humble as he was, seemed
at times to say, 'Nemo me impune lacessit' In 1S73, at
Galway, when receiving from his eariy instructor, Brother
' In 1873, when about to visit Rome, he asked Burke if he could give him
an introduction. 'I know one right good fellow,' he replied, 'and here is a
letter you can give him.' ' I thought he alluded to some genial Bohemian,' adds
iMr. Morris, 'and I never supposed he could have meant Cardinal Howard until I
glanced at the superscription ; and the way in which his Eminence honouied the
introduction showed how sincerely he respected Father Burke.'

THE KENTUCKY YANKEE. 37
Paul O'Connor, an address of congratulation, Fr. Burke gave
a touch of the humour inseparable from his nature : —
I recollect, when describing the Irish character in some of the
great cities of America, I said that an Irishman is usually a tall,
sinewy fellow, about six feet high, kind-hearted and generous, but
ever ready to strike a blow for the old faith and the old country.
This trait of the Irish character is well known in America. I re
member, when travelling in a railway carriage near the banks of the
Mississippi, about 5,000 miles from this spot, there was a great big
fellow in the same carriage, who was employed on one of the levees
of the Mississippi. A Kentucky Yankee, who was sitting near him,
said, in my hearing, not knowing I was an Irish priest, ' Look here,
friend, you'd want to look sharp and mind what you say now ; that
ere fellar, I guess, is an Irishman, and them sort of fellars can't stand
a word about the Pope or about their own country, so you'd better
look sharp now, and mind don't say a word against the Pope or the
Irish, or I guess that chap would fetch you a lick over the bridge of
the nose while you'd be looking about you.'
Anthony TroUope describes his own school days as
wretchedly unhappy, partly owing to ' an utter want of that
juvenile manhood which enables some boys to hold up their
heads.' It was doubtless the possession of the opposite
qualities that made Burke's later school days so enjoyable.
Over and over again he is described in memoirs as a ' wild
boy ; ' but he knew where to draw the line. Fr. Ralph, O.P.,
and himself had been boys together in Galway. To Ralph
he said of a local contemporary, ' I never liked that boy, and
I shunned him after one day he asked me to stray into paths
which were distasteful to me.'
There was one influence that he had been taught to seek
regularly, and which of necessity restrained any divergence
from the straight path. This he had learned from Brother
Paul as naturally as a child learns to walk.
The Catholic feels (he said) that the eye of God is upon him.
He is told that, every time the Catholic Church warns him to
' Reply to the Address of the Aloysian Society at Galway, March 17, 1873.

38 LIFE OF FATHER THOMAS BURKE.
prepare for confession. He is told that, every time his eyes, wander
ing through the church, rest upon the confessional. He is told
that, every time he sees the priest with his stole standing there, and
the penitent going in with tearful eyes, and coming forth beaming
with joy. He is told this in a thousand ways ; and it is brought
home to him by the precepts and sacraments of the Church at
stated times in the year. The consequence is, he is made to
believe that he is responsible to Almighty God ; and therefore
this obligation, creating a sense of responsibility, rouses and excites
a watchfulness of his own conscience. The man who feels that
the eye of God is upon him will also feel that the eye of his
own conscience is upon him. For watchfulness begets watchful
ness. If the master is looking on whilst a servant is doing any
thing, the servant will endeavour to do it well, and he will keep his
eye upon the master whilst the master is present. So a soldier, when
he is ordered to charge, turns his look upon his superior officer,
whilst he dashes into the midst of the foe. And so it is with us.
Conscience is created, conscience is fostered and cherished in the
soul by a sense of responsibility which God gives us through the
Church and through her sacraments. It follows that the Catholic
man, although in conscious freedom, is conscious that he must
always exercise that freedom under the eye of God and under the
dominion of His law; so that in him, even although he sin for a
dme, the sense of freedom never degenerates into positive reckless
ness or license. '
Some results of the yoke that he bore from his youth peep
forth in the following recollections of the first cousin of our
great Dominican, Mr. Michael Burke, now of Dominick Street,
Galway : —
During all our intercourse in childhood, though he got the name
of being a wild boy, I never heard him utter one naughty word
or breathe any exclamation approaching a curse — a practice then
much indulged in by smart youths of progressive tendencies. In the
midst of all his little tricks and mimicries his vocation for the Church
was to me cleariy visible. I remember him on one occasion calling
to take me out to visit the various altars which, on Holy Thursday,
are always handsomely decorated ; and how, when, having viewed the
first and second, I was leaving the chapel to complete my inspection,
' Fr, Burke, on 'The Catholic Church,' delivered at Brooklyn, U.S.

RECEIVES CONFIRMATION. 39
he read me a little lecture, which, being my senior, he was warranted
in doing, that I should always kneel down and offer up a short
prayer on such occasions.'
From all this and more it may be safely assumed that
what Fr. Burke said of St. Dominic applied equally to him
self. No thought that might shame an angel crossed his mind. In his
fifteenth year he was as pure of soul as when he was carried from the
baptismal font with the water of Regeneration still glistening upon
his infant brow.^
At Dr. O'Toole's school (his cousin continued) he carried off all
the premiums so sweepingly that a movement was about being
started by the pupils to protest against such monopoly. In the year
1847 Nicholas and I separated to pursue our widely different walks
in life, and since then I have seen but little of him.
Bishop O'Donnell conferred upon him the sacrament of
Confirmation ; and soon after he made his first Communion.
The Catholic religion (he says) preaches mysteries and speaks of
things that no human eye has ever seen, but teaches them to be
realities. It leads a man to believe in those things more promptly
than even the things that his eyes behold or his hands grasp. For
instance, who has ever seen Christ in the Blessed Eucharist ? Yet
every Catholic child is taught, from the first day that reason beams
upon him, that his God, his Lord, his Creator, his Redeemer, his
Judge, is present, waiting in the Blessed Sacrament until that child
is old enough to come to his first Communion and receive Him.
What eye has ever seen the Holy Spirit of God, the Holy Ghost, the
Third Person of the Holy Trinity ? But every Catholic knows and
believes that the Holy Spirit of God is in His Church, that He lives
with the Church, that He keeps that Church from ever telling a lie
to the people, that He keeps that Church in holiness as well as in
all truth, and that when the Bishop's hands are imposed upon the
' He himself usually made an act of faith in the Real Presence, to the effect
that he believed more firmly than if his eyes witnessed it ; for his eyes might
deceive him, but God's written words never. Regarding the passage, ' This is my
body ; this is my blood,' he felt that until some other could be shown saying,
' This is by no means my body,' the declaration was conclusive.
2 In St. Saviour's, Dublin, August 4, 1877.

.p LIFE OF FATHER THOMAS BURKE.
head of the young child in Confirmation, that child receives the
seven gifts of the Holy Ghost — wisdom, understanding, counsel,
fortitude, knowledge, piety, and the fear of the Lord. Thus it is
that not merely in the higher truths, regarding the unity and eternity
of God, but even in those practical truths that come home to us and
bring the Lord God to our very doors, the Catholic Church teaches
the unseen and creates in man the faculty of realising it'
From what his cousin and he himself says, it is clear that
a sound spirit of piety underlay the exterior of the exuberant
boy. He said when speaking of a sainted man who pre
served his piety from early youth that in him ' sanctity was a
development and not a change.' ^ On further search we find,
on the authority of his own casual admission, that the cap
of a schoolboy covered the head of a contemplatist.
Since I came to the age of reason, and learned my Catechism,
and mastered the idea that was taught me of how God in heaven
planned and designed the redemption of mankind, the greatest
puzzle in my life has been — a thing that I could never understand —
how anyone believing what I have said could refuse their veneration,
their honour, and. their love to the Blessed Virgin, Mother of Jesus
Christ ; for it seems to me nothing is more natural to the heart of
man than to be grateful, and that, in proportion to the gift which is
received we find our hearts springing with gradtude within us, and
a strong craving to find out how best we can express our acknow
ledgments. He then went on to cite from the Scriptures various
holy women who proved themselves benefactors of mankind,
and asked, 'What did any of them do for us in comparison to
what Mary did ? ' ^ Indeed he was very much of opinion
with Wordsworth, that
She was our tainted nature's solitary boast.
Alluding to early days, he says that she was always
' ' CathoHcity as Revealed in the Character of the Irish People,' St Gabriel's
Church, New York, 1871.
' On the Festival of All Saints.
» ' Good Works with Faith Necessary to Salvation,' New York, May 2, 1872.

FACULTY OF REALISING THE UNSEEN. 4I
addressed 'not under the title of "Our Lady" or of the
Blessed Virgin, but by the still more endearing name of
Miiire Mathair, " Mary Mother." '
Galwegians have been always prone to supernatural
terrors. Fr. Burke, some months before his death, was inte
rested to read in the public press the depositions of persons
who believed they had seen at Galway Gaol the ghost of a
man recently executed. It might be supposed that a youth
so fond of practical jokes would have availed himself of so
ready a field wherein to play upon the fears of others. While
so far advanced as to be studying the dead languages, he
continued alive to a dread of ghosts. His lecture on Faith,
when showing the national faculty of realising the unseen,
mentioned instances of the abuse of it, and stated that the
Irish child, as soon as he arrives at the age of reason, at
once displays that faculty.
Wlien he comes out of the back door and looks into the field,
he imagines he sees a fairy in every bush. If he sees a butterfly
upon a stalk, it is a Leprechaun. I remember, when a boy growing
up, studying Latin, having made up my mind even then to be a
priest, there was a certain old archway in Bowling Green, Galway, to
which a tradition attached. It was near the place where Lynch,
the Mayor, hanged his son, hundreds of years ago, and near the
Protestant churchyard. Grown as I was, learning Latin, knowing
everything about the Catechism,' and having made up my mind to
be a priest, I was never able to pass under that arch after nightfall
without running for dear life.^
All this made so deep an impression on him that when
speaking in St. Gabriel's Church, New York, he recurred to
it, adding —
' One of the passages in the said Catechism is, ' The dead arose and appeared
to many.' Fr. Burke in his sermons often made effective reference to this
appalling spectacle. Thus on Good Friday, 1882: 'Graves around the city
opened, and the dead arose in all their terrors and stalked silently through the
city, confronting the living and frightening them almost to death. ' St. Patrick's,
New York, March 17, 1872.
2 ' The Christian Religion as Reflected in the National Character of the Irish
Race and People,' New York, June 6, 1872.

42 LIFE OF FATHER THOMAS BURKE.
That legend was the very torment of my young days. Not only
when going to school, but in running errands for my mother, I had
to pass through the blind archway very often. I always came up to
it crying out, ' Hail, Mary ! ' and calling upon all the saints to stand
by me ; but with all my faith, there was at last nothing for it but
flight. ' The faculty of realising the unseen ' continued with him
to the end. In 1865 extraordinary emotions filled him on
believing that he saw, during his celebration of High Mass,
the eyes of the Madonna of Vicovaro move. The incident,
described by a Dominican, will be found in its proper place.
Alms had long been dispensed by a humane merchant,
named Lynch. Nicholas often studied his pensioners as they
thronged forward for relief, and in social hours long after has
reproduced the scene, which, however, owed all its success to
his face and ventriloquism. Among Lynch's pensioners was
an old widow named Lacy. Cotheen, her son, was a half-fool
given to drink. One day he came blubbering to say she had
died, and Lynch gave him money to bury her. But the
familiar wheeze of the old crone, some days after, as she came
behind the high stool on which Lynch sat, scared him not a
little ; and when Cotheen again called, he upbraided him
with his deceit. ' Pardon me this once,' said Cotheen ; ' give
me ys. 6d., and I promise your honour that, living or dead, I
will bury her on Friday.'
Kohl describes the quaint city of Galway as of Spanish
architecture, with wide gateways, broad stairs, and all the
fantastic ornaments calculated to carry the imagination back
to Granada and Valentia, while its monks, corded friars,
churches, and convents complete the resemblance.'
' Besides the Dominican, Franciscan, and Augustinian friars now in Galway,
it once possessed Capuchins and Carmelites ; but in troubled times they were
bani.shed and have never been restored. The habit of the Dominicans is black
over white, and that of the Carmelites white over black. Fr. Burke, after he
had become famous, was one day being photographed in his habit, when' he came
out in the negative with the white spots dark and the dark spots white. ' This

SPANISH ASPECT OF GALWAY. 43
From the accounts given of Wat Burke, his acts and tastes
would almost remind one of the vivacity of Andalusia.
Before the sixteenth century seamen and traders from
Asturias and Navarre often formed alliances with Galway
girls ; and who knows but that Spanish blood may have
coursed through the veins of Angy and Wat Burke ? Those
who have visited Spain cannot fail to have been struck by
the same red cloak, which makes the Galway peasant so
picturesque an object. Fr. Tom, apparently moved by the
spirit of Galway traditions, has danced for his mother the
Spanish cachiica, accompanied by a grace and agility worthy
of Fanny Elssler — performances which the matter-of-fact
mother failed to view with unmixed satisfaction.
His personal appearance was not at first in his favour (writes
Mr. E. O'Flaherty, who knew him in Galway at this time). His
figure was without dignity, slender and ill-proportioned, the forehead
unusually low and the expression in repose dark and melancholy,
like most of the Spanish people of Galway j but see him in the
pulpit, when in the white robes of his order he held up the cross to
the enthralled multitude, and the figure seemed to grow and swell
into grandeur. At such a moment he might have walked from the
canvas of Murillo. '
He often related anecdotes of himself, but, like the saints,
never aught that would tend to his commendation ; indeed
rather the reverse, as the reader has already seen. An able serial
edited by some Jesuit Fathers describes Nicholas Burke as
a merry mischievous child, often incurring well-deserved chastise
ment from his good pious mother, who was not unmindful of the
Wise Man's advice respecting the education of children. On one
memorable occasion, which in after-life he loved to talk of, a
Franciscan friar came to his mother's house to complain of one of
the boy's tricks. The misdoing was regarded as so serious, especially
as it had excited the good friar's wrath, that poor Master Nick had
is a wonderful studio of yours,' he said. ' I entered it a Dominican, and I have
come out a Carmelite.'
' By a droll coincidence the name of the proprietor of the Galway newspaper
is Ferdinand.

44 LIFE OF FATHER THOMAS BURKE.
to take off his shirt, and the whip was applied with such vigour that
he was soon ' clothed in rags of his own skin.' '
This latter phrase is obviously an embellishment. It is
one of the stories which Fr. Burke in hours of relaxation
would tell to amuse his fellows and to humble himself.
Possibly he may have unconsciously enlarged, just as a man
on revisiting haunts of childhood is amazed to find them so
much smaller than what the early impression retained.
Describing to the Parochus of Galway a kindred incident,
he said that the beating was inflicted for walking upon and
crushing the pipes of the church organ.
On a previous page it was mentioned that Mrs. Burke,
before applying her cane, recited a particular prayer, and it is
perhaps venial to recur to it, at least once, in writing the life
of a man who himself in after-life continually harped upon it.
This collect — better known as ' Prevent, O Lord ' — entered
into some prayers which Dominicans repeat before Mass.
Fr. Burke said, at Tallaght, with his usual humour, that he
never heard it recited without feeling a cold thrill between his
shoulders. Mrs. Burke, as the Jesuit Father correctly states,
would kneel down and command Nicholas to repeat slowly
after her the words of this collect.
Dark indeed would seem to have been the outlook for
the puny child, but his innate humour served to brighten
such surroundings. He could even smile through his tears
like a sunbeam in showers ; and while Mrs. Burke sonorously
' Some persons, not relatives of Fr. Burke, vainly urged us to ignore these
incidents ; and it is satisfactory to find the Jesuits, who have a special regard for
his memory, taking the course that we ventured to adopt : —
'After his own religious brethren,' they write, 'least of all can the sons of
St, Ignatius forget him. The personal friend of many of them and the devoted
admirer of their founder, never did he employ his wonderful powers of oratory
to greater effect, never did his rich vein of original thought shine with crreater
brilliancy, never did he hold spell-bound his audience with greater skill and
success than in the panegyric w hich he preached on the founder of the Society of
Jesus. We mention it now as an additional reason why we should be ungrateful
indeed were we to forget its author. '~7'/(i? Month, September 1883.

HE IS AGAIN FLOGGED. 45
repeated ' Prevent, O Lord, we beseech thee, all our actions,'
he would pray in another sense, ' Prevent, O Lord ; ' but, as
he often told his brother priests, ' it never did prevent,' and
the lash continued to fall.
How the boy at last came to regard those beatings
passively was doubtless by allowing his powerfully imagina
tive mind to picture the greater sufferings of Him whose
name was a household word. The various stages of His
Passion as described in the ' Meditations of the Rosary ' had
been driven into the child's mind by Margaret Burke at all
hours and at all places. The beads never left her fingers,
and the unction with which she would recite ' the number of
stripes they gave Him being upwards 13/5,000, as revealed to
St. Bridget', flowed into the ear of that gifted boy, whose
intelligence was such that with one glance at his tasks he
bore off every premium. The fertility of his mind and the
exhaustive completeness with which it realised that dread
scene is shown in many of his sermons. One on ' The
Resurrection ' remarks that after the stripes it is only surpris
ing the Saviour survived three hours on the Cross. His
discourses on St. Dominic lay stress on the advantage of
personal flagellation.
As the fact has obtained historic record that the youth
received frequent corporal punishment, it is right to guard
against unfriendly inference by telling the arch-offence which
earned it ; and therefore we transpose from a more remote
part of our book some notes on Fr. Burke's visit in 1875 to
the house of his aged mother in Galway.
He was in high spirits, and entertained with pleasant per
formances the old friends who had been asked to meet him.
' I hope these mimicries don't annoy you, ma'am,' Mrs. Burke
said, addressing a guest. ' If there was one thing more than an
other that I chasdsed Nicholas for when a child, it was his habit of
mimicking people. They used to cah at my house to complain of
him, and I tried to beat it out of him in vain.'

46 LIFE OF FATHER THOMAS BURKE.
Mrs. Burke was the only person in the room who did not
laugh. What pranks he played that evening will be found
recorded at the proper time. The guest adds that Mrs. Burke's
wrinkled hand was observed to wander instinctively towards
her stick, whereupon Fr. Tom, thinking of the past, rubbed
his shoulder, and sang forth with his grand baritone —
Oh, thou hast been the cause of this anguish, my mother.'
It must not be supposed that the stories which he used
to tell of his mother's severity were allowed by him to impair
the more tender impressions retained of her maternal cha
racter. At St. Gabriel's, New York, he asked —
Do we not know what class of woman v/as the mother that reared
us at her knee ? Oh ! are we not familiar with that beautiful image
that rises before us of the woman with the silver hair and the sweet
voice — the woman with the old Spanish beads in her hand, the
woman that taught us when we were yet unable to appreciate it the
sweet tale of the love of Jesus Christ for Mary His mother and the
love of Mary for her Child ?
Flogging was the fashion of the day, and Mrs. Burke
must not be severely judged. From the Scriptures to Locke,
authorities crowd to justify it. That great philosopher notices
with praise 'a mother who flogged her child eight times
without subduing it ; for had she stopped at the seventh
castigation her infant might have been spoiled.' Margaret
MacDonough, saint as she was, had herself been ruled with iron
nerve in youth. She often told her daughters how she had
been compelled not only to take care of, but to sleep with,
• He told the Ursulines that his mother to the hast seemed quite to forget that
he had ceased to be a child. Whenever he went to visit her in Galway she
would go on to lecture him in the old way. She would ask him, as he knelt
down to receive her blessing, if he were a good boy. Fr. Burke said to a
member of the author's family, when about to visit Galway in 1S75, ' Call upon
my mother and get her blessing. She is really a saint, and I regard it as of
great value. ' This person waited upon Mrs. Burke, and when tal-dng leave the
old lady pressed her beads on the visitor's head, while she fervently^'invoked a
benediction.

THE DAFT WOMAN. 47
some maniac female relation to whom her parents humanely
gave shelter. How children when adults will follow in the walk
made for them in childhood is shown in the after-life of Mar
garet Burke. She was so compassionate to suffering humanity,
no matter in what form it presented itself, that, a lady who had
seen better days becoming insane, Mrs. Burke took her to live
with them. The lady's delusion was that all the priests of
Galway had entered into a conspiracy to hunt her down, and
the frequent visits of Mrs. Burke's clerical friends did not tend
to allay it. Her daughters — made unhappy by domestication
with a daft woman — regarded it as a real relief when one day
she left the house never again to return. Mrs. Burke, on the
other hand, was filled by painful anxiety lest the demented
creature in her flight should come to an untimely end.
Meanwhile Nicholas Burke held on his course just as his
bright instincts led him, but often compelled to pay the
penalty. His career in youth — aglow with excitement and
often marked by crosses — was like that of the place which
boasts the honour of his birth. When Galway was young,
suffering laid its heavy hand upon the city of St. Nicholas.
In 1568, and long after. Mass was sternly prohibited. An
Italian traveller in that year attended Mass in a private
house in Galway. He saw at one view the Blessed Sacra
ment raised by the priest, boats passing up and down
the river, a ship entering the port in full sail, a salmon killed
with a spear, and hunters and hounds pursuing a deer.
' Though I have travelled Europe,' adds the Italian, ' I have
never before witnessed a sight which combined so much
variety and beauty.' '
Interwoven with the sufferings of the heroic men who
went before, was a certain amount of wild adventure which
invested with some romance the role of a friar. They bore
' Hardiman's History of Galway, p. 85. The old blood of Galway had a
narrow escape of being completely wiped out. Hardiman tells us that the planta
tion of the town by a colony from Liverpool and Gloucester was strongly urged by
Cromwell.

48 LIFE OF FATHER THOMAS BURKE.
historic names, too, which carried prestige in Galway.
' Where is the nation that was ever so loved ? ' exclaimed Fr.
Burke, when lecturing on ' The Irish People in Relation to
Catholicity,' and as usual throwing in a grotesque phrase
where least expected : —
In the three hundred years of persecution, take the ' Bhreathair,'
the old Irish friar, the Dominicans, and Franciscans, who were of
the first families of the land — the O'Neills, the Maguires, the
McDonnels, the McDermotts ; down in Galway, the Frenches, the
Lynches, the Blakes, and the Burkes. These fair youths used to be
actually smuggled out by night, and sent off the coast of Ireland to
Rome, to France, and to Spain, to study. Enjoying all the delicious
climates of those lovely countries, surrounded by honour, leading
easy lives, filling the time with the study and intellectual pleasures of
the priesthood, still every man felt uneasy. To use the old famihar
phrase, ' they were like a hen on a hot griddle ' as long as they were
away from Ireland, although they knew that in Ireland they were
liable to be thrown into prison, or be subjected to death.
As he thought of the past his eye wandered in the direc
tion of the West Chapel — then ministered by the representa
tives of these men. He regarded with loving interest Fr.
Folan, the most vigorous vocalist in Galway, and when that
good friar sang, ' Oh ! come to the west,' the seeming signifi
cance of the invitation was wholly accidental.
Mrs. Burke, like most pious people, had her cross, and it
passed to her son as a legacy. An allusion to it occurs in
some remarks on the relief which confession brings : —
If you find a true friend that can keep a secret, the next thing is,
what can he do for you ? If you tell him your secret can he lead you
out of the difficulty ? Can he enable you to throw off the burden
and think no more about it ? How many times do we meet a friend
in whose honour we can trust, yet a fool who has not capacity to help
us beyond saying 'Ah.' I knew an old man once who looked very
wise. I had something that was fretting me very much, so I said,
' I want you to show me the way out of this difficulty.' The answer
I got was, ' Oh ! blood alive ! ' I remember when a little boy my
mother had some family trouble. She went to a confidential friend

ADVANTAGE OF CONFESSION. 49
to get advice and unbosom her care. She told the story faithfully,
with all the circumstances about what ' she said ' and ' he said,' but
all the counsel she could get as she rocked herself to and fro was,
' Oh, wirra, wirra ! ' Now if our friends can do nothing more for us
than to open their eyes and say ' Lord help you,' and ' Oh, wirra,
wirra ! ' it is not worth while to go to the trouble of telling our
secrets, or of asking their advice. But God has provided in the
Church a mighty vent for this natural craving of man.
Mark how beautifully the confessional harmonises with all this.
The Catholic who has something which is a source of mental
anxiety, and the keeping of which is breaking his heart, knows that
in the first priest he meets he has a friend whom God has provided
for him, and in whom he can place implicit faith.'
Fr. Burke, in his discourse on Cardinal Cullen, said:
' Next to the Grace of God the highest blessing that man
can receive is education, St. Thomas proves ignorance to be
the root of all sin.' He urged ' the cultivation and develop
ment in a right direction of the intelligence, the heart, and
the will ; ' adding, ' Truth, natural and supernatural, is the
virtue of the intellect, beautj' the object of the affections,
and a just estimate of the truly beautiful, their virtue ; charity
in its widest sense the guide and virtue of the will.'
Dr. O'Toole's system of education, while developing the
higher graces, fostered in his pupils a love of culture. Decla
mation being part of his programme, they were required to
master some of the most memorable parts of Shakspeare,
with what results we shall see.
' Lecture on 'The Harmony of Catholic Worship,' Boston, U.S., Septem
ber 23, 1872,

VOL. 1,

50 LIFE OF FATHER THOMAS BURKE.

CHAPTER II.
THEATRICALS AND THEOLOGY — GALWAY DAYS
CONTINUED.
The curtain rises to disclose a new act in the small domestic
drama of this history. Nicholas Burke was attracted by the
Temple of Thespis, and for weeks was stage-struck. But lest
ascetics should start, it is well to tell at once that the
theatricals which attracted him were purely amateur. One
of the most promising of Dr. O'Toole's pupils — his friend
Charles Dugan — had organised a small company which per
formed to crowded chairs in Flood's Lane. Miss Burke
informs us that a friend of the family happened to visit her
mother at this time, and astonished the good woman by say
ing that he had been kept spell-bound by the performance of
her son. ' Depend upon it,' he said, ' that boy will make his
mark yet.' ' Sir, that is not the sort of mark I'd like
Nicholas to make,' was the reply of the Galway Tertiary.'
I think that it was while at Dr. O'Toole's seminary we organised
these private theatricals (writes Mr. Dugan). Like all young
beginners, we were ambitious, and would commence at nothing less
than Richard fJL I played the ' crook-backed tyrant ; ' and as
our company was small, Burke had two or three parts assigned to
him. When young he had somewhat nice delicate features, and was
' Mrs. Burke continued to the end to occupy that middle stage between the
world and the cloister known as The Third Order. This institution, which dates
from the thirteenth century, binds its members to avoid dances and theatres, to
pray more frequently, to dress more soberly, to fast more strictly, and to practise
works of mercy more systematically, than ordinary laics ; and they made simple
vows to observe the rule. These Tertiaries are styled by St. Francis Brothers
and Sisters of Penance. This circumstance helps to account for the austerity of
Mrs. Burke's character.

AMATEUR THEATRICALS. 5 I
very slim in person. He therefore look the part of Lady Anne ;
and I distinctly remember how well he looked the character and
acted it too. We also had a play, Gisippits, by Gerald Griffin, who
just at this time had joined the Christian Brothers, and soon after
died. An incident during the course of our histrionic career clings
to my memory. Burke took the part of a personage, I forget what,
whom I was to slay. He wore a green jerkin with plated buttons.
I used a handsome dagger, blunted at the point, that we picked up
somewhere. Acting our parts too well, and in the excitement of the
action, I aimed the dagger under Burke's arm, but struck too closely
to his side, so that the buttons and portion of his jerkin and of his
inner vest were cut away — in fact the blade grazed his skin. He
turned white and staggered to the side scenes. I was so horrified
that I rushed after him, all the while the audience applauding
tremendously, thinking that all this was part of the acting. I found
poor Burke almost fainting, lying on a chair, his hand pressed to his
side, two or three of the other performers around him bathing his
temples. I thought that 1 had killed him. It was a mere scratch,
however. His faintness was owing to fright ; he had always some
delicacy of the heart. But at all events I was nearly being the
innocent cause of depriving Ireland of her future great Dominican.
Our theatre was the large loft on an empty store in Flood Street
belonging to my father. The scenes were painted by Burke and
myself I think he alone did the side scenes. The drop represented
the Killarney lakes, and in doing this with me he showed much taste
for painting. In those days costumiers were not so plentiful or apt
as they now are, and our pocket money was too limited to have
recourse to any such aids. The dresses were therefore made up at
home. Lady Anne's dress was formed from an old black velvet
dress belonging to my sister. Burke got it trimmed with white fur.
I think we cut up a valuable fur cloak of my mother's for this pur
pose. I can assure you that Burke in this attire looked the gentle
Lady Anne to perfection.'
One of the performers was Mr. J. J. Brady, now civil en
gineer, Galway. While some of the minor actors had merely
tin dirks, which bent harmlessly on the breast, he wielded a
veritable sword, which had whilom flourished at the Battle of
1 Letter of Charles Winston Dugan, Esq. [Adelaide House, Clonmel] to the
Author, October 13, 1883. E 2

52 LIFE OF FATHER THOMAS BURKE.
Castlebar, when the royal troops fled in disorder. Thirty
years after, Fr. Burke and Mr. Brady met at a banquet in
Galway. One of Fr. Burke's first observations across the table
was : ' John, do you remember the night that you nearly cut
the hand off Jack Toole, when he neglected to let down the
drop .' ' This is explained by the following remini.scence : —
Mr. Dugan was Duke of Gloster, afterwards Richard III., and
a capital Richard he was. I was Richmond, and also King
Henry VI. 's ghost, and, concealed in a white sheet, accused my
friend Dugan (Gloster) ' of having punched several holes in my
anointed bod)', &c.' .... And in a few moments I appeared as the
victorious Richmond, on Bosworth Field ; and, having despatched
Gloster, I tried a like experiment on our scene-shifter, who, for some
unaccountable reason, did not let down the drop-scene at the proper
moment ; but I, with one well-directed blow of my sword, cut the cord
that held it. The rapidity of its descent must have charmed the
audience, as the applause on the occasion was immense  '
His tastes gradually became more dramatic. Indeed, he
may be said to have breathed in birth and boyhood a Thes
pian atmosphere. His natal spot in Kirwan's Lane was
within a door or two of the Galway theatre. Hardiman,
who published his History in 1820, describes its scenery as
then elegant. ' Barry, Mossop, Kemble, Cooke, Siddons,
Walstein, and O'Neill visited these boards.' To this list may
be added Edmund Kean, whom the present Dominican
Prior of Galway remembers playing in Kirwan's Lane.^
A popular piece was O'Keefe's ' Wild Oats,' in which the
career of a strolling player is invested with romanric interest.
' Letter of J. J. Brady, Esq., C.E., Galwaj, Nov. 5, 1883. There seems to
have been more than one cast of the play.
2 This lane,, naw a line of ruins, exhibits decided traces of the architecture
peculiar to Spain, and until the first quarter of the present century was peopled by
persons of good position. Its chimaey-pieces, which still cling to the roofless,
floorless walls, r.ev,eal in their blackened hearths stories of social nights long passed
away, and record in imperishable lines the strong Catholic feeling of their original
owners. One of special massiveness displays carvings of the crown of thorns,
the sponge, pincers, and nails, surmounted by the letters 'IHS' and the date
' 1615.-' On a ruined wall in Dead Man's Lane, Galway, is cut the motto,
' Vaniti of Vaniti and all is but Vaniti, 1624.'

HISTRIONIC TASTES. 53
' Once, when a dramatic company visited Galway,' said Fr.
Burke, • my mother took the precaution of locking me up.' '
Histrionic tastes were with him no passing fancy. Though
as a priest the theatre was forbidden to him, he showed to
the end dramatic passion and power. An English critic
having gone to hear Fr. Burke preach, a few years before his
death, noticed him in words which, for the curiosity of the
thing, are pressed into this page : —
The great Dominican's voice has a rare range, without break or
deficiency in any part of the compass. In the portions of his speeches
which are more easily delivered it is a mellow bass, heard without
difficulty, though produced without effort, over the area of a large
building. In the passages which are delivered with rising energy
Father Burke's voice is a very fine, rich alto, with a slightly nasal
timbre, such as is often observable in great tragedians. If G. V. Brooke
had suffered the tonsure towards the latter part of his life and donned
the black and white habit of the Dominicans he would have been
very much such a man as Father Burke is ; but Father Burke's bass
is never sepulchral or artificial as Brooke's was apt to be.^
Had it not been for that Divine Grace which in Nicholas
Burke became a development and not a change— had it not
been for the watchful maternal eye — it is hard to say in
what role his career might not have been cast.
The youth was free at least to read. From studying
Shakspeare's plays, he was led to look into the chronicles
on which those masterpieces were founded. The thrilling
story of Macbeth and Duncan King of Scotland sent him
to the history of that country. Antony and Cleopatra, Julius
Ccssar, and Coriolamts sent him to Rome. Traces of this
reading will be found in his lecture on 'The Supernatural
Life of the Irish People.'
Other duties led Dr. O'Toole to relinquish schooling, to
the great regret of his pupil, who thereupon was sent to the
' Fr. Burke to Miss Edith Moore.
2 The criticism, which runs to a column, appeared in the Liverpool Journal.

54 LIFE OF F-ATHER THOMAS BURKE.
academy of Mr. Michael Winter, in Galway.' ' Now is the
winter of our discontent,' he muttered ; but the sunshine
which lit up his nature and surroundings would ever and
anon gleam. Referring long after to his sojourn with Mr.
Winter, ' he described it,' writes Mr Dugan, ' as his period
of hybernation, punning on the teacher's name, and at the
same time slily hitting at the little work he did or was asked
to do.' Mr. Dugan did not meet Burke again until the
year 1873.
I was at that time in Birr, and as we had not met since we parted
at Galway as youths on our different roads in life, I was of course
most anxious to see him, now the famous Dominican. I drove to
Roscrea, went to the sacristy of the church, and found that
Burke was then engaged in the confessional. One of the attendant
priests, however, volunteered to tell him that I was there. In a few
minutes my old friend came in, and grasped me in his arms and wept.
Twenty-five years before had we parted ; he was then a slim awkward-
looking lad, now he appeared before me as the majestic ecclesiastic
in the flowing picturesque habit of his Order.
We talked together of old times, and during conversation some
circumstances, as bearing on his future renown and career, were
spoken of. Amongst others the following : —
He and I were in the habit of walking very frequently from
Galway to Salthill and Blackrock. Here, upon this rocky shore,
where the Atlantic waves are ever breaking, he used to put small
shells and pebbles in his mouth and declaim to the sea in a loud
voice. I was his audience, and my function seemed to be to tell him
whether he spoke sufficiently loud and clear to distinguish his words
over the sound of the waters. His gesticulations were very marked :
now he seemed to be addressing the waves — now the rocks — swaying
about his thin body and long arms. To a person at a distance
he must have seemed a lunatic.^
' Miss Burke says that her brother went from Winter's school direct to Rome.
Mr. Dugan 's first impression was that he attended Winter's before O'Toole's. On
pointing out the discrepancy, he has been good enough to make personal inquiry
in Galway, and now endorses the statement of Miss Burke.
2 This fondness for the seashore continued to the end. For many years before
his death Fr. Burke was in the habit of bringing with him to Kingstown, Bray or
Sandymount, the gifted young Dominican preacher. Rev. J. P. Daly, and, while
sitting on the roclis, discussing points of deep interest to both. The voice and

DECLAIMS TO THE SEA. 55
He sometimes failed to express himself with the fluency he
wished, and by the means I have mentioned he sought to strengthen
his chest and nerve, and to acquire a loud voice. On speaking
about those times I said, ' Surely, Father Tom, you must then have
had some foresight of your future career.' He replied, laughing,
' No, Charlie, I was only aping Demosthenes.' Then suddenly
he said, ' There I used to speak to a sea of senseless water, but after
wards I had to speak to seas of human hearts. May God grant that
they were not senseless also. Strange,' he continued ; ' perhaps
these waves on the shores of Galway came to me as messengers to
my spirit from a far-off western shore ' — an allusion to his mission
in America. I do not think that any one save myself is aware of these
interesting facts. At his desire we studiously kept our sea-shore visits
secret as possible.
Those rambles with the friend of his youth were full ot
glow. Twenty years after he adverts to both in words too
precious to be cast aside.
It is not, perhaps, the beauties of the land that we remember ; it
is not the green hillsides, crowned with the Irish oak, made so
beautiful in their clothing of the Irish fern, that rise before our eyes,
and excite the tenderest emotions of our souls ; it was not the
beauties of Avoca that captivated the poet when he sang —
Yet it was not that Nature had shed o'er the scene
Her purest of crystal and brightest of green ;
'Twas not her soft magic of streamlet or hill.
Oh ! no — it was something more exquisite still.
'Twas that friends, the beloved of my bosom, were near,
WTio made every dear scene of enchantment more dear.
And who felt how the best charms of Nature improve.
When we see them reflected from looks that we love.
So, perhaps, it is not the material beauty of Ireland — the green
hihside, or the pastoral beauty of glade or of valley ; it is not,
manner of Fr. Daly in the pulpit so resembled Burke's that it was often hard to
distinguish between them. But Burke was entirely free from the jealousy found
in other professions, and paternally guided to maturity the rising talents of his
friend. Often, when the latter was about to preach, Fr. Burke would enter his
room and place before him various plans of sermons from which to choose ; or
sometimes to read for him, with the elocution of which he was master, his favourite
poet, Alfred Tennyson.

56 LIFE OF FATHER THOMAS BURKE.
perhaps, the running brook, the millpond, the green field, the
moss-grown old abbey, around which we played in our youth — not so
much these that command our love ; but it is the holy, tender asso
ciations of all that we first learned to love and to venerate : the
pure-minded, holy, loving mother, the wise and considerate father ;
the tender friend upon whom we leaned, and whose friendship was
to us the eariiest joy of our life : the venerable priest, whose smile
we sought as we bowed our youthful heads for his blessing. These,
and such as these, are the motives of our love for Ireland. '
But with his usually keen perception of the ludicrous he
noticed the peculiarities of not a few friends. ' A lacka
daisical Galwegian,' writes Mr. Molloy, 'had a habit on
hearing any news, from an earthquake to the latest litter of
kittens, of taking off his hat, slapping his forehead and ex
claiming, " Oh, good hour ! " If this departed worthy com
ported himself as drolly as Fr. Burke described him, a trip to
see the sight would not have been amiss.'
Those who remember Lever's pictures of Galway life fifty
years ago, and of the Baby Blakes and Louisa Bellews who
led hearts captive in that region, will understand that a youth
specially susceptible to the influences of music and poetry
would have been more than human had he stood within
it wholly unscathed. But, as he says in his discourse on
Cardinal Barnabo, ' Young blood, with passions to be sub
dued, are frozen into an icicle of Christian purity by the
touch of Divine grace.'

S'

The lady who was the object of young Burke's boyish admira
tion (writes his early companion, Charles Winston Dugan) told me
that from her remembrance of him he was a tall bo)' with large dark
eyes and darker hair, fond of singing, and that he serenaded her
with such lyrics as ' I saw from the beach,' &c. This lady was con
siderably above him in social position, so that most of his love-
making was from a distance.^
' After his return from Italy and America, when he had
' Lecture at the Academy of Music, New York, May 23, 1872. Those
familiar with Galway will recognise all the places thus rapidly noticed.
^ Letter of Charles Wiston Dugan, Esq., Adelaide House, October 18, 1S82

PREFERS SERMONS TO SIRENS. 57
become famous,' adds Mr. Dugan, 'they met at a friend's
house, on which occasion he referred to the old days. He
also mentioned that it was in that memorable dramatic affair
of ours he made his dibiit in public speaking.' The lady,
who was the object of his boyish attention, was his senior.
We believe that at the time of the conversation chronicled
by Mr. Dugan she was a grandmother, so that ascetics must
not pooh-pooh the priest for alluding historically to their
early acquaintance.
Had not Nicholas been, as his friends describe him, ' a
retiring boy,' his marked attainments and devotion would
probably have won the heart and fortune of some lady —
and thus a great light would have been lost to the Church !
Men given to ' gosther ' said that, had he gone on and
conquered, he would probably have become M.P. for his native
city, and, like two other Catholic youths who sat for it, he
might be now the Right Hon. Lord Chief Justice Burke,
draped in ermined robes, and in the running for the woolsack.
The youth soon realised with a start the anomalous
character of his position — the instrument of music dropped
from his hand ; he recalled the whisperings of his vocation,
but without attempting to subdue the general exuberance of
his animal spirits. He gave his voice to the Choir — his heart
to the Church.
Five years before his death he quoted the following lines
in reference to a great priest whose eulogy he preached ;
and the striking thought thus expressed is likely to have been
previously applied by that vigorous manly mind to his own
case. ' He must be the Church's champion and defender, her
true knight, her faithful and ever-loving spouse,' said
Fr. Burke. 'The Church of God, girding him with her
cincture, said :
" My knight, my love, my knight of heaven,
O thou, my love, whose love is one with mine,
I, maiden, round thee, maiden^ bind my belt.
Go forth, for thou shaft see what I have seen,

58 LIFE OF FATHER THOMAS BURKE.
And break thro' all, till one will crown thee king
Far in the spiritual city : '' and as she spake
She sent the deathless passion in her eyes
Thro' him, and made him hers, and laid her mind
on him.
' To be admitted to these mystic espousals of holy love,
devotion, and care of the Church of God,' added Fr. Burke,
'is the very highest and most honourable form of Divine
grace.' It will be seen that throughout his after-life he had but one
earthly love— the Church. Every new temple that rose he
regarded as an additional gem tending to the increased beauty
of his bride. Beautiful he found her, ' in the beauty of faith,
hope, and love,' to use his own touching words.
The local castle-building which assigned to him a judicial
destiny may have been promoted by the fact that he seemed
to show legal leanings. Something of this is remembered
by Mr. Dugan.
As was wont with most of the young people at Galway (he
writes), I used to frequent the Assize Court, and was frequently
accompanied by Nicholas Burke. Monahan (afterwards Chief Justice),
Gerald "Pitzgibbon, Mathew Baker, James Blake, Keating (afterwards
Judge), and Charles O'Malley, were the leaders at that time of the
Connaught circuit. Many of the celebrated men of the other circuits
frequently came down special. I remember that we went to hear
Keogh. When I last saw Fr. Burke, some years before his death, I
learned from him that he had come to know in private this remarkable
judge. Amongst other judges attending Galway Assizes were
Crampton, Torrens, Lefroy, Pennefather, and Perrin.
I think it is Johnson who observes that the early years of
distinguished men on minute inquiry furnish proof of the existence
of that for which they are celebrated in after-life. Fr. Burke bears
no exception to this. He was fond of oratory and of listening to
great orators ; and in his mission as a preacher he remembered
the dicta of Cicero and Quintilian, ' The duties of an orator are to
instruct, to prove, and to please.'
The Court House at Galway, besides its criminal business,
' Letter of C. W^ Dugan, Esq., Clonmel, November 7, 1S83.

RURAL RAMBLES. 59
was a famous arena for cases of breach of promise of marriage.
The humour shown in cross-examination, and the acumen by
which hearts and minds were turned inside out, tickled
Burke's sense of the ludicrous and fed his knowledge of men.
If the plausible platitudes of some counsel made him smile,
the dignity and impartial bearing of the judges impressed
him with respect for the seat of Justice.'
The succeeding page will find him in more thoughtful
mood, and, like Hamlet, philosophising in churchyard and
ivy-mantled ruins. In order to perform these pilgrimages he
had, as he tells us, to travel fields and vales, where the beau
tiful melody of his native country floated from the milkmaid's
song as she tripped homeward with her pail. He bade ' God
speed ' to the woman who, at her spinning, carolled some
touching ditty with which his own nurse had soothed him
to rest. He wept with the mother who sent forth the
keene over her daughter's grave. He halted before the forge
where the blacksmith sang to the ring of his own anvil. He
joyously recognised the shrines wherein the national music
had been preserved ; and when afterwards aught arose to
re-awaken these emotions, his whole soul would be stirred as
fond memories of the past crowded to his mind. Twelve
years before his death he addressed an American audience in
words which throw light upon his life and thoughts : —
Is there anything in diis world that so acts upon our memory as
the sound of the old, familiar song, that we may not have heard for
years ? We heard it, perhaps, in some lonely glen, in dear old
Ireland. We have been familiar from our youth with the sound of
that ancient melody, as the man sang it following his horses and
plough, as the old woman murmured it whilst she rocked the child ;
as the milkmaid chanted it as she milked the cows in the evening ;
it is one of the traditions of our young hearts and of our young
senses. Then, when we leave the Green Land, and go out amongst
strange people, we hear strange words and strange music. The songs
' O'Connell will be remembered in the great case Routledge v. Routledge,
heard at Galway. T. B. Smith (who, as Attorney-General, afterwards prosecuted
him) acted as his junior, and deferentially consulted with him on every point.

6o LIFE OF FATHER TPIOMAS BURKE.
of our naUve land for a moment are forgotten, until upon a day, per
haps, as we are passing, that air, or old song, is sung again. Oh, in
an instant, that magic power in the sound of the old familiar notes
throngs the halls of the memory with the dead. They rise out of
their graves, the friends of our youth, the parents, and the aged ones,
whom we loved and revered. Our first love rises out of her grave,
in all the freshness of her beauty. So they fill the halls of the
memory, the ones we may have loved in the past, with the friends
whom we never expected to think of again.
Well does the poet describe it when he says : —
' When through life unblest we rove.
Losing all that made life dear.
Should some notes we used to lore
In days of boyhood meet our ear.
Oh ! how welcome breathes the strain,
Wak'ning thoughts that long have slept —
Kindling former smiles again.
In faded eyes that long have wept.'
No words of mine can exaggerate the power that music sheds
over the soul of man.
It was about this time that Dr. Davies attended Nicholas
Burke in a severe attack of typhoid fever. A similar visita
tion was the turning-point in St. Augustine's life, and it has
been often whispered that Nicholas had followed the early
courses of that great Father until this historic illness came to
bind him to God. But we know from the following admission
that he was free from taint. The good physician who brought
him through the crisis of his fever writes : ' Many a time the
poor fellow said to me that I had a great deal to answer for
in not letting him, as he said, "go when he was young and
innocent." ' '
This great cross was his first vision of Predestination.
For days his life lay in the balance. Not strictly belonging to
this world or the next, he seemed to float on the confines
between both, surveying the vanities of the one and con
templating the glories of the other. At last the crisis came,
and he rose as if by a miracle. In one of his sermons he
' Letter of E. Davies, Esq., M.D., J. P., Athenry, October 23, 188.3.

VOCATION WHISPERS. 6 1
refers touchingly to this fever and its results, and again in
almost the same words when describing the sickness of
St. Ignatius.
The enforced rest which followed threw him back upon him
self, and to while away the hours of convalescence he began to
read the Lives of the Saints. With his grand, simple faith he read of
the great actions of the famous servants of God, and as everything
heroic touched a fibre in his heart, he felt himself transported with
strong desires to emulate the greatest of these saints. The utter
hollowness and vanity of the world and of earthly things came home
to his mind with wonderful clearness, and returning to his Lives of
the Saints he said to himself : ' These men were of the same frame
as I j why should I not do what they have done ? '
Never was Fr. Burke more effective than when, preaching
of others, he gave his own experiences. The flame of his
love for Christ was fanned by his pious .mother, who for
many nights bent anxiously over the idol of her dream. He
now returned to the little world around him, impressed by the
glimpse that had been unveiled. The youth had now finally
determined, though without openly avowing his resolve, to
consecrate that life which had been so providentially spared
to the service of Almighty God.
His mother meanwhile took good care that the great
influence, to which allusion has already been made, should
continue regularly to assert its sway.
Now, the only way to create that interior essence of virtue (he
said in words addressed to an American audience) is to establish
firmly in the soul and in the mind of man the idea of this
responsibility to God for every thought as well as for every action
and word of his life — to bring him face to face with Christ — to make
him not only know, but feel that He whom he serves looks with a
penetrating gaze into the very inner chambers of his soul. How
does the Church do this? By bringing that young man to confes
sion ; by putting him face to face with Christ, scrudnising and
examining his thoughts, his words, and actions ; by making him search,
bv the fight of memory, every craving of his soul and of his
imagination.

62 LIFE OF FATHER THOMAS BURKE.
A youth who was constantly brought by his mother to
'chapel' — as the house of prayer, in deference to a habit
contracted in penal days, was then styled — could not be
without hearing plenty of sermons. Dr. Kirwan, P.P. of
Oughterard, delivered discourses of such dramatic power that,
if reported in days when stenography was not cultivated in
Connaught, would have raised his fame to the highest rank ;
but his sweetness was too long wasted on the desert air. We
at first suspected, and on inquiry have discovered, that the
oratory of the Oughterard priest had no small effect in form
ing the tastes and aspirations of young Burke. Daniel Owen
Madden, hearing of this priest's power, attended with other
Protestants a chapel where he preached. In ' Revelations of
Ireland ' he prints a large sample of what he heard ; and in
reference to a story which Kirwan introduced, adds that • a
dramatic anecdote always moves a congregation, especially
when told, as in this instance, with pathos of manner and
with all the variety of gesture and tone requisite for oratorical
effect.' This was the sort of stimulus to head and heart of which
the boy Burke drank until his ambition to go and do likewise
became fired. Kirwan constantly preached in Galway in the
strain thus described. He had been previously charmed
with the elocutionary promise displayed by young Burke at
Dr. O'Toole's annual Academus. Evening after evening in
church he is said to have recognised a glistening eye rivetted
upon him ; and, just as Garrick would act to some special
face, may not Kirwan too have been led by high hopes to
soar .? Those who care to see a fine specimen of Kirwan's
style will find it in ' Revelations of Ireland,' ist ed.,
pp. 57-9.
All familiar with Burke's pulpit oratory will, on a compa
rison, recognise the model which in after-life perhaps uncon
sciously influenced him. No man was more fond of introducing
an anecdotal episode, and a pin might be heard to drop when

PRESIDENT KIRWAN. 63
once he entered upon it. This and much more we had written
when confirmation of our idea was furnished by Burke's school
fellows, who say that he loved to mimic for their amusement
Kirwan in the act of electrifying a congregation.
If Burke's talents as a preacher received fostering stimulus
from the example of Kirwan, his humour derived an impetus
from association with Fr. Mat. Joyce. Between the latter and
Fr. Peter Daly a perpetual fusillade went on. The priests of
Galway had assembled for the purpose of nominating a
Bishop, when Fr. Daly— an aspirant to the mitre — entering
the room and accosting Fr. Joyce, brusquely said : ' I suppose
we shall soon congratulate you upon being the Right Re
verend ? ' 'I only know that you will be Left Reverend,'
was the reply. A volume might be filled with the jokes
of Joyce that we gathered at Galway.
Of the subsequent short careers of Drs. Kirwan and
O'Toole, a word remains to be said. Originally distinguished
in promoting ' the propagation of the Faith,' Dr. O'Toole was
eventually reproved for aiding to undermine it. This startling
statement demands explanation. He became Professor in,
and at last Vice-President of the Queen's College, Galway,
and, although some of the most prominent bishops declared
themselves strong supporters of that system of education, a
majority finally outvoted them. Pius IX. pronounced
against the scheme, though Gregory XVI. had in 1841
sanctioned it with safeguards ; and in the end Ireland rang
with ' O'Connell's denunciation of the Godless colleges.'
It is remarkable that Kirwan became the first President of
the Queen's College, Galway, and both he and Dr. O'Toole
were finally visited by reproof from Rome. Kirwan resigned ;
O'Toole hesitated ; his position was made still warmer by the
well-directed broadsides of Canons and the comments of
Catholic journalists. O'Toole at last capitulated. He left
Ireland and found at Abingdon, of which he became the
priest, shelter and a grave. Kirwan in private had been

64 LIFE OF FATHER THOMAS BURKE.
always a great social favourite ; he was eminently ornamental,
and long before it was supposed that he would ever become
'a Massillon,' Miss Martin, of BaUinahinch, introduced his
fine character in a novel. His descent to the tomb was slow
and tortuous. This great orator became paralysed in tongue
and brain. With the sparkle of his once lustrous eyes quenched,
and gazing around with vacant stare, the ex-President of the
Queen's College presented a sad spectacle of fallen greatness ;
but for some time he moved about mechanically in the
attempted discharge of routine. At last the happy rescue
came. Mrs. Burke's confessor was Father Austin MacDermott,
O.S.A., whom all the family loved so much that for more
than twenty years he dined twice a week in their house.
Fr. Burke often amused his friends the Jesuit Fathers
with accounts of the great Augustinian of Galway. The
ordinary confessor of Nicholas was Fr. Cummins, but once
when the boy performed some trick specially repellent to the
staid nature of his mother —
I was brought before Fr. MacDermott (he said) sitting sternly in
the tribunal. He wore large spectacles like a pair of gig-lamps, and
he took such quantifies of snuff that the penitent, as his head peered
through the hole of the confessional, would be frequently sneezing,
accompanied by exclamadons of ' God bless us ! ' ^ Fr. MacDermott
looked so awful behind the big spectacles, furnished with this accu
mulated power to read my soul, steeped in the guift of many
mimickries, especially of himself, that I well remember when my
mother brought me by the lug to his box I took care to provide
space behind for retreat in case my judge should suddenly rise to smite.
With reminiscences like these Fr. Burke, in intervals of rest
in a life of toil, amused the genial sons of Loyola. It
must be added, however, that Fr. MacDermott's 'bark was
worse than his bite,' and Nicholas Burke at last came to love
' From the time of Thucydides, sneezing has been regarded as a symptom of
the Plague. In Italy the custom still exists of saying ' Salute,' and in Milan, as
in Ireland, ' God bless us,' when a sneeze occurs.

FR. AUSTIN MACDERMOTT. 65
him well. He was rather a remarkable man, and will be
remembered by readers of the ' Life of Bishop Doyle ' as the
fellow-student of ' J. K. L.' at Coimbra, where, on the outbreak
of the Peninsular War, both threw aside for a time their col
legiate gowns and followed the column of Sir Arthur Wellesley.
Fr. MacDermott was under fire at Caldas and Roleia,
slept almost under the same tent as Wellington, held the
honorary rank of captain, gave spiritual assistance to the dying,
had a narrow escape at Vimiera, helped to rout the French
headed by Junot in person, got the ague twice after the Con
vention of Cintra — due to the hardships of field and bivouac —
returned to Ireland, applied for the Peninsular medal, became
Provincial of the Augustinians and the confessor of Mar
garet Burke.'
His intimacy with the family was partly due to the
proximity of the Augustinian Convent to Wat Burke's house
in Cross Street. The modest ' West Chapel of the Domini
cans ' stood at the extreme outskirt of Galway, and how
Nicholas became specially familiar with it in boyhood will
presently appear.
For years (writes Fr. Towers, O.P.) the West Convent of Galway,
as the Dominican house there is popularly called, was favoured by
a succession of gifted fathers, who announced the Gospel with
eloquence and power. Dr. French,^ the last Warden of Galway, after
wards Bishop of Kilfenora, his brother Fr. Charies, Dr. Winter and
others, are sdll remembered as great preachers by the old inhabitants.
Perhaps this local fame may have insensibly influenced the future
preacher. The contiguity of the West Chapel to the Claddagh is
stated by Hardiman as not the least of the causes which
attach that primitive race to their local situation. The
' Several of his letters addressed to the present writer, detailing his early
adventures, will be found in the Life of Bishop Doyle.
2 In 1849 a friend of the writer's, when dining with Fr. Nagle, P.P., Gort, sat
between two ecclesiastics— one the son of a parson, the other the son of a lapsed
priest. The first was Dr. French ; the second was Dr. Kirwan, Protestant Dean
of Limerick, and son of the Rev. Walter Blake Kirwan, who confurmed in 1787.
VOL. I. ^

66- LIFE OF FATTIER TPIOMAS BURKE.
manners, habits, and character of its people are as distinct
from the inhabitants of the adjoining town of Galway, as
though they were of another country, and Nicholas, who, as
Fr. Russell, O.P., states, ' always loved to study everything
quaint or queer,' was irresistibly attracted towards the strange
colony. In the election on St. John's eve of the King,
Mayor, and Corporarion of the Claddagh, with its ringing
mirth and primitive customs, Nicholas Burke often participated.
In 1872 he was freely interviewed by the American re
porters. His bonhomie and candour made him communicative.
He was the most restless of all scholars, as fond of play as he
was devoted to his books. Men who grew up with him from boyhood
relate the innocent jokes which he daily concocted to the confusion
of the fishermen of the Claddagh, who loved him as much as they
feared his schemes.'
His fondness for the sea and association with fishermen reminded
me of St. John (writes Dr. Davies). I remember that he spent most
of his leisure hours among the fishermen of the Claddagh, and I
often heard him ascribe the largeness of his ears to his mother
having so frequently pulled them as punishment for his going so
often to the Claddagh against her wishes. He was a very arch boy,
but never vicious, as wild boys often are. In his wonderful powers
of mimicry, here too he was peculiar — always true to the life, not
unkindly sarcastic or cynical.^
It has been said that people born with silver spoons in
their mouths do not always make a stir in the world ; and the
case of Nicholas Burke somehow recalls the idea.
Another phase of impulse now swept across his mind, to the
increased anxiety of his watchful mother ; but it was an
impulse reconcilable with sound spiritual tendencies. Born in
the era of Catholic Emancipation, he shared all the enthusiasm
of O'Connell's triumph. The ' Repeal excitement was now
at white heat.'
Speeches were made on every side (writes Mr. Sheriock) ; the air
was thick with oratory ; the papers were crammed with the utterances
' RedpatKs Weekly, New York, No. 346.
•' Letter to the author from E. N. Davies, Esq., M.D., J. P., Athenry.

O'CONNELL'S MONSTER MEETINGS. Qy
of prominent politicians, and among them were some of the most
stirring speakers that ever sought to rouse the souls of their fellow-
men. Young Burke's spirit moved before a new impulse. He
became the orator of his schoolmates.
It was in such times that he found his power to move
men's souls by language afterwards to be turned to high
purpose in the pulpits of the Old Worid and the New.
Blessed by the patriot prelate of the West, some of
O'Connell's first monster meetings were held in Connaught. A
picture of that at Clifton hangs before us as we write, with
portraits of Smith O'Brien, Davis, and the Bishops of Meath
and Ardagh ; while O'Connell himself stands in the centre,
swaying the multitude with his grandly mellifluous brogue
which Fr. Burke, natural orator as he was, did not disdain after
wards to borrow. In 1872 Fr. Burke preached at New York
on ' The Christian Man the Man of the Day.'
Give me the man of faith. Give me the man of human power
and intelligence, and the higher power of Divine principle and
Divine love ! With that man, as with the lever of Archimedes, I
will move the world.
Let me speak to you of such a man. Let me speak to you of
one whose form, as I beheld it in early youth, now looms up before
me ; so fills, in~ imagination, the halls of my memory, that I behold
him as I beheld him years ago, majestic in stature, an eye gleaming
with intellectual power, a mighty hand uplifted, waving, quivering
with honest indignation ; his voice thundering, like the voice of a
god in the tempest, against all injustice and all dishonour. I speak
of Ireland's greatest son, the immortal O'Connell. He came ; he
found a nation the most faithful, the most generous on the face of
the earth ; he found a people not deficient in any power of human
intelligence or courage ; chaste in their domestic relations, who for
centuries had lived, and died, and suffered, to uphold the Faith and
the Cross. He came, and he found Erin, after the rebelhon of
Ninety-eight, down-trodden in the blood-stained dust, and bound
in chains. He raised that prostrate form ; he struck the chains from
those virgin arms, and placed upon her head a crown of free worship
and free education.
This is culled from a small collection of his addresses F 2

68 LIFE OF FATHER THOMAS BURKE.
published in this country, but the Irish Ajnerican reports a
passage neither in it nor in the large edition brought out at
New York, and we are aware that it was a revision effected
by Fr. Burke.
He showed Ireland and the worid that the highest. genius can be
e.xalted still more when consecrated to the sacred cause of religion.
He taught the youth of Ireland the lesson they had learned so well
from him — and from their fathers— that the secret of Ireland's
strength and ulrimate glory lies in Ireland's adherence to her ancient
faith. He taught them that that man alone is sure to conquer every
enemy who has learnt to conquer himself. He has contributed
largely to make a priest of me, for amongst the tenderest recollec
tions of my youth, amongst the things that made a deep impression
on me as a boy, was when I stood in the chapel of Galway to see
the great O'Connell — the man who shook the world — to see that
great man coming to eight o'clock Mass in the morning, kneeling
amongst us and receiving Holy Communion ; to watch him absorbed
in prayer before God ; to read almost the grand thoughts that were
passing through that pure mind ; to see him renewing again before
heaven the vows that bound him to religion and country.
O'Connell's monster meetings were great historic events.
At Tara, where the Ardrigh and sub-kings of Ireland had
met in council, there were present, under O'Connell's banner,
seven hundred and fifty thousand souls, ' aye, and bodies
too,' as he himself said when correcting this announcement.
The assembly had just been enrolled teetotallers by Fr.
Mathew ; and to their cool brains were largely due the strict
discipline which reigned. Sir Gavan Dufty says that more
men were present than possessed Scotland when Wallace
raised the standard of independence, or Athens in the days of
her world renown. There was much in Tara to excite
historic memories from its ' Harp that once ' to its battle in
'98. On August 15, 1843, future soldiers, destined to fight
in the Crimea and Egypt, stood there beside embr)-o bishops
and priests. Did Nicholas Burke, with the dash of his nature,
steal a march on his mother and stand there too } The
revised report in the L'ish American of onef o his lectures

THE HILL OF TARA. Cg
says : — ' We were once nearly nine millions. / remember
seeing 250,000 around Daniel O'Connell. You could scarcely
find that number now in a whole province of Ireland.''
In another address he made more detailed reference to the
Tara meeting, though his impression again erred as to the size
of the assemblage. But this may be explained by the fact
that it was impossible from any one point to see the entire
meeting ; the hill rose abruptly high from the bosom of the
plain ; the people stood thick as bearded corn. Thousands
could not get near the hill at all. The present writer, then a
boy, was present, and could not even see the platform from
which O'Connell spoke. Tara had been the scene of a battle
between the King's troops and the insurgents, who from the
way they wore their hair were nick-named ' croppies.'
In the early morning there was a tent pitched upon the hill-top ;
there was an altar erected, and an aged priest went to offer up the
Mass for the people. Women with grey heads, who were bloom
ing maidens in '98, came from every side ; and they all knelt round
the 'Croppy's Grave'; and just as the priest began the Mass, and
the two hundred thousand on the hill-sides and in the vales below
were uniting in adoration, a loud cry of wailing pierced the air. It
was the Irish mothers and the Irish maidens pouring out their souls
in sorrow, and wetting with their tears the shamrocks that grew out
of the ' Croppy's Grave. '^
Nicholas was a youth of strong impulse, and his views
were largely shaped by the books and the men to whose
influence he bowed. It will be seen that though in '43 a
strong disciple of the moral force policy of O'Connell, yet
in '46 his sympathies went with Young Ireland. This
change was entirely produced by what he read. Thomas
Davis had urged that Ireland's then scanty stock of books
should be increased.
' ' Catholicity as Revealed in the Character of the Irish People.' New York.
" 'The History of Ireland as told in her Ruins.' New York, April S, 1872.
But memories other than political were in Burke's mind when he visited Tara.
It was on that hill that St. Patrick, holding aloft a shamrock, preached to the
pagan people, and explained to them the mystery of the Trinity.

70 LIFE OF FATTIER THOMAS BURKE.
The influence on the young mind of Ireland of such works
would be incalculably great. Boys who read of their own will, read
intently ; they are edified and instructed with Sandford and Merton ;
they are loyalists with Falkland, and patriots with Lord Edward.
The writer of books popular among boys may calculate on revolution
ising a country at the outside in thirty years.
A journalist who met Fr. Burke in Philadelphia has given
us the fruit of some impressions he gathered.
When Davis endeavoured to waken into life the dead chivalry
of Connaught, the last refuge of the Catholic Celt, and the last
battle-field of Irish independence, he little thought that a youthful
reader was destined to kindle anew the love of faith and fatherland
in Irish hearts in every quarter of the globe by the magic power of
true eloquence. Little did the gifted poet of ' Young Ireland ' know
that his noble poem, ' The West's Asleep,' sent the blood burning
through the veins of a light-hearted, bright- eyed youth of Galway.
I can fancy how young Burke felt as he read the following inspiring
lines of Davis : ' And often in O'Connor's van
To triumph dashed each Connaught clan —
And fleet as deer the Norman ran
Through Corlieu's Pass and Ardrahan,
And later times saw deeds as brave ;
And glory guards Clanricarde's grave —
Sing, Oh ! they died their land to save,
At Aughrim's slopes and Shannon's wave.' '
Fr. Burke in one of his extempore lectures referred to the
man whose poetry left so deep an impression on him.
Although Moore made every true heart and every noble mind
melt into sorrow at the contemplation of Ireland's wrongs, as they
came home to every sympathetic breast upon the wings of Ireland's
ancient melody, yet he said to the harp of his country: —
' Go sleep with the sunshine of fame on thy slumbers,
Till waked by some hand less unworthy than mine.'
A hand less unworthy came— a hand more loyal and true than even
his was — the immortal Thomas Davis. He and the men whose hearts
beat with such high hope for young Ireland seized the sad, silent harp
of Erin, and sent forth another thrill in the invitation to the men of
' .S'/a?;(fa?-fl' [Philadelphia], July 14, 18S3.

BITTEN BY YOUNG IRELAND. 71
the North to join hands with their Catholic brethren— to the men
of the South to remember the glories of ' Brian the Brave.' To the
men of Connaught, he seemed to call forth Roderick O'Connor from
his grave at Clonmacnoise. He rallied Ireland in that year so
memorable for its hopes and for the blighting of those hopes. He
and the men of the Nation did what this world has never seen in the
space of time, by the sheer power of Irish genius, by the sheer
strength of Young Ireland's intellect ; the Nation of '43 created a
national poetry, a national literature, which no other country can
equal. Under the magic voices and pens of these men, every ancient
glory of Ireland stood forth again. I remember it well. I was but
a boy at the time ; but I recohect with what startled enthusiasm I
would arise from reading ' Davis's Poems ' ; and it would seem to me
that before my young eyes I saw the dash of the Brigade at Fontenoy.
It would seem as if my young ears were filled with the shout that
resounded at the Yellow Ford and Benburb — the war cry of the
Red Hand, ' Lam Dearg Abu ' — as alien hosts were swept away,
and, like snow under the beams of the hot sun, melted before the
Irish onset.
But a reaction of calm came. In a lecture on ' The
Church the Salvation of Society,' our Dominican says : —
The Church maintained the rights of the people, whenever those
rights were unjustly invaded by those in power. But, to the people,
in their turn, this Church has always preached patience, docility,
obedience to law, legitimate redress, when redress was required.
She has always endeavoured to calm their spirit, and to keep then,
back, even under sore oppression, from the remedy which the world's
history tells us has always been worse than the disease — viz., the
remedy of rebellion.
Be this as it may, Burke's sympathies in '46 were, as we
have said, on the side of Young Ireland. The death of Davis
came as a heavy blow and intensified the boy's devotion to
his memory. It may be mentioned as introductory to the
following that a new writ for Galway town had been issued
on the death of Sir Valentine Blake in 1846. The Right
Hon. J. H. Monahan obtained 510, and Mr. Anthony
O'Flaherty 506 votes.
Fr. Burke (writes Mr. Meehan) was wont to recount his expert-

72 LIFE OF FATHER THOMAS BURKE.
ences of those days in a humorous way. The older members of our
race, who watch the progress of Irish agitation in the English Par
liament, will remember the shock the ' Repeal Party ' received when
Dr. Power, one of the members for Cork, and the brother of the
then Vicar-General of New York, deserted the Repealers in the
legislature, and voted openly with the Ministry on a question
on which the Irish members were in opposition to the Government.
He got as his reward the Governorship of the British Colony of
Santa Lucia, in the West Indies. The next break was when
Monahan — another Repealer — took office as Attorney-General. He
was one of the members for Galway, and the 'Young Ireland ' Party
determined to make the issue on otfice-taking in his case, and fight
the battle against him, though they had not a hope of defeating him
— the influence of ' Conciliation Hall,' as it stood then— the whole
power of the Government, and all the local authorities being against
them. Nevertheless, they sent down from the Confederation in
Dubfin a delegation composed of Smith O'Brien, Thomas Francis
Meagher, John B. Dillon, Richard O'Gorman, and Michael Doheny,
to fight the batde of Nationahsm. When the delegates got to
Galway they found that the game was already lost. The Government
had adopted Monahan as their candidate, and there was no chance
for the ' Young Ireland ' man. Nevertheless, the young ' revolu-
donists ' fought inch by inch the elecdon, which in those times often
ran for weeks. It was before the days of railroads in Ireland,
and the expected orators had to travel from Dublin by coach.
The roads were heavy, the weather adverse, and when the time
came at which the expected speakers should have appeared to
fire the audience, there was no evidence that even the stage coach
containing them was anywhere within sight. It was suggested that
they had better put up ' Young Burke ' to fill the time until some
of the looked-for celebrities should arrive. Accordingly the future
Dominican was hoisted on the platform, and, as he used to say
himself, was getting off one of his best school-boy rhetorical efforts
when some ' unreconstructed ' old Irelander in the crowd cried out'
' Ah ! go 'long out o' that, Nicky Burke, or I'll tell your mother what
a goum (fool) you're making of yourself.' Fr. Burke used to relate
this anecdote of his first appearance as a public orator with great
humour, adding that he never dreaded criticism afterwards a's he
feared that threatened by his Galway co-patriot in the days when
he was yet subject to the parental jurisdiction.
The handwriting on the wall created not more complete

A GALWAY ELECTION. "j-^
collapse. Just as gossiping Galwegians say that had Burke
married he might possibly have become M.P. and Chief
Justice, others aver that if he had not succumbed to this
sneer the tiro tribune might have found himself in '48
shoulder to shoulder with Meagher and O'Brien, and have
enriched ' Political Speeches from the Dock ' with another
sample of sensation oratory.
The effort, though an early one, was yet not his first.
While wearing a bib I remember climbing up to a platform built
on barrels, and spouting freely. After I had gone to bed my rtiother
heard of it, and disturbed my dreams of oratorio glory by adminis
tering a condign rouser.
' Hail, healthful Exercise, whose bracing charm
Makes young blood tingle and keeps old blood warm ! ' '
Wat Burke and his wife were strong disciples of O'Connell,
whose policy of moral force had been opposed by Young
Ireland." A Galway election at that day was an elaborate
incident : —
Night and day the combatants were at work (writes Meagher).
For more than a week they fought. F'rom dawn to sundown the
battle surged and thundered within the Court House. From sun
down to dawn the theatre, the lanes, the streets, the suburbs, the roads
all around, were scenes of furious action.
The theatre was a ridiculous old building. At seven o'clock
every evening of the contest, that paintless, lustreless, dishevelled
temple of the drama, was in possession of the stormiest crowd. Pit,
boxes, galleries, every seat, every standing place, from floor to
ceiling, were black with people — even to the orchestra.
Instead of trombones, fiddles, and kettledrums, were devoted
Repealers, who beat time with their heels, and, previously to the
chair being taken, enthusiastically whistled ' Garry owen.' One of
these performers was a man of huge limb, with shoulders broad
enough to carry a dray, while the girth and shape of his arm recalled
the colossal pugilist of Crotona, or ' Hugh ' in ' Barnaby Rudge.'
Every inch as sinewy and as large, he was as wild and shaggy in
appearance, and almost as desperate in his onslaughts.
1 Fr. Burke to the Poor Clares.
2 E. N. Davies, Esq., M.D. (chairman of the Galway meeting), to the Author.

74 LIFE OF FATHER THOMAS BURKE.
About seven the chair was usually taken— it had been the judg
ment seat of the Doge in the Merchant of Venice, and had
supported in their dying moments several dynasties of kings and
queens. One evening the orators were half an hour late.' The
people, growing impatient, resolved on something by way of a
change, and had it. When at last they arrived they beheld the
chair placed close to the foot-lights, and a number of legs and arms,
and big sdcks, flourishing on all sides, and keeping time to the
rollicking song, ' I am a ranting, roving blade.'
One morning a man sought the attorney who acted as
conducting agent, and, declaring that there were no less than
eleven cases of assault against him, asked what he had
best do >. ' Make it a dozen,' replied the lawyer. He left the
court and did so.
To another trivial incident Fr. Burke made some reference
in a sermon preached at Brooklyn.
What greater reproach can you put upon a man than to say ' You
turned your coat ; you have shifted your politics ! ' I remember once
when I was a boy seeing a man in Galway who became a great
' Repealer ' and wanted to get into Parliament. His principles were
well known ; up to that time he was a Tory. He came into
the Court House, and a gentleman there, wanting to tell the people
how he had changed his opinions, took off his coat and turned it
inside out. I feel the impropriety of illustrating, on an occasion
like this, my arguments with such familiar examples.^
Fr. Burke, in fact, had been lecturing so much, and told so
many stories, that for a moment he thought he was on the
platform and not in the pulpit. He stated at the Catholic
University, Dublin, that once in the Opera House, Philadel
phia, where 6,000 heads surged before him, he made a large
' It was here that the incident noticed by Mr. Meehan doubtless occurred.
The chairman — probably because he had not arrived— fails to remember young
Burke's speech. But Miss Burke confirms the account, including the threat to
report Nicholas to his mother. He often described his complete collapse when
the inflated rhetoric of a boy had been stung by a puncturing point.
' ' The Principle of Christian Life,' sermon preached at St. Paul's Church,
Brooklyn, U.S., October 20, 1872

DISCOURSES WITH FOREIGN SAILORS. 75
sign of the cross before beginning, and an Irish voice cried
out, ' Long life to you. Father Tom.'
The angry warmth of the election over, work and fun
were by turns resumed. Pantomime tricks were now re
linquished in favour of higher comedy. Galway from time
immemorial had been the port most frequented by foreigners.
Mr. Andrew Lynch remembers young Burke wending his
way to the docks and accosting the foreign sailors in
gibberish accompanied by shrugs and other ambiguous ac
tion. Replies as clear as Cherokee fluently fell, only to be
overwhelmed by an avalanche of gibberish. The foreign
sailors generally got angry in the end, whereupon Nicholas
simulated fury until a crowd would collect and the water-
bailiff threatened to interfere.
But his mother knew that these were mere lovers' quarrels,
and prayed that in a moment of impulse he might not join
some foreign ship which ' rode the waters like a thing of life '
to find in the ' land of the cypress and myrtle ' a home
festooned with romance.
Nicholas had such an aptitude for expressing himself in
the patois of foreign tongues that his father often utilised
him as an interpreter in interviews with ship captains — his
object being to effect large sales of biscuit. Miss Burke
says her brother was not only a first-rate salesman, but a
capital accountant. The same is recorded of St. Francis of
Assisi — the father of Mendicant Friars.
' Walter Burke (observes Fr. Mullins, O.P.) occupied a re
spectable status as a trader, and got contracts for supplying
ship-biscuits to the maritime service.' More fortunate than
the episcopal hero of the ditty which he loved to chant, he
had now an heir with marked abihty to succeed him, but the
mother's daydream continued unbroken.
The father thought to keep him at the trade, being handy in
shifting biscuits in the great oven (observes Mr. Lynch), but he
never worked in the actual manufacture of bread. Bakers' ap-

"^6 LIFE OF FATHER THOMAS BURKE,
prentices were a wild lot at that day ; and Mrs. Burke was anxious
to rescue her son from the risks involved in such association.
Whether to sdmulate the ambition of the boy or not, Wat Burke
was fond of dwelling on the history of Barney Hughes, originally
a working baker in Belfast, and who at last was able not only
to give a site for a new Catholic church, but to put down i,ooo/. as
his personal donation. The Orangemen decided not to buy his
bread. Hughes said, 'I'U make them beg for it and pay for it.'
In the famine year, when the peasantry made a raid on his bread-
carts and carried off their contents, he reloaded them (Wat said)
and sent all back to the same place for distribudon among the poor.
Thus, while he tried to awaken the boy's ambition for
commercial enterprise, he would urge at the same time a fine
example of Christian charity. Soon a more practical school
for such inculcations was afforded.
His contracts for the supply of ship-biscuits (Miss Burke said,
addressing the present writer) left in his lofts a great quantity of
biscuit sweepings, which my mother boiled down with beef soup, for
a number of famishing creatures. I remember with what tribulation
she one day witnessed the boy who was carrying out the pot let it
fall and the contents spill on the pavement. But she was resolved
that this disappointment should not extend to the poor, and promptly
sent them out a satisfying supply of loaves.
The law of charity which Nicholas heard preached by his
pious mother, he himself continued to preach unto the end.
Thirty years after, he said: —
If a man come to you or me and says, ' Relieve me, I am in
want,' we ask him the measure of his wants. If we find that he is in
no great pressure of poverty we may of course reheve him, but we
are not absolutely bound to give him our money or means. If that
man come to us in great necessity and tell us, with truth, ' I have not
broken bread to-day and I don't know where to turn for my day's
food,' we are bound, because of his want, lo relieve him ; and that
which was left to our own free disposition a moment ago becomes a
precept. You cannot refuse him, no matter how poor you may be ;
like the widow mentioned in Scripture, you are bound to divide with
him the last measure of meal and the last cruse ot oil'
' Cork Examiner, February 5, 1877. All that Fr. Burke said, his good

FONDNESS FOR SAILORS. -JJ
This sermon was preached at Cork.
It was observed by the Dominican Fathers of that city that
' trifles suflSced to amuse and interest him. During his sojourn
at our convent here he would employ intervals of leisure in
watching on the quays the sailors engaged in converse, or at
their work.'
When Fr. Burke, in the zenith of his fame, withdrew from
the hum of adulation and wandered daily to the coal-
begrimed docks to contemplate sailors hauling, smoking, or
conversing, was he moved by the thoughts of an earlier
day? Who can tell what revolved in that mind when he was
seen to brood over the objects just described ? Was he
thinking of the turning-points in his own life? Just as
an empire was saved by the cackling of a goose, he once said
that he might have been saved by the scolding of an aged
nun. If the apple had not fallen, where would have been
Newton's principle ? That the mind of Thomas Burke was
employed in higher thoughts than might at first sight be
supposed, seems the more likely from the following, which
comes to us from a venerable superioress of the Order of
Charity : —
Once, when wandering along the strand, at Salthill, Galway, ac
companied by friends, he was observed to lag behind and pause as
if in contemplation of the waves as they rolled in unbroken from
Labrador. 'On what are you ruminating?' a friend asked. 'I'm
just thinking that if it were not for the providence of God I might
now be a baker's apprentice, drunk every day of the week.'
Intemperance prevailed to a grave extent in Galway at
mother more than literally exemplified. 'In the famine times,' writes Fr.
Clarke, S.J., and we give the statement entirely on his authority, 'Mrs. Burke
took a family of starving children into the house and fed them with her own
children, making them all kneel down and say the rosary before each meal.' In
all this she imitated St. Dominic, the originator of the rosary, who, when a
great famine ravaged Palencia, laboured to relieve the poor. Trifles of this sort
may have helped to turn her son's thoughts towards the Dominicans ; and he had
read in Hardiman that it was Nicholas Lynch, a Dominican, who in 1627
restored the devotion of the rosary in Galway.

78 LIFE OF FATTIER THOMAS BURKE.
this time ; and, as Mr. Lynch ' says, the bakers' apprentices
were, for the most part, very demoralised. Even some of the
little boys whom our stripling knew were smitten by the
contagion. I have myself known (he says) a little boy, before he was fourteen
years of age, to become a confirmed, irreclaimable drunkard, because
every time that his father sent him to the public-house for whiskey
or gin, the child took his share of it before he brought it home !
What remains of the joys that ought to surround that family at their
domesdc hearth? Not a vestige of tenderness or of comfort.
Demoralisation is there ; poverty comes in at last in its most hideous
form, and brings in its train all the vices, all the crimes, and all
the bestiality which are forced upon those who have the misfortune
to be in that last and most degraded form of poverty.^
How different the example that Wat Burke presented to
his son ! —
Oh ! my friends, what a blessing it is for the grown man in after
life to be able to look back to the days of his early boyhood, and say
of the old man that is in his grave, ' I never heard a bad word from
him ; I never saw him in a position unworthy of a man ; I never
heard from his lips, nor saw in his life, anything that could teach me
sin or vice. His example, by which my character was formed, was
as that of a saint— a perfect Christian.' This is the highest blessing
that perhaps God can give to man ; and it is the precious blessing
which the drunkard denies to the children given to him by God.^
O'Connell's monster meetings ended with his imprison
ment. On appeal to the House of Lords, the gates of his
prison opened amid a grand ovation, but a subtle disease had
already begun to prey, and he walked forth with faltering
step. The Irish Confederation, a powerful league, designed by
Young Ireland to supplant the policy of O'Connell, started
into formidable vitality.
Cathedrals and parish churches, convents and monasteries, col-
• Mr. Andrew Lynch is a highly respectable baker in Galway.
' Lecture on Temperance, Irish Star, June 21, 187-'.
' Lecture on Temperance (inedited), Irish Star, June 21, 1873.

GREAT CHANGES COISIE. 79
leges and schools, orphanages and hospitals, sprang up over the lard
(says Fr. Burke); disciplinary laws, of necessity relaxed during the wild
terrors of persecution, were again enforced ; the sacraments solemnly
and properly administered ; the beautiful devotions of the Catholic
Church publicly practised ; the young instructed ; the Gospel
preached ; the people sanctified.
In the midst of all this glorious work came a period the most
terrible in our history.'
But this Fr. Burke will describe in the next chapter.
' Oration n the Pro-Cathedral, Dublin, Nov. 27, 1878.

8o LIFE OF FATHER THOMAS BURKE.

CHAPTER III.
AD. 1847. yETAT. 1 7.
The hand of God was now to fall upon Ireland. The Angel of
Famine and Death was spreading his wings over the land. The
people who retained strength to move were about to rush from their
island home as from a pest-house, and in their hundreds of thousands
seek and find refuge beyond the Western Ocean.'
These words were used by Fr. Burke when preaching in
1877 the ^loge of Bishop Moriarty. A lecture on O'Connell,
in New York, five years previously, adverts to the same time.
Well I remember those fearfiil scenes ! Then came the day when
the news spread from lip to lip — ' There is famine in the land ; and
we must all die.' So said eight millions in that terrible year of '46 —
eight millions in that awful autumn that came upon us, when the
people 'cried for bread and there was no one to break it to them.'
The strong man lay down and died. The tender maidens, the pure
and aged matrons of Ireland, lay down and died. They were found
dead by the roadside, unburied ; they were found in their shallow
graves — scarcely buried.^
A sermon at West Chester, U.S., presents a more detailed
narrative of some thrilling incidents that he had himself seen.
I was but sixteen years of age, yet old enough to know good and
evil, old enough to appreciate joy and sorrow. I found myself on
the western coast of the island, in the midst of the people, when it
pleased the Almighty God to send down His last and most terrific
visitation upon us all ; when the Angel of Famine and Death spread
his wings, and the baneful shadow passed over the land. I have
' Sermon preached in the Cathedral, Killarney, at the celebration of the
Requiem Office for the Bishop of Kerry.
= Lecture on O'Connell at the Academy of Music, New York, May 13, 1872.

THE IRISH FAMINE. 8 1
seen strong men lie down in the streets of the city, and, with ashy
lips, murmur a last cry for food, and faint away and die ! I have
seen the dead infant lying on the breast of the dead mother as she
lay by the wayside ! I have seen the living infant trying to draw
from the breast of the mother who was dead sustenance for its infant
life ! Oh, God ! in Thy mercy let me never again see such sights !
Was she faithful or faithless to every tradidon of holiness ? Was she
stiU a nation of martyrs and of saints ? Ay, my friends. One case
out of ten thousand : There was a family, far away on the western
coast of the island. They were three days without food. The father
and mother were there ; the young man, the young girls were
there. There was no work to be done ; the country was a waste ;
the Angel of Death had swept his hand over it ; the ungrateful soil
refused to give sustenance to its sons ; they were living upon the
dock-leaves and the grass, until they were so enfeebled as to be no
longer able to go out and seek them; and the whole family were
here and there stretched upon the floor, dying in the slow agonies
of hunger, when a sleek fanatical lady came in. On her arm she
had a basket ; and in it she had bread and meat She had waited
for a particular day ; and that day happened to be Good Friday.
.She looked around upon the dying intermingled with the dead ; she
took out the bread and the meat, and laid them before the dying
ones, and said, ' If you wish to live, eat !' With their dying hands
they pushed her away ; they averted their eyes from that which was
the staff of life, and said, ' On this day Christ died for us ; and the
Church commands us not to eat these things.' She returned ; she
jitit back her bread and her meat into the basket and walked out ot
the house ; and God only knows how many curses have been upcn
her head because she made the life of this world the trial of a people's
faith. Another example, and I have done. A good woman, who lived
on the western shores of Ireland, a few miles from my native
Galway, was accustomed, every Sunday, to be present at the Mass,
and on the first Sunday of every month to receive Holy Communion.
The famine came. She was then an old woman. Her sons had
gone away to look for work, with a promise that they would come
to her and keep her in life if they could. Her daughters had emi
grated ; and she was left alone in the world, with her youngest, a boy
of twelve or fourteen years of age. They Hved together, the old
woman and the boy; and when the distress came upon the country,
to such a degree th.at all were dying, the boy cried for food, and the
VOL. I. G

82 LIFE OF FATHER THOMAS BURKE.
old woman had nothing to give him. At length, wasting away under
her eyes, while she gave him all that she had, denying herself, one
day he laid his head upon her bosom and died. She was so weak
ened by hunger that she was not able to go out of the house to the
neighbours to get them to assist in burying him. For two days he
lay dead upon the floor ; and she dying — dying with a broken
heart, without one to put a cup of water to her lips, dying of
hunger and of thirst — she lay for these two days and nights beside
the dead. On the third morning, which was Sunday, she heard the
chapel bell ringing for Mass. The country at the time was a desert,
no neighbours about it. When she heard the bell, she crawled
on her hands and feet out of the house, and tried to take herself to
the chapel, about a mile away. Three times she fell on the road.
Those who were nearly stricken as bad as she was. as they passed,
lifted her up and laid her against the hedge and gave her a drink of
water from the running stream. She fell again and again. At length
she crawled — crawled until she came to a point on the road where
she could see the chapel doors open. The priest was at the altar
saying the Mass. When she caught sight of the altar she lifted up
her hands and eyes to God and cried, ' Eternal praise to the Blessed
Virgin's Son !' and fell back a corpse.'
' They w-ere dying,' an English newspaper said ; ' as a race they
were going with a vengeance.' Yes, they went in thousands and
hundreds of thousands 'with a vengeance.' Thousands lay down in
their martyr graves, and their souls went to God : and hundreds of
thousands turned their backs reluctantly — weeping for the laiid of
their sires, and went into foreign climes where wealth and fortune
awaited their intellect and Irish energy. And hither they brought the
love that sanctiBed those that they left in their graves behind them,^
Fr. Burke's impression of what he had read during the
famine was correct. One of the most powerful leaders that
appeared in the Times stated that a Celt in Connemara would
soon be as rare as a Red Indian in New York.
It was at this time, when returning from a rural ramble,
he stumbled over the dead body of a beggar. He merely
muttered, in the spirit of Jerrold, that it might be the cast
1 'The Hidden Saints of Ireland.' St. Raymond's, West Chester, U.S.A.
All Saints' Day, 1872.
' Ibid.

THE EXTERMINATOR. 83
garment of an angel. Preaching at St. Joseph's, Liverpool,
on September 5, 1880, he said, ' If I were to live a thousand
years, never could I banish from my memory, or shut out
from my eyes, the terrible sights which I then beheld.'
Some passages in his exordium on the death of Cardinal
Cullen supply a sequel to those scenes.
The storm passed away, bearing on its wings the millions of Irish
victims and exiles, and leaving Ireland stunned by the greatness of
her ruin. There seemed no hope for the nation. Ruined home
steads, abandoned villages, impoverished towns, workhouses filled
to overflowing, prisons crowded with political prisoners, hospitals
unable to hold the victims of cholera which came in the wake of war
and famine ; trade and commerce destroyed, industry paralysed, a
population wasted by disease and privation, scarcely able to realise
life after such awful contact with death, and crushed by separation
from so many loved hearts.
To this may be added a climax found in his lecture on
Civil and Religious Liberty, at Hartford, Connecticut. ' The
hand of God was succeeded by the hand of man — the exter
minating hand of the landlord.'
The special knowledge he acquired by personal observa
tion of the sufferings of God's poor gave him an enormous
vantage ground in his exhaustless sermons preached in the
cause of mercy and charity. ' Blessed is he that under-
standeth concerning the needy and the poor,' saith Psalm xl.
' What is this mystery ? ' he asked. ' It is to explain it and to
awaken your consciences to a good understanding of it that I
have come here to- day.' Thus he spoke at Passage, co. Cork,
when unlocking the hand of avarice, on August 10, 1873.
To come back to the famine. No sorrow affected Burke
long. With the vigorous philosophy of his mind, and the
hearty buoyancy of his nature, he rose superior to such
influences. His religious bias was fostered not a little by
lonely rambles and explorations among the former abbey
homes of the Irish Dominicans and Franciscans. From
groping among the stones he turned to the books which

84 LIFE OF FATHER THOMAS BURKE.
toM of the founders, and his mind soon became full of
St. Dominic.
Six hundred years after St. Columbkille's death (he tells us) a
man was born away among the olive groves of Spain. This was St.
Dominic, a man of noble if not imperial birth. He was filled with
the love of God. He found the Church disturbed by heresy on the
one side, and on the other by hundreds of thousands of armed men
trying to enforce heavenly truth with the arms of flesh, while they
were injuring the cause by the immorality of their lives. He
restored peace in the Church by his preaching, a feat that was im
possible to all the forces of Christendom. After a while the
Dominican Friars spread to Ireland, and the Irish people took the
white-robed missionaries to their hearts.'
Burke's enthusiastic love of music magically re-peopled
the deserted walls around him. He heard the loud hosanna,
' the full tide of sacred song swell through those wonderful
cloisters whose very ruins still command our admiration and
move us to tears.' So he said in his sermon on Church
Music at ' St. Mary Star of the Sea' in 1859. An American
lecture — ' The History of Ireland as told in Her Ruins ' —
fondly retraces old paths.
I am come to speak to you of the glory and the shame, and the
joy and the sorrow, that these ruins so eloquently tell of; and when
I look upon them, in spirit now, my mind sweeps over the inter
vening ocean, and I stand in imagination under the ivied and moss-
covered arches of Athenry, or Sligo, or Clare-Galway.
Describing the havoc wrought by Elizabeth, he went on
to say that ;;^5 was the price set upon the head of a friar, the
same as upon the head of a wolf.
These venerable ruins tell the tale of the nation's woe. As lonf
as it was merely a question of destroying a Cistercian or a Benedic
tine Abbey, there were so few of these in the land that the people did
not feel it much. But when the persecution came upon the Bhreahir
as the friar was called — the man whom everybody knew  the man
whom all came to look up to for consolation in sorrow • when it
came upon him —then it brought affliction to every villao-e to everv
' Fr. Burke at Swords, January 5, 1S82.

'THE TALES THE RUINS TELL.' 85
man in Ireland. There were, at this dme, upwards of eighty convents
of Franciscans and Dominicans in Ireland. There were neady
a thousand Irish Dominican priests when Henry began his persecu
tion. He was succeeded, after a brief interval of thirty years, by
Elizabeth. How many Dominicans, think you, were then left in
Ireland? O God! there were four only! All the rest of these
heroic men had stained their white habit with the blood that they
shed for God and for their country.
Black records follow which must not be opened, and then,
adds Fr. Burke,
came a little breathing-time. In fifty years there were six hundred
Irish Dominican priests in Ireland again. They studied in Spain, in
France, in Italy. These were the youth, the children of Irish
fathers and mothers, who cheerfully gave them up, though they knew,
almost to a certainty, that they were devoting them to a martyr's
death ; but they gave them up for God. They studied in foreign
lands ; and they came back again, by night and by stealth, and they
landed upon the shores of Ireland ; and when Cromwell came he
found six hundred Irish Dominicans upon the Irish land. Ten
years after, and again the Irish Dominican preachers assembled to
count up their numbers. How many were left out of the six
hundred ? But one hundred and fifty ; four hundred and fifty had
perished — had shed their blood for their country, or had been
shipped away to Barbadoes as slaves. These are the tales their ruins
tell. Oh, if these moss-grown stones could speak, they would tell
how the people gave up everything they had, for years and years, as
wave after wave of successive persecutions rolled over them, rather
than renounce their glorious faith or priesthood.
With all this in his mind, Nicholas Burke became fired
to follow in the footsteps of the old band, and it may, indeed,
be said that he rose as a giant from the graves of the martyred
Dominicans. Ireland (he exclaimed), what shall I say of thee? O mother,
greatest and most faithful of all the nations, fairest and most loving
of all the daughters of the Church ! The queen of martyrs on this
earth, Ireland, for three hundred years, like the heroic mother of the
Maccabees, had stood erect, cross in hand, whilst her children fell
around her. Yet she bore it with a good courage for the hope that
she had in God.

86 LIFE OF FATHER THOMAS BURKE.
—words spoken in 1878 at the solemn office for Cardinal
Cullen. With ' Hardiman ' under his arm, the boy is found pursuing
with keen interest these visitations.
The proximity of the West Chapel and graveyard of the
Dominicans fostered his fondness for both ;_ and the remains
of his father and mother have been since consigned to their
hallowed embrace.' Nicholas found himself constantly drawn
towards the shattered tombs of this cemetery — then open to
all trespassers. In happy hours, thirty years after, he would
allude to those days, and to amuse a brother friar describe
the little girls of the Claddagh dancing on the flat tombstones
of the Dominican graveyard. He would whistle the air to
which they had capered, and hold out the skirts of his own
habit with a grotesque grace. But when he mimicked the good
Prior, rushing out to drive them from the sacrilege and
puffing in the pursuit, the effect was indescribably comical.^
These old tombs were to him the cradle of thought.
There some of his kinsfolk slept. Speaking in St. Gabriel's
Church, New York, he said : —
I remember when I was a boy my mother taking me to the graves
where her father and mother and .those who went before her were
buried ; and also bringing me to the grave where my father's people
were buried, and there, kneeling down, pouring forth her soul in
prayer. She would make pilgrimages to these sacred places, and
shed tears for those who had died twenty and thirty years before as
though they were lying recently dead, so fresh and green were they
in her glorious Irish memory. And so it is with our people. They
love their dead. The very dead in the Irish grave in the <Jreen soil

e

' Many of these must have been English Dominicans. Fr. Williams th_
present Provincial of England writes : ' They took refuge in Ireland, Scotland
and Belgium.'
2 On revisiting the Dominican graveyard since its enclosure, one fails to find
the ruin which the wall professes to surround ; a remark which applies to many
similarly preserved holy places throughout Ireland, and almost leads to the sus
picion that the ' remains ' within must have been utihsed in building the wall
without.

TOMBS THE CRADLE OF THOUGHT. 8/
over the ocean are the strongest bonds that bind you and me to the
land of our birth this night.
Fruit gathered from the rur-al graveyards of Ireland is
found in many of his lectures. Thus, in ' The Supernatural
Life of the Irish People ' : —
Ireland looks forward to whatever of prosperity, whatever of
freedom, whatever of glory is in store for her. She will not seek it
before its time, widi rash or rebellious hand. She has learned too
well the lesson of patience. She will not seek it until God, in the
revolution of ages, sends it to her; but it will certainly come, because
that nation has preserved its national existence by preserving its
supernatural fife in God. It will not always be night. The clouds
will not always lie there. It will not always be that the Irishman is
uncertain of the footing that he has in the land, until he lies down in
the grave. It will not always be, as I heard once an old woman say,
weeping in a churchyard, ' I had land, I had a place in this country,
I had a house. They took them all from me, and nothing remains
but this grave.' It wiU not always be thus. Justice, glory, power,
are in the hands of God. Glory and power are His gifts to every
nation. To some that glory and that power is given even after they
have forsaken their God ; but when it comes to dear old Ireland it
will be a reward for her faith, and for her love of Christ.
It has been said (says Fr. Burke in one of his sermons) that the
highest ambition of most Irish parents is to rear a son for the sanctuary,
and this, which is sometimes said by the enemies of the Church as if
it were a reproach, is the grandest testimony to the undying faith and
devotion of a martyred people. But it is not every household that can
produce a priest. The Lord must truly build and guard such a house.
There we must find a virgin faith sanctified by traditions of unbroken
loyalty to the Church of God. There must the young Levite breathe
from infancy an atmosphere of purity and domestic piety. The
voice of prayer must be familiar to him from his earliest youth.
From his mother's Hps and the example of his father must he learn the
first lessons of what is destined to develop into sacerdotal holiness.'
One night Nicholas Burke heard a sermon which clenched
his future career. ' Woe unto me if I do not preach the Gospel
of God I ' rang in his ear for days. At last his final decision
was taken to enter the sanctuary and preach ' Christ crucified.'
' ' Month's Memory of Cardinal Cullen,' Nov. 27, 1878.

88 LIFE OF FATHER THOMAS BURKE.
This resolve was remarkable. Mr. Haverty, when notic
ing O'Connell, Shell, and other lay orators, wrote in 1872,
from material gathered from Fr. Burke's lips—' It was
confidently predicted that young Burke would, at a not
distant day, make a figure as prominent as any of them in
the political arena.' Mr. O'Flanagan, B.L., who also learned
from Fr. Burke some account of these days, adds : ' In a short
time the contest of election, the jar of politics, the battle
between Whig and Tory, the emulations of old and young
Ireland were to know him no more.'
Shiel, Wyse, Rice, and other popular orators had risen to
be British Ministers ; the coif and the ermine rewarded the
rhetoric of others, but indeed the talents of Nicholas Burke
were so varied that, no matter what path in life he chose,
wealth and honour were sure to come. In his mind's eye,
however, he saw nought but the halo of Heaven — his ambition
looked not lower ; he preferred a life of self-sacrifice to
worldly honours ; and vows of voluntary poverty gave place
to the vows of vanity, whereby young Radicals like Disraeli
told the world that its highest distinctions should j-et be
theirs. Fr. Burke mentioned to the good nuns to whom he had
been for twenty years the spiritual adviser that he strengthened
himself for his vocation by making a general confession.
' When I finished (he said) I took up my cap, with a firm
determination to turn over a new leaf and a blank one, and to
cover it with the record of good work done.'
The Father to whom he applied for admission into the Order of
Preachers (writes Fr. Towers) had himself no mean repute as a sacred
orator. All acquainted with the late Father Thomas Raymond Rush
will not consider these few words of praise out of place. This good
Father knew Nicholas Burke intimately, and had formed a high idea
of his mind and disposition ; great, therefore, was his pleasure when
he presented himself as a postulant for the Order. But, as there is
no human happiness without alloy, so this choice of an Order was not

THE GALWAY DOMINICANS. 89
altogether pleasing to his good mother. For years her Confessor had
been a holy Augustinian ; she therefore wished that her son should
assume the same habit ; but when she saw that his predilection for the
white-robed family of Dominic was not a boyish fancy, she cheerfully
acquiesced. The impression of P"r. Burke's sister, which we elicited
before this fact reached us, was, that if Mrs. Burke had had to
select any particular Order for her son it would have been the
Franciscan, because her favourite Saint Anthony had belonged
to it. Indeed, more than once a statement has been con
fidently made that Nicholas was at first about to join the
Franciscans. In the early years of our intimacy at Woodchester (writes the head
of the Dominican Order in Ireland") he often spoke of the incidents
of his religious vocation. But he never mentioned anything of the
Franciscans. I heard the report when he became famous, and told it
to him. He replied, ' There is no truth in it.' '
One or two circumstances not previously mentioned had
tended to turn his thoughts towards the Dominicans. The
brother of Mr. Winter, whose school he finally attended, was
a Dominican Father of Galway much distinguished as a
preacher. The Dominican Convent for nuns stood in Cross
Street, near Wat Burke's house, and Nicholas had long
served its morning Mass. These nuns follow the same rule
as the Dominican Fathers, and are under the control of the
same General^
It was a pardonable boast with Fr. Rush before he died
that, though the Order of Preachers had been for six hundred
years pioneers of civilisation, not one of them had shed a more
sustained light on Christendom than the youth he had often
playfully checked at the Claddagh. His undiminished high
' Letter of the Very Rev. John T. Towers, O. P. , to the author, Jan. 28, 1 884.
2 This fine institution has long since been removed from the ruined premises
in Cross Street, and now flourishes in the rural grounds of Taylor's Hill, Galway.
The old house still stands, a perfect memorial of the Spanish settlers. It passed
through many,vicissitudes, and even, after the nuns had been cruelly hunted from
it, and previous to their re-entry, was converted into a barrack.

90 LIFE OF FATHER THOMAS BURKE.
spirits did not prevent him from continuing to cherish an ardent
love for the religious life ; and the sense within him of having a
gift of speech only strengthened his desire to consecrate it to
God's service. Other religious orders learned with regret that he
was not to occupy a cell in their enclosures. But he saw that
' the monk must not remain in the cloister — that he must
come out and show himself to the world. He must be brought
to bear on society' — Fr. Burke's words when preaching on
St. Dominic of Osman.
The modest West Chapel by the Claddagh seems to have
been one of the first built after the relaxation of the Penal
Laws.' So plain is it that Byron's line on St. Peter's —
Enter, its grandeur o'erwhelms thee not
— would apply equally, though in an opposite sense. It ori
ginally had a thatched roof, which v^as replaced long ago by
one of stauncher stuff. A lecture by Fr. Burke on ' The
History of Ireland ' makes a touching allusion that ought not
to be overlooked ; —
^^^e advance just half a century up the highway of time, and
come upon that which has been familiar, perhaps, to many amongst
you, as well as to me — the plain, unpretending little chapel, in some
by-lane of the town or country, with its thatched roof, its low ceiling,
its earthen floor, its wooden altar. What does this tell us? It tells
of a people struggling against adversity — of a people making their
first effort, after three hundred years of blood, to build up a house,
' On the petition of the people of Galway to Innocent VIII, , the spot
on which the West Chapel now stands was granted by Bull in 14S8 to the
Dominican Friars. That cruel warden, already noticed by Fr. Burke, \\ho,
in 1493, immolated his son at the shrine of public justice, erected its choir. In
the reign of Elizabeth its treasures were scattered, and in 1642 Lord F'orbes,
landing here, took possession of this house, which he converted into a battery.
He defaced the church, dug up the graves, and burnt the coffins and bones. In
1652 the monastery was razed to the ground to prevent its being converted by
Cromwell into a fortification. The friars lingered round their ancient home of
sanctity and peace just as Magdalen lingered by the empty tomb in Jerusalem.
Early in the eighteenth century the Dominicans regained possession of their
ancient convent, and in the visitation of 1731 it is reported by the mayor of
Galvay that on searching it 'he found ten chambers and eight lieds, but could
find none of the friars. '

THE WEST CHAPEL. gi
however humble, for their God ; it tells us of a people who had not
yet shaken off the tradidons of their slaverj', upon .whose hands the
chains still hang, and the wounds inflicted by those chains are still
rankling ; it tells us of a people who scarcely yet knew how to engage
in the glorious work of Church edification, because they scarcely yet
realised the privilege that they were to be allowed to live in the land'
that bore them. Let us reverently bow down our heads and salute
these ancient places — these ancient, humble little chapels, in town
or country, where we — we men of middle age — made, our first con
fession and received our first communion ; let us salute these places,
hallowed in our memories by the first, and therefore the strongest,
the purest, holiest recollections and associations of our lives ; and,
pilgrims of history, let us turn into the dreary, solitary road that lies
before us. It is a road of three hundred years of desolation ; a road
that is wet with tears and with blood ; a road that is pointed out to
us by the sign of the Cross, the emblem of the nation's faith, and by
the site of the martyr's grave, the emblem of Ireland's undying fidelity
to God. After Emancipation the old West Chapel assumed a
fresher, brighter air. Standing in a maritime suburb, it was
frequented by the Catholic elite, who in that day thronged
from adjoining counties to Salt Hill for the season. The
Prior, Fr. Rush, whose portrait reveals a fine specimen of the
traditional friar, smiled paternally on Nicholas, and the boy
in turn looked into his genial face with responsive regard. His
popularity was largely due to the fact that he took a leading
part in every public movement, and always spoke with elo
quence and to the point. Another Galway Dominican— not
without interest for Nicholas — was Fr. Folan. The youth had
once paused under the windows of his cell to hear him sing
the old ditty ' Shule Agrah,' which he was famous for intoning
with a strength of lung that well-nigh made itself heard at
the Claddagh.
The Order of Preachers sustained their old prestige. The
pulpit oratory of the West Chapel was above the average.
The Dominican Fathers restored some fine functions of the
Church, with nice attention to liturgical detail. Wat Burke

92 LIFE OF FATHER THOMAS BURKE.
and his son listened reverently while Fr. Rush expounded
the depth of Catholic truth ; and Fr. Ralph, O.P., says that
Wat was one of the sweetest of the singers who walked in
Rosary procession, while Nicholas swung the censer and
assisted in the Sanctuary choir.
While famine held its ghastly fesdval O'Connell died.
His death, which occurred on his way to Rome a few months
before Burke's departure for the same place, left Ireland
fatherless. Our Dominican, standing by the Tribune's tomb
at Glasnevin on the occasion of the translation of his remains,
gives the sequel of a tragedy shadowed on a previous page : — ¦
The people whom he had so faithfully served, whom he loved
with a love second only to his love for God, were decimated by the
dread visitation ; nations trembled and men grew pale at the sight of
Ireland's woe. Her tale of famine, of misery, of death was told in
every land. Her people fled affrighted from the soil which had
forgotten its ancient bounty, or died — their white lips uttering the
last faint cry for bread. All this the aged father of his country saw.
Neither his genius, nor his eloquence, nor his love could now save
his people, and the spirit was crushed which had borne him
triumphantly through all dangers and toil ; the heart broke within
him— that brave and generous heart which had never known fear,
and whose ruling passion was love for Ireland. The martyred
spirit, the broken heart of the great Irishman, led him to the holiest
spot on earth, and with tottering steps he turned to Rome. The
man whose terrible voice in life shook the highest tribunals of earth
in imperious demand for justice to Ireland, now sought the Apostle's
tomb, where from that threshold of heaven he might put up a cry for
mercy to his country and his people, and pray God to accept the
sacrifice of his life. Like the prophet king, he woidd fain stand
between the people and the angel who smote them, and offer himself
a victim and holocaust for the land he loved.
It was stated in the N'ctu York Star, and afterwards by
other journals, that it was by the advice of Archbishop
MacHale Burke went to Rome. On testing the accuracy
of this statement, we learn that it is wholly untrue. The
example of the gifted prelate, however, influenced the young
Levite. When Dr. MacHale, at the head of his clergy,

DOMESTIC TIES SEVERED. 93
addressed Fr. Burke on his return from America, the Domini
can spoke of him as ' one whom as a boy he had read and
heard of with wonder and delight ; whom as a youth he had
proposed to imitate ; and whom as a man he had learned to
regard with respect and love.'
The youth, as he tells us, was now known among his friends
as 'the old gentleman ;' but, he added, amid much laughter,
' I don't mean old Nick, you know.' This dropped from him
in his lecture ' On the Church in America,' delivered at Cork
in 1873, The hour was now approaching when domestic ties must
needs be severed. To this period of his life Fr. Burke made
reference when describing in America the career of St.
Laurence O'Toole : —
The father, like an Irish father, gave up willingly the son whom
he loved best of all ; for it is the peculiarity of Irish parents to give
to God the best that they have, and give it cheerfully, because ' God
loveth a cheerful giver.' I have seen in other lands— in France and
Italy — young men asking to be admitted to the priesthood, and the
father and mother saying, ' How can we give him. up ? How can we
sactifice our child?' trying to keep him back with tears and en
treaties. Oh, my friends ! when I witnessed that, I thought of the
old woman in Galway, who had no one but me, her only son ; I
thought of the old man, bending down towards the grave, with the
weight of years upon him ; and I thought of the poverty that might
stare them in the face when their only boy was gone ; and yet
no tear was shed; no word of sorrow was uttered ; but, with joy and
pride, the Irish father and Irish mother knew how to give up their
only son to the God that made him.
Speaking at St. Anthony's, Liverpool, on February 20,
1 88 1, Fr. Burke said : —
When the Emancipation Act passed the friars were persecuted.
They were the only body in Catholic Ireland whose existence the
Relief Bill refused to acknowledge ; and I stand before you as a
felon in the land, because of the habit that I wear.'
' This law, passed in 1829, has been suffered to remain a dead letter.

94 LIFE OF FATHER THOMAS BURKE.
He was born emancipated ; but in now assuming the role
of a preaching friar he thus early showed how thoroughly he
embraced the Cross.
Throughout the lectures and sermons which Fr. Burke
delivered in many lands, he makes touching allusion to the
pain of exile. Addressing an American audience, he said : —
Hear the lament of St. Columbkille, one of Ireland's greatest
saints and sons, ^vho banished himself, in penance, to the far island
of lona. He tells us that, when he wished to calm the sorrow of his
heart, he generally sat upon the high rocks of the island, and turned
his eyes to catch a glimpse of the faint outline of the shore of Ireland.
' From the high prow I look over the ocean ; great tears are in my
eyes, as I turn to Erin, where the song of the birds is so sweet ;
where the monks sing like the birds ; where the young are so gentle,
and the old so wise; where the men are so noble to look at, and the
women so fair to wed.' '
The man who translates with such heart these forgotten
pieces must have felt in his own case similar emotions. 'But
once entered on the straight path,' we are told, ' he never
faltered.' From his sermon on St. Laurence Ave learn some
thing of the inner thought of the youth who, in answer to his
vocation, exclaimed, ' I come ! ' —
Let no man deceive you ; the best lover of God and of his
country is the priest — the man who, in the days of his youth, in the
days of his awakening passions, in the days when nature makes her
loud demand for enjoyment — the man who then says, 'I will sacri
fice my heart, my affecdon, my life, my body, and my soul ' — for
whom ? For God alone ? No ; for he does not go into the desert ;
he goes out amongst his fellow-men ; he grasps every man by the
hand with a loving grasp, and he says, ' I belong to God and to you.'
No man is so consecrated to his fellow- men as the priest ; because he
comes to them with a consecration from God. There is no man
upon whom the people can fall back as they can upon the priest ;
for, no matter what angel of pesdlence may hover in the midst of them
' ' Fair towed ' is printed thus in the lecture on The Exiles of Erin, published
by Cameron and Ferguson, p. 231. Fr, Burke, quoting Ihe same poem in his
lecture on St. Columbkille, merely says, 'the women so fair.' See Haverty's
Lectures and Sermons of Fr. Burke, 2nd series, p. 92.

DEPARTURE FOR ROME. 95
- — no matter what demon may scatter destruction around — every
man may fly ; the priest alone must not, dare not, cannot fly, because
he is sold to God and to his neighbour.
Undeterred by the famous words of Felicaja, ' Italia,
Italia, o tu cui feo la sorte,' ' and with which he was familiar
through Byron's translation, our youth, wrapped in moral
strength, decided on proceeding to Italy, and testing his
vocation by a rigid novitiate. The shores of the Tiber were
now to be traversed instead of the banks of Lough Corrib,
the Apennines for the crags of Connemara. He fervently
followed in the footsteps of the great Tribune, who, weary
of politics, ' had sought the Apostle's tomb.'
What might be styled a four-leaved shamrock of coinci
dence marked this epoch. O'Connell — to whose power of
moving the masses Fn Burke has often been compared — had
just died. The tread of the Irish exodus had begun — slow
and solemn as the Dead March in Saul. All Hallows'
College — which O'Connell helped to start in the teeth of
much opposition — was now just ready to pour out its priests
to minister to the thousands of Irish peopling the New
World. And the man who was destined to bind them toge
ther in love of faith and fatherland — who was to rekindle and
foster the finest feelings of religion, poetry, and patriotism in
the hearts of Irish exiles— is found wending his way from
Galway to Rome to begin his religious life.
Fr. Burke told Arthur Moore that his mother's last words
to him when going away were never to speak to a soldier.
From this it would seem that the old woman, knowing the
chivalrous impulses of her boy, had fears lest military enter
prise should wean him from his vocation.
The Midland Railway was then open only from Athlone
to Dublin. The scenes which met his eye along the route
were not calculated to cheer him.
1 ' Thou who hast the fatal gift of beauty ! '—Childe Harold, canto iv.

96 LIFE OF FATHER THOMAS BURKE.
The domestic virtues and feelings of our people are so true and
deep (he says, preaching at the Cathedral, Dublin), their affections so
strong, as to add an intense bitterness to the sorrow of death and
separation. Whoever wishes to see the sublimity of sorrow, has only
to stand at a railway station in Ireland, and see the young emigrants
leaving father and mother, kinsfolk and friends, behind them. It is
impossible to witness such a scene without paying tribute to their
grief by shedding involuntary tears. Thus the afflicdons incidental
to aU peoples are deepened in Ireland by the quick susceptibilities
and tender and strong affections of our race.
On arrival in Dublin, he presented himself at the old
chapel house in Denmark Street, where he saw Fr. Conway
and the other Fathers. Partly to account for his lank appear
ance, he remarked incidentally that his mother had placed the
whole household on short commons in order to supply the
famine-stricken poor who thronged her door.
The old route to Rome was from Dublin to Liverpool,
and from thence, via Dieppe, to Civita Vecchia. Fr. Burke's
cousin, the present Pastor of Oranmore, tells us that old
Wat had formed some exaggerated idea as to the length
of the sea voyage before him, and one hundredweight of
sea-biscuits were specially made to sustain him throughout
the passage. Nicholas saw no need for so large a stock, and,
without hurting his father's feelings bj' declining it, quietly
made over the biscuits to Fr. Quinn.
Miss Burke is of opinion that the seeds of her brother's
subsequent sufferings were sown during this journey. Her
impres.sion is that he neglected himself, got cold ; and if it
had not been for the paternal care of Fr. Costello, a native of
Galway, who also became a Dominican in Rome, the world
might never have heard of ' Fr. Burke the preacher.'
This journey was made during the inclement winter of
1847. He described it as slow in the extreme. Part of the
way the diligence was drawn by bullocks. Tellino- his beads
he sat cooped up in a close corner, and obliged to inhale
breaths vilely redolent of garlic.

JOURNEY TO ROME. 97
There were no through tickets then, and when paying my fare
for part of the route I made a great blunder, one which the French
official— who was a survivor of Napoleon's Imperial Guard — petu
lantly refused to rectify on my appeahng to his sense of jusdce. My
laic blood was now up ; and I knew no way of stinging him but to
exclaim, ' Bah ! Vaterloo 1 ' He scowled, and my chances of con
cession were not bettered. It was so dark at one time in the dili
gence that I persuaded an Italian to hold a light while I ate a cold
chicken, promising to give him, as a reward, whatever was left of it'
With a high heart (observes Judge O'Hagan) did Burke proceed
to fulfil the spirit of his mission. Seven centuries have passed away
since the saintly founder prescribed it as the special function of his
sons to teach and preach the word of life to men, amongst whom
then, as at all times, and never more than now, ignorance of the
thing that it deeply concerns them to know is the malady most
requiring the hand of the healer. It is a singular attestation to the
tenacity of great ideas that the same order of friar preachers has in
our own days produced two of the foremost pulpit orators of the
world — in France Lacordaire, and in Ireland Thomas Burke.
Another fact quite as ' singular ' claims record. Nearly
every other religious order has undergone reforms which split
them into various branches. That formed by Dominic alone
remains intact.
How Nicholas Anthony Burke became known by the
familiar name which Judge O'Hagan applies to him is easily
explained. Every person who enters a conventual life takes a
name in religion ; and in his case was chosen that of Thomas
Aquinas. He himself never much cared for the name of
Nicholas, and he declared if ever he became old it would be
still more objectionable.
Rome ! How many thoughts fill the heart and rise to the lips at
the sound of her name ! (exclaims Father Burke). In the olden time
God had given her the empire of the world, and all the nations bowed
down before her universal sway. All that the earth contained of
riches, power, and glory found its centre in Imperial Rome, and men
thought that she had attained the summit of her greatness when the
' To Rev. Fr. Hickey, O. P.
VOL. I. H

98 LIFE OF FATHER THOMAS BURKE.
whole world acknowledged her empire and the wisdom and justice
of those laws which enabled her to govern all that the valour of her
armies had conquered. But far higher was the destiny and glory yet
in store for Rom.e. Her universal temporal empire but foreshadowed
the wider and more lasting empire which was to be hers as the head
and centre of God's Universal Church. Rome was to be the Jeru
salem of the new law, the heart of Christ's mystical body — the
Church whence came forth the fife-blood of the Church's doctrine,
government, and jurisdiction, and towards which all the Christian
nations turned with obedience, confidence, and love. Peter, who was to
represent Christ and be the Vicar and Viceroy of God on earth —
whosq faith was never to fail — Peter, who was to confirm his brethren,
to feed the lambs and sheep, to hold the keys of the kingdom of
heaven — he was crucified on the Janiculum, and on the neighbour
ing hill of the Vatican he found his grave and established his throne.
Henceforth the Bishop of Rome is Peter's successor, inheritor of all
his peculiar privileges and powers, receiving from Peter, by aposto
lical succession, all that Peter had received from Christ, and conse
quently the supreme ruler, the unerring and infallible guide, the
point and centre of all authority and jurisdiction in the Church of
God. But that which was destined to be the centre and safeguard of
the religion of Christ was also, in the designs of God, to be the
centre of the intellectual world. The Church, as a rule, naturally
selected the greatest of her sons to fill in succession the Apostolic
Chair. Hence the roll of the Popes is brilHant with the names of
men, not only famous for sanctity and lore, btit who attracted and
drew to them all that was holiest and most learned in the world for
ages. They were the preservers and saviours of ancient literature and civi
lisation, the patrons and protectors of every high art, the friends and
encouragers of science, and of its most ardent votaries, the protectors
of the weak, the shield of the oppressed, the assertors of justice, the
guardians of law, the aposdes of peace, the powerful and dreaded
enemies of tyranny and injustice. What wonder if all that was
highest, best, noblest, purest, were attracted by them ? What wonder
that the greatest saints, the most eloquent orators, the Grandest
poets, painters, sculptors, historians, antiquarians, philosophers, astro
nomers, jurists, theologians should have loved in all ages to sit in the
protecting shadow of the Pontifical throne ?
Such was Rome in ages gone by. Such I believe it is destined
to be, in spite of temporary vicissitudes, unto the end of dme. And

PIO NONO. 99
such was the Rome which opened up before the wondering eyes of
the young Irish student who now entered its gates.'
A lecture on the Pontificate of Pius IX. delivered at
Yonkers, New York, on December 16, 1872, furnishes an
interesting reminiscence of this time :
I saw in 1847, in Rome, a stalwart man— his hair was black as
the raven's wing ; his eye was bright, with the commingled beauty of
the pure soul that shone through it, and the manly vigour of his form
— for this man had been trained in his youth for a soldier — stately,
kingly, more than kingly even in his physical appearance, he seemed
a man every inch fit to be a ruler of his fellow- men ; with a confor
mation indeed where God had seemed to set the seal and give the
world assurance of a man. I saw him on that day, when my young
eyes, fresh from the Green Isle, full of Irish faith and love, looked
with a timid glance on the Vicar of Christ — on that day when he was
surrounded by the plaudits of the Roman and Italian people.
Nicholas Burke seems to have derived from the example
of this Pontiff, then in the zenith of his glory, that spirit of
humility which was a specialty with him to the end :
I saw, as the shouts of their applause grew louder and filled the
ambient air, that the object of that applause went down visibly deeper
in the depths of his own personal nothingness and humility, humbling
himself before God. Then was I reminded, looking upon him, of
the words of the Royal Prophet of Israel : ' I swear that the more
the Lord my God shall lift me up the more will I humble myself
and wiU cast myself down before Him.' That humihty came in order
to preserve him ; for if the man had built on the foundation of his
splendid fame and the passing praises of the hour, he would have
crumbled to ruin and his heart would have broken under the reverses
that God sent him.
Then it was that the men who had been loudest in their
hosannahs e>rclaimed, ' Crucify him ! ' ' Crucify him ! '
Perugia was at this time the novitiate of the Irish province,
which, since the Penal Laws, had not been completely recon
stituted. Old in years and honours, Perugia was now, after
1 Fr. Burke in the Church of the Conception, Dublin, Nov. 27, 1878. H 2

100 LIFE OF FATHER THOMAS BURKE.
a fevered career, reposing calmly in the embrace of the States
of the Church. Hither Nicholas sped. His journey from
Rome — nearly one hundred miles — was made beneath a blue
Italian sky, through a country paved with mingled memories.
In Etruria the clangour of battle and the song of victory
had long resounded. Here Tarquin was at last crushed ;
here Brutus sealed Rome's freedom with his blood. Along
this route had raged the Veientine war, with its wearying
length of strategy and slaughter ; and our pilgrim, on asking
to be shown the site of Veii — once greater and grander than
Rome itself — was pointed out a pile of stones, around which
sheep grazed and husbandmen tilled earth that once had been
the remains of men. ' And is this,' he mused, ' all that re
mains of a city which withstood a siege longer than that of
Troy, and along whose walls fifty thousand helmets shone ?
Sic transit gloria mimdi 1 ' Our traveller, though now twelve
miles from Rome — the former subjugator of Veii — could dis
tinctly see rising in the distance its victor-head untamed by
time. Following very much the course of the Tiber, he crossed
it at the Bridge Felice, ascended glittering heights, passed
through dark forests, viewed roaring cascades, and at last
entered Spoleto, where the Papal troops later on gave battle
to Victor Emanuel.
The route now lay through a district infested with
brigands, and as the 'Mai di Posta,' guarded by Papal
cavalry, rattled forth from Spoleto, Burke was not sorry to
follow for some miles under its protection. He was thus
unable to give more than a passing glance at the Temple of
CUtumnus, immortalised by the Roman bards, and by Byron.
But he was traversing the ground where Spoleto repulsed
Hannibal, after the bloody battle of Thrasymene, and this
in itself was a thought as full of warmth as the glass of
cognac which the vetturino had just quaffed to nerve him
for the road. No region could be better suited for the

HE ARRIVES AT PERUGIA. lOI
designs of freebooters. Roads with sudden curves, and great
defiles masked with dark foliage, afforded large facilities for
ambuscade. No human form was to be seen unless an odd
Papal soldier, peering from the guard-houses which dot the
route ; but the brigands in their deeds of blood and plunder
, too often eluded even Pontifical sentinels.
On, on he went, through perhaps the grandest panorama
in the world. But it was that fair Umbrian valley of
Assisium, the birthplace of Francis, the founder of Mendicant
Friars, that roused the liveliest emotions in our pilgrim's
breast. The order created by that Saint has always walked
hand in hand with the Dominicans. Friends in life, Francis
and Dominic left their friendship as a heritage to their
children. Passing the Tiber once more, he began the ascent of the
mountains of Perugia, and soon entered the historic city of
that name. After having traversed a maze of most narrow
streets, he at last arrived at the old convent of St. Dominic,
where Father Masetti, the Master of Novices, paternally
received him.
Never shall I forget how, on my way to my novitiate in Italy,
while yet a child, as I was crossing the hills of Perugia in the
beautiful light of an Italian sunset, the thought frequendy occurred
to me — ' I wonder will the person who is to teach me be like Brother
Paul O'Connor? I wonder can I love him as I loved the gentle
monk in Galway ? ' And when I was a while under the care of my
novice master, I told him in Latin — ' I think, sir, I can love you ;
I hope I will be good and do as you desire me, because you are
like the man who taught me in Galway.' I could not then say
Mr. O'Connor in Latin.'
Among the records of the old Dominican convent at
Perugia, we find, under date 'Dec. 29, 1847,' an entry in
Latin, of which the following is a translation :
After the usual preliminary examination before the Fathers, and
' Reply to the Galway address on Fr. Burke's return from America, published
in the Galway Vindicator, March 19, 1873.

I02 LIFE OF FATHER THOMAS BURKE.
with the advice and consent of the chapter, he received the religious
habit in the choir, in the presence of the community, at half-past
eleven o'clock in the forenoon, from the hands of the Very Rev.
Fn Master [in Theology] Thomas Rtnaldi Prior, Provincial at Rome ;
and a probation of one year from that date was prescribed to him.
It appears from the authentic letter of the Rev. Father Provincial of
Ireland, that he was received for our convent of the Blessed Virgin
Mary at Galway.'
The habit thus received consisted of two garments which
Lacordaire had just compared to the white robe of innocence
and the black mantle of penance. They seemed at first
strange to Burke, but the wisdom of becoming early familiar
with the dress is shown by his own admission when lecturing
in New York on the ' History of Ireland : '
From the day I took this habit — from that day to this — I never
felt at home in any other dress ; and if I were to come before you
this evening in black cloth, like a layman, and not like an Irish
Dominican friar, I might, perhaps, break down in my lecture.
In many other ways he found throughout his after life
daily confirmation of the truth of the word — ' It is good for a
man when he hath borne the yoke from his youth.'
Fr. Masetti, in the document he has been good enough to
send us, states that Nicholas Burke on arrival, being ignorant
of Italian, used the Latin, but very quickly learned the
vernacular ; that, a short time before, another Irishman who
had received the religious habit was obliged by serious ill
ness to divest himself of it, and Burke, full of charity for the
invalid — who could not speak a word of Italian — ministered
to him with such devotion that the sick man often reproached
' Father Burke never became an inmate of the West Convent at Galway. In
explanation of the above passage, the Superior writes :
' West Convent, Galway: ]\Iarch 14, 1884.
' When a candidate seeks admission to our order, he is told to apply to the
Prior of some one of our houses. When he does so, and is accepted by the
Prior and community, he is registered on its book, and becomes a son of that
house. Father Burke complied with that rule, was received, and made a son
of the West Convent. He brought a testimonial with him to that effect to Rome.'

HE NURSE-TENDS THE SICK. 103
him with the injustice done to himselfi 'His voice still
rings in my ear, feebly enunciating, in the dead of night,
" Nich-o-las." ' In thus ministering to the sick, he imitated
Francis of Assisi.
Perugia (said Fr. Burke) was a place that anything that is in a
man, intellectual or otherwise, it was certain to bring out — even
corns. I found there a novice who had nearly lost his life from ill
ness contracted by going to bed with cold feet. To obviate this
danger, I used to dance in my cell every night before going to rest.'
His cell not being floored, but tiled, no one's repose was
disturbed by this agile performance. The monastery of
Mount St. Bernard was not more cold than Perugia in the
winter of 1847.
The special dread with which Italians regard consumption
entailed irksome confinement and isolation. Thomas Burke,
while discharging the role of nurse- tender, got leave to read one
English book which he happened to have with him— a standard
histoiy of the French Revolution. This he read over and
over again, till he knew most of it by heart.^ Possibly the
close study of one book may have laid the foundation of the
logical conciseness which so enhanced the power of his elo
quence. His unfailing flow of spirits, and wonderful charm
of manner, which was to win so many souls to God, proved
welcome elixirs to the pro.strate sufferer.
Fr. Burke told his brother Dominicans that he had often
to leave the sick man's chamber four times in the night, and
go down to the kitchen to heat whey or broth. ' Many a time
I returned,' he said, ' more asleep than awake, holding the key
of the novitiate in my mouth, while in one hand might be a
jug of steaming slop, and in the other a hot linseed poiiltice,
or perhaps dressing for poor Behan's blister.'
It was a mark of confidence to entrust so young a neo-
' ToFr. Hickey, O.P.
^ This identical book (Thiers' History) is still preserved with Fr. Burke's few
effects, at Tallaght. He liked the book so much that some years before his death
he bought a new edition of it.

I04 LIFE OF FATHER THOMAS BURKE.
phyte with the key of the novitiate house, through which only
the infirmary could be reached. Behan, who was a native of
Dublin, at last rose from his sick bed, but, after a brief rally, died.
The novitiate on which Br. Thomas had entered was a
period of probation appointed to try by searching means how
far a true call had moved him, and whether he possessed
the needed qualities for living up to monastic rule. Until his
profession, the novice is not bound to the order any more than
the order is bound to retain, much less to profess, the novice,
if his call should seem doubtful ; and he incurs no blame for
deserting the cloister under such circumstances.'
He had read of ' the monastic life ' in the ' Imitation of
Christ : ' ' If thou wilt stand as thou oughtest and make
progress, look upon thyself as a banished man, a stranger
upon earth ; ' and, 'Here men are tried as gold in the furnace.*
Fortifying himself with such thoughts, he bowed cheerfully to
the rugged forms of his rule. The fine black hair which had
whilom helped to make the role of Lady Anne a success was
shorn off, leaving the tonsure to imply, as St. Thomas ex
plains, that the brain should be free for contemplation. The
fringe of hair which encircles the brow he styles ' the corona
or priestly dignity ;' the cleanly shorn cheeks and beard, the
cutting away of all temporal concerns.^ This ' corona ' is also
meant to typify the crown of thorns.
' Moreover, he is free to take with him any property he brought into it or
might afterwards acquire. By a decree of the Council of Trent, a novice cannot
renounce such property in favour of the order unless by special dispensation, but
he may make a will to that effect, because wills are always revocable. Renuncia
tion of his property would tend to shackle his free action in case he should after
wards wish to return to the world. The one year's probation is devoted to the study
of the spiritual life, the rubrics, divine oflice, and the constitutions of the order.
Humanities and rhetoric are usually studied before entering, accordino- to present
rule. After one year's novitiate a ' simple profession of vows ' is made ; but in
Fr. Burke's time there was only solemn profession. At present this takes place
at the end of three years. While a simple vow makes marriage unlawful
a solemn vow makes marriage invalid. Luther styles the novitiate ' the bed of
the civil death of the novice, who expires to the world by profession ; ' but this
hardly conveys an accurate idea of his position.
= Just as moralists tell us that in order to correct a vice one should practise the

CONTEMPLATION AND PSALMODY. loS
He was leaving favourite pastimes and breaking fondest
ties, but a whisper came that in his new calling he might
yet find friends thick as summer leaves. ' No cross, no crown,'
and the first must needs be braved. At midnight the novices
rose to pray ; matins said, they were permitted to retire, and
all returned to their cells in profound silence and holy con
templation.' At 5 A.M. came Mass, meditation, and a study
of their rule. Vespers and Lauds follow at due intervals ;
from 4 to 8 o'clock exercise is taken. The novices are not
allowed to break silence unless during recreation. They
are told to be Carthusians within and Apostles outside.^ But
as musical psalmody is part of the cloistered life, Thomas
Burke was always happy when joining in its outburst, and
with powerful effect it roused his zeal and re-awakened
dormant memories.
Here the tired Crusader (he said), exhausted after his Eastern
wars, would refresh his soul with holy song ; and at the midnight hour
would come the proud fierce baron to matins, and there hearken to the
opposite virtue ; the tonsure tended to correct the absurd practice, which
prevailed for centuries, of priests wearing perukes. In 1690 Jean Baptiste Thiers,
Doctor in Theology, wrote a book to decry the wig — a work deemed so useful
that it was translated into Italian, and reprinted in 1722 at Benevento. The
abuse, however, was continued by the clergy, not only in Prance and Italy, but
in England and Ireland. Arthur O'Leary and Dr. Gahan wore wigs ; the last
ecclesiastic who followed the fashion being Dr. Beatagh, V.G., of Dublin. His
wig, u cumbersome and solid piece of head-gear, is still preserved as a sacred
relic by the Presentation nuns. It is to be feared that the bobwig worn by
priests in the last century too often excited a prejudice against them. A slang
song, by Dr. Burrowes, describes in 1789 a capitally convicted culprit :
' Then in came the priest with his book ;
He spoke him so smooth and so civil ;
Larry tipped him a Kilmainham look.
And pitched his old wig to the Divel ! '
The tonsure was angelically in advance of this vile custom. Fr. Burke recognised
the wise arrangement, and pleasantly said that it was only a poor soil which
required much top-dressing. Inasmuch as the Church prescribes that the head
shall be uncovered during the Holy Sacrifice, any priest who wears a wig must
obtain a dispensation before he can say Mass.
' On the Feast of St. Dominic, St. Saviour's, Dublin, 1877.
' Carthus'ans are presumed never to speak.

Io6 LIFE OF FATHER THOMAS BURKE.
tender notes of the organ so skilfully touched, till in the very depths
of his soul he would be moved to the humility of Christian sorrow
and the heroism of Christian forgiveness.'
Many years after, when conducting a retreat for the clergy
of Cork, he showed that by a resolute will the ecclesiasrical
spirit could subject itself to any discipline : —
When I first entered upon my novitiate, my naturally effervescent
nature was gready oppressed by the discipline of its rule, and I used
to be put in penance for breaking silence at forbidden times — some
times for whisding. Rising in the dark for matins, I made some
remark on the weather to a French novice whom I had overtaken
on the staircase. In reply he merely placed his forefinger across his
lips. The solemnity of his responsive attitude touched me deeply,
and this reproof from him did more good than all the penance it
would have been possible for my superiors to impose. I never once
broke the rule after.
In describing the same incident to Br. Joseph he said,
' That look went through me.'
These ebullitions were impelled by his love of ' friendship
— that mysterious cement of the soul.' Our novice, even when
hurrying to fulfil a pious exercise, did not like to go alone.
We catch a glimpse of his nature in a sermon preached the
year before his death. He described Jesus
taking with Him Peter and James and John that He might prove to
us how truly He was man, and by that very craving for human
friendship which is so natural to man. He turned to those three
friends and said, ' Will you come and pray with me for an hour ? ' ^
If Burke sometimes found himself in trouble, even for
whistling, disciplinarians must remember that he was still a
mere boy. The keen observer and philosophic thinker Blair
notices the good which even this small indulgence brings,
and describes 'the schoolboy whistling aloud to bear his
courage up.' Fr. Burke to the end was a ' fine open boy,' to
' Sermon at St. Mary's, Sandymount, Sept. 8, 1859,
'¦ Good Friday, 18S2, St. Saviour's, Dublin.

HIS NOVITIATE. I07
adopt the words of his brother Dominican, the Bishop of
Hamilton. The stern hint of the graver novice set him thinking ; and
once more the words of a Kempis rang in his ear (Book I.
c. xvii.) : ' Know that thou art called to suffer and to labour,
not to be idle and talkative.'
Fasting has always held high rank as a great subjugator,
and in the rule of St. Dominic it holds a front place.' At
Perugia and at the Sabina Br. Burke was taught that the way
to heaven was narrow and full of practical difficulties and
practical hardships, and that any religion which professed to dis
pense with them was simply delusive, and gave the lie to God.^
These considerations nerved him for the ordeal. As regards
fasting, a novice is presumed not to eat meat from the begin
ning to the end of his course, but leave to relax the rule is
granted in case of sickness. What thoughts helped to sustain
Thomas Burke may be gleaned from his discourses. He
would put before his hearers the image of the Saviour after
forty days of prayer and fasting, weak and wasted — how the
devil came, ' a strong-made form, and bore Him away in his
arms, now to the Temple,>then to Jerusalem ; but at the close
the Man who was spent and worn away with fasting crushed
His enemy and drove the devil from Him.' '
For the experimentum crucis he braced himself by compar
ing it to the long novitiate of suffering through which the
Church, in its first stages, had passed. For three hundred
years it had undergone every misery to maintain the religion
of Christ.* His novice master, Fr. Masetti, states that, 'with the
exception of some guileless ebullitions, he passed praise-
' Feasting includes abstinence from tobacco. To smoke would earn expulsion.
Our novice, who was a smoker from childhood, found this not the least of the
mortifications which he cheerfully embraced.
2 St. Saviour's, Dublin, March 13, 1881. [Even by Dominicans, Fr. Burke
was thought to be too rigid ; but of this hereafter.] ^ Ibid.
¦* Lecture on ' Faith,' Kingstown, July 1869.

Io8 LIFE OF FATHER THOMAS BURKE.
worthily through the novitiate, showing himself devout in
practices of piety, attentive in choir, and in the services of the
altar.' ' It is no small matter,' writes a Kempis (Book I. c. xvii ),
' to dwell in a monastery, and to live therein without reproof,
and to persevere faithful till death.'
He had mastered so thoroughly the Italian language (proceeds
Fr. Masetti), not only the phrases and idioms, but also the pronuncia
tion, that he seemed born in Italy ; so that he was able to defiver,
one Sunday in Lent, according to the custom of the novices, a
sermon in Italian in the refectory during supper.'
One of the distinguished band who formerly occupied San
Clemente, Rome, in making reference to Burke's ' marvellous
linguistic talents,' adds :
Twenty years afterwards I heard old Dominicans of the Minerva,
Rome, speaking of the wonderful Fra Thomas Burke, who used to
tell the ' Arabian Nights ' in felicitous Latin to the novices and
F'athers during their recreation hours in the gardens of Santa Maria
della Quercia.2 They remembered him as ' Questo maraviglioso
giovane Irlandese ' (this marvellous Irish youth). ^
' I also puzzled them with two Italian versions of " The
House that Jack Built " ' (he tells Canon Burke), 'one grandly
heroic a la Dante — " Behold the edifice Giovanni constructed "
— the other in slang Italian.'
His linguistic progress was helped by the culture and tact
of his elder sister Mary. She had been taught a grammatical
knowledge of Italian, and corresponded with him in that
tongue during the two years he remained at Perugia. Some
of their letters are in French, of which, however, he failed to
acquire the same command as of Itahan.
' Letter of Fr. Pius Masetti to the Author. Fr. Masetti is now one of the
Grand Penitentiaries or Extraordinary Confessors of the Church of St. Mary
Major, Rome.
2 The Novitiate for French Dominicans at Viterbo. Here Lacordaire received
the habit.
» Letter of the Very Rev. G. D. Power to the Author, St. Louis, U.S.A.,
August 7, 1884.

PIE MAKES HIS PROFESSION. 1 09
He took other means besides story- telling to amuse his
fellow novices :
Among some recent arrivals (writes a Dominican) were several
from Luconia in the Philippine Islands, where we have a mission.
One day Burke yellowed his face, donned a fez, and addressed them
in a gibberish with which he mingled words that he had picked up
from their own talk. They were greatly puzzled, and at last said,
when unable to answer or to penetrate him, that he must have come
from one of the remote and hardly known islands of the Philippine
cluster. All this time — ' the scholastic year,' as Fr. Masetti re
minds us — he was studying and mastering the science of
philosophy v.'ith a talent and zeal that earned the cordial
praise of his preceptors.
The hour was now near when Thomas Burke should
make his solemn profession, and with a firm step he advanced
to the sacrifice. So stringent is the preparatory course for
this scene, that had the novice interrupted it even by two
hours — possibly by leaving the convent with the idea of
joining another order — he must begin the year all over again
from the date that he renewed his determination of becoming
a Dominican. Entire personal liberty is essential to make
the profession valid. Even a bishop cannot be professed
unless by Papal dispensation, nor a married person except
with nuptial consent, and a slave is wholly ineligible. On
November 30, 1848, as the official record states, 'the usual
Protestation was made to Br. Thomas Burke by the
Prion' The young religious was asked whether he acted
by his own choice or under parental or other compulsion ;
whether he understood the nature of a vow, or was he in any
way incapable of taking the obligation of the vows ; was
there any secret impediment such as disease ; and lastly,
whether he had been professed in any other religious order ?
The sequel may be gathered from the records of the old
' Conventus S. Dominici de Perusio.'

no LIFE OF FATHER THOMAS BURKE.
Under date ' Die Quinta Januarii, 1849,' appears :
Br. Thomas Burke (we quote from the Latin), having completed
the year of his probation, and having passed the examination in
letters and morals with unanimous approval of the Fathers, and
having been also received by the Chapter, the permission of the
Master-General of the Order having been previously obtained, in
conformity with recent decrees, made his solemn profession, in
presence of the Very Rev. Fr. Thomas Vincent Rinaldi Prior,
Provincial at Rome, on this fifth day of January, 1849, in the night
choir,' in presence of the community ; at this time the Most Rev.
Fr. Master Vincent Ajello being General of the Order.
In testimony of the above, I, Brother Thomas Burke, have of
my own free will made my profession, and here sign my hand.
And, as witnesses to his signature, a Father Hyacinth-and
a Fr. Franciscus append their names, while the official seal,
and the words ' Ita est,' from the ' Novitior Magister,' give
the document its final ratification.
Fr. Masetti s letter explains that the examination embraced
the ' obligations, vows, and rules, as well as the rubrics of
the order, and that Thomas Burke came with full votes to be
approved for the solemn profession.'
This consists of a voluntary promise to be loyal to the
institute of his choice, and to embrace its three vows. These
bind to the observance of poverty, obedience, and chastity.
St. Dominic regarded the institute as his bride, to whom
he vowed to be faithful ; their sons, spread over many
lands, are the lineal fruit of that alliance. Thomas Burke
made his vows the more readily because their substance had
been already marked out by our Lord Himselfi In taking
that of poverty, he embraced it in an unusually large sense.
' Blessed are the poor in spirit ' was one of the apothegms
proclaimed on the Mount. Fr. Burke held that if poverty
¦ In our convents abroad there are usually two choirs, one in the church, the
other in the house, but with windows looking into the church. In this latter
Matins and Lauds are generally recited either in the night or in the early morn ;
hence the name Chorus Nocturnus, or Night Choir. — I 'erf Hev. J. T. Towers
Provincial of the Irish Dominicans, to the Author.

RECEIVES MINOR ORDERS. 1 1 1
meant privation — an emptiness, an absence and renunciation
of some things — poverty of spirit then would mean a casting
away of desires, affections, enjoyments, seeing that the spirit
of man is of all these the centre. He felt that before he
could put on the image of Christ he must cast away all
fleshly impulse, and hence he cultivated as the beginning of
the Christian character poverty of spirit, the first of the Eight
Beatitudes. He next received minor orders, by which he was made
an acolyte, an exorcist, and a reader. Preaching on St.
Patrick in 1881 he referred to his own personal mission as
given by the various prelates who had laid their consecrating
hands upon him, adding : ' The first hand that ever touched
this unworthy head was that of the present Pontiff, Leo XIII.' '
Monsignor Pecci was then Bishop of Perugia.
There is preserved in Holy Cross Convent a long letter
from Thomas Burke giving an account of a vacanza or
vacation which he spent at this time. Fr. Masetti, addressing
the present writer, says : ' I brought him in October 1849
to Assisi, to the sanctuary of St. Francis, which gave
him great pleasure, and left a lasting joyful remembrance.'
It was in Assisi that the Order of Friars Mendicant had
arisen. Never did the world require a glimpse of Christ more than in the
twelfth century (said Burke) ; for though in some respects it was a
crlorious age; though the Catholic Church was the one unquestioned
sole authority in matters of Divine faith, and the one acknowledged
representative of the revealed religion of Christianity; although
sectaries in various forms had not yet appeared, nor other serious
schism broken up the unfted Church, yet men's minds were beginning
to forget the Christ, even in the sanctuary ; with kindred sins simony
and usury had found their way there ; and the most strange form
of heresy that, perhaps, ever sprang up in the Church of God
appeared at that time. Peter of Waldo and the Poor Men of Lyons,
who erred in faith as well as morality, yet who presented themselves
' Sermon in St. Saviour's, Dublin, St. Patrick's Day, 1881.

112 LIFE OF FATHER THOMAS BURKE.
to the people under the form of men who had embraced abject
poverty for the love of Christ, made their protest against the Catholic
Church. . . . Francis of Assisi, a youth tinged with the harmless
vices of the period and inflamed by the pursuit of military glory,
whilst preparing to march against the Emperor Frederick, happened
in Spoleto to spend a restless night. His sword and shield were there
by his bedside, his armour was shining ready for the morning's
march ; but within him he heard a voice saying, ' For whom, Francis,
are you going to fight? You are going to fight for a fellow- creature ;
but I am the Lord, your Creator and God — I ask you to come and
fight for Me.' Francis sprang up agitated. He strove to put the
thought out of his mind ; it would not go. At last, throwing himself
on his knees, he said, ' I am Thine ; to Thee I consecrate my life.'
Francis found an ally in Dominic of Osman, and this
study of the life of both strengthened Burke's zeal.
As our novice advanced through Assisi he observed traces
of the great annual pilgrimage attended by thousands who
throng to kiss the altar where Francis had first made his vows.
In pressing forward many faint and fall, and on one pilgrimage
years before ten persons were trampled to death. Indeed,
it was meet that sacrifice should be made on ground which
had been stained by Canaanitish sin.' Here the memory
of Francis received all but divine honour; but, not with
out allowable pride, Burke remembered that the Order of
Dominic had embraced fourteen canonised saints, three popes,
one hundred cardinals, several patriarchs, two hundred arch
bishops, including an Archbishop of Canterbury, dozens of
beatified men, and one thousand bishops, besides Masters
of the Sacred Palace, whose office has been always filled by a
friar preacher in succession to its first occupant, St. Dominic
himselfi The Dominican system of governmentis so beaurifully com
plete, that Washington in framing the American constitution
borrowed it in its breadth. Priors, provincials, and even the
' It has been stated by Athena:us and Slrabo that the Canaanites were the
ancestors of the Etrurians, who in perpetuating the sin of that race produced
eventual weakness of mind and body.

PERUGIA. 113
master-general, are all elected by votes, and their rule lasts
but a few years. Though conservative in some respects, it is
thoroughly representative and republican, and Thomas Burke,
whose political sympathies had a dash of both, became very
much charmed by it.
After solemn profession, three years are devoted to the
study of philosophy, and four to theology.'
Letters and lore dignified Perugia. An atmosphere re
dolent of the flowers of culture was diffused. There the finest
pictures in the worid might be seen. Classic poems daily
appeared from the pen of the brilliant Bishop of Perugia, now
Pope Leo XIII. Learned professors became to Burke fami
liar objects in the streets, especially Vermiglioli, the great
explorer of its wonderful and recently unearthed necropolis.
Botanic gardens, fostered by the university, displayed their
fragrant wealth. Friars in cowl and cassock, priests in their
great hats, nuns on hallowed thoughts intent, traversed the
city walls and castle terrace. Beneath, a grand range of
country spread, embracing the valley of the Tiber and the
distant Umbrian Apennines, while within the convent the old
tastes of the Etrurians for arts and science flourished,
Among its hundred and twenty churches one had special
interest for Thomas Burke. In that of San Domenico a
great treasure reposed. The monument of Benedict XL,
which represents him lying upon his bier beneath a Gothic
canopy supported by angels, is pronounced a triumph of the
revival in sculpture, and when our novice first heard the
tradition that this great Dominican had been foully done to
death after a reign of eight months, his impressionable heart
was deeply moved. It is said that Philippe le Bel, incensed
' Polemic theology and Scriptural exegesis form pait of the course, and canon
law is studied at the same time as dogmatic theology. An examination takes
place every three years for nine years after ordination ; but it is made by new
confessors only, and in moral theology only. There are several titles of dis
tinction, such as Predicator-General, Bachelor, Lector or Licentiate, and Master
in Theology, or ' D.D.,' all of which Fr. Burke had. — Letter of Very Kev. P.
Kenny, O.P., Prior, to the Author.
VOL. I. I

114 LIFE OF FATHER THOMAS BURKE.
by excommunications, sent an emissary, di.sguised as a lay
sister, to present to the Holy Father, in the name of the
Abbess, a basket of poisoned fruit.
Spots sacred to historic students were within easy access
of Perugia. A propos of Trasymenes, where 15,000 Romans
fell, Eustace speaks of a sound heard after sunset like the
clashing of shields and the tramp of distant armies ; and it was
not without strange sensations that the impressionable novice,
who, as he tells us, would rush nervously past a Galway grave
yard, traversed the rank plain or crossed the stream which
still retains the name of Sanguineto.
Just as one of the twelve disciples was the first to betray,
the first blow struck against the Vicar of Christ was by
Perugia, that ancient State of the Church. Suddenly its calm
gave place to tempest, its culture to anarchy. Fr. Burke,
when preaching a Lenten sermon more than thirty years after,
made striking reference to this period of his life. Surrounded
by hundreds of penitents, some hesitating at the very door of
the confessional, he said, speaking of auricular disclosure:
I recognise that it is difficult, and in aU its fulness I actually
sympathise with the man I see weeping with agony at the very
thought of going to confession. I have seen in my experience a
brave man stand upon a hill while a regiment of 1,100 soldiers were
firing at that hill. I have seen him there as the bullets feU around
him thick as snowflakes. That was in Italy ; and brave as he was,
he had not courage to go to confession. There are men who stare
at death and expose themselves to danger, but they have not the
courage to confess their sins. '
' These were times to try men's souls.' Pio Nono, as
Burke tells us (99, ante), had himself been educated to be a
soldier. SS. Francis and Ignatius had both been greatly
dazzled by the pursuit of military glory. Burke's fidelity
to his bride was now to be tried. ' I well remember how
much e.xcited I would he on hearing the drums beat under
Sermon at St. Saviour's, Dublin, March 20, 1881.

THE BATTLE. II 5
the windows of my cell, but when I thought of the old
woman in Galway the temptation passed away.' '
Trampling upon his passions (observes Fr. Burke), the man of love
goes straight towards God ; and, in that journey to God, he will aUow
nothing to hinder him. No matter what sacrifice that God calls upon
him to make, he is ready to make it ; for the principle of sacrifice is
Divine love.^
During the political excitement of 1849, Burke is likely
to have witnessed the destruction by the Perugians of the
Citadella Paolina or fortress, begun in 1540 by Paolo III. and
now converted into a pleasant promenade.
The revolt of Perugia proved a formidable assertion of its
wayward will, and Pio Nono incurred some criticism for having
caused a medal to be struck in commemoration of the general
ship by which it was at last subdued.
The 'bullets falling thick as snowflakes ' led us to ask
the Prior of San Clemente' for some information on the
point. ' This battle,' he writes, ' must have been on the occa'
sion of the entry of the Austrians into Perugia in 1849.' Burke
afterwards told Fr. Towers how favourably impressed he had
been by the physique and good behaviour of these troops.
By some indulgence or accident ' Brother Thomas ' seems
to have been allowed to converse with the Austrian officers.
The report by the Irish American of his lecture on 'The
Exiles of Erin' mentions that he had formed the acquaintance
of Field-Marshal Nugent, towards whom he had been attracted
by his Irish descent.
Canon Brownlow's notes of circumstances mentioned to
him by Fr. Burke himself may here be quoted :
During the revolution at Perugia, the Giunta sent people to take
inventories of all the contents in the religious houses. Brother
' Fr. Burke to Arthur Moore, M.P. For this gentleman— the nephew of the
present writer— Fr. Burke entertained a cordial friendship, as well as for his mother
and sisters. In Rome their intercourse was particularly frequent.
'' Lecture on 'The Irish People in Relation to Catholicity.'
' The Very Rev. Dr. O'Callaghan, now Coadjutor-Bishop of Cork. I 2

1X6 LIFE OF FATHER THOMAS BURKE.
Burke was in his cell when the agent came to note down its scanty
furniture, and just as he began to jot down a few items. Brother
Thomas indignandy stopped him, saying, ' Those things are mine.'
The agent, with a sneering smile of mock pofiteness, replied, ' Ah,
Signore, adesso siamo liberi." Whereupon the novice thundered
out, ' If you don't get out of my room this instant, I'h send word over
to the English consul, and complain of you for touching the property
of an English subject' The attitude of the tall Irish youth was so
threatening that the Italian beat a hasty retreat. The brotherhood,
hearing high words, were afraid the Irish brother's pugnacity would
get the convent into a scrape, but Burke, in telling the story, added,
' I daren't for my life let that be known in Ireland, for they'd ne\er
forgive me for acknowledging myself to be a British subject.'
Fr. Burke, after his arrival at Woodchester, described the
Grand Inquisitor chased round the halls of the convent ; but
he was so fond of a joke that it is hard to say how far the
story may be true.
The excitement into which the Revolution threw the inmates of
the convent (continues Canon Brownlow) impaired for a time all
regularity in discipline. The father who taught theology spent the
v.'hole day on his knees before the Blessed Sacrament, some could
settle to nothing, while Br. Thomas paced up and down the corridor
with a long stick, which he held to his mouth, and manipulated like a
trombone, making the strangest noises in accompaniment. The
others would point to him sadly and shake their heads, evidently
thinking that the tumult had turned his brain.
While at Perugia his master of novices often spoke of him to the
Nuns of Blessed Columba, who lived and died in Perugia ; and
through him Fr. Burke became acquainted with them, as he was their
confessor. The friendship thus begun continued to the end of Fr.
Burke's hfe, and he frequently sent them assistance through the nu
merous friends whom he interested in their beha'f, after they lost
all their property in the Revolution of 1860.^
During the two years which he spent in Perugia (writes Fr.
Masetti, also addressing the present writer) the religious as well as the
master of novices were always content with his conduct. He was
ever lively and joyous, and kept his companions cheerful with healthy
conversation, jokes, and pleasant stories.
' ' Ah, sir, now we are free.'
' Letter of Very Rev. Canon Brownlow, M.A., Torquay, Oct. 21, 18S4.

REIGN OF TERROR. II7
Throughout his after career as master of novices, prior,
and preacher, Fr. Burke taught that a wide field for recreation
lay open for the practical Christian, and that rational amuse
ment was entirely compatible with the service of God and the
observance of His law.
Peace having now reassumed her sway in Rome, though it
was not until April that the Pope returned to it, we find
Thomas Burke on January 3, 1850, leaving Perugia and
becoming a theological student of the Minerva. A reign of
terror had prevailed to an almost incredible extent, assassina
tions took place in the public streets ; more than one Domi
nican fell dead in his habit ; the dying were refused religious
consolation, the chaplain-in-chief, Gavazzi, declaring that
martyrdom sustained in defence of fatherland freed the soul
from all stain. The stiletto which killed Rossi was borne
with honours through the city ; a society calling itself the Con-
grega d'Inferno was established ; physicians were threatened
with death if they did not poison their patients ; Lorenzo
Agristi died from the effects of a sharp steel thrust up his
nostrils, lacerating the arterial and venous vessels. ' Some
times in sport,' records the Fatti Atroci, 'the assassins used
to leave the priests half killed that they might die in greater
torture.' The churches were filled with yells, blasphemies,
and tobacco smoke, while the sacred ornaments and often the
holy elements were flung about. ' One of the profaners took
the Calendario and, laying it upon the altar, affected to read
out of it some gibberish ; some lit the candles ; one of the mob
intoned the "Te Deum," which the crowd roared after him;
another preached from the pulpit a blasphemous sermon.'
' Even the pyxes and chalices were carried off, in obedience to
a Government circular, as the property of the Republ ic' Some
of the soldiers greased their shoes with the consecrated oil ;
others drank wine out of the chalices, with ribald songs. In
certain schools in Rome the children were taught to say Die
maladetto (accursed God). Arduini, an apostate priest, from

II 8 LIFE OF FATHER THOMAS BURKE.
the stage of the Apollo Theatre, exhorted the mob to scoff at
religion. Parodying a sermon, he took for his text, ' In prin-
cipio erat Verbum,' which he blasphemously translated, ' In
the beginning was chatter.' ' This was probably the same
priest who, Mr. Maguire in his work on Rome states, cele
brated pontifically in St. Peter's, and from the great balcony
blessed the multitude in papal fashion amidst the peal of
bells and roar of cannon. He adds that the Sacrament
was borne in mock procession, often trampled beneath the
feet of harlots and galley slaves. Even the awful solemnity
of the bed of death was outraged by impurities. In the
hospitals the ministrations of nuns were foully travestied.
Pope Pius IX. addressing the prelates of Italy in his allo
cution of December 8, 1849, dated from Portici, writes:
' And even the miserable sick, struggling with death, deprived
of all the aids of religion, were compelled to yield up their
souls in the midst of the wanton solicitations of lewd harlots.'
These beings had been liberated from the prison of
St. Michele, and afterwards paraded themselves through the
blood-stained streets, lolling in carriages seized from the car
dinals and other princes. At last France came to the rescue,
and anarchy ceased to reign. ^
Two years previously (says Fr. Burke) I heard Pius applauded
to the skies by the people to whom he gave every privilege which the
modem ideas of freedom claimed. I now saw him on his return
from exile at Gaeta, and those few years seemed to have added half
' These are but a few items extracted from many too repulsive to be noticed
and enumerated in the Fatti Atroci dello Spirito Demagogico (Florence, 1853).
The data are compiled from official records.
2 It was regarded as a stigma on the French arms, that in their first attack on
Rome they were finally repulsed by the insurgents, with a loss of five hundred
men. Oudenot's explanation did not tend much to mend his blunder. While
making the attack, he followed the guidance of an old map of Rome, whereon
was marked a gate described as the Porta Pertusa, not far from the present Porta
Angelica. When the hottest part of the struggle came it appeared that the so-
called Porta Perlusa had been built up for two centuries. This fact escaped
the vigilance of Mr, Maguire in his otherwise exhaustive account of that time.

THE MINERVA.

119

a century to his life. The heart within him seemed broken ; he was
stooped and bent, and the silver of sorrow had already whitened
his head. ' If this continues,' thought I, ' the man must die.' It
has continued : trial has been added to trial, and cross to cross ;
but the man raised himself up in the power of God, and he has borne
more than ever Pope did since St. Peter, and he has outlived the
longest life of any save he.'
No sooner had the Pope been reinstated, than he pro
nounced a magnanimous sentence on his enemies :
Come back, you exiles in every foreign land ; come back to your
own blue sky and sunny soil ; come back to the bosom of Italy. I
am not so much your king as your father, and I will trust myself to
the love, to the gratitude, and to the affection of my people.
This act (adds Fr. Burke) I witnessed. I saw the exiles return
and bathe the hand of their liberator with grateful tears. I saw the
eyes of the little children, whose fathers came back to them from out
their dungeons, rejoicing under the smiles of the man whose hands
unbarred those prison gates. ^
In the great halls of the Minerva, where Thomas Aquinas
had taught, Burke found a high incentive to go and do like
wise. His residence here exercised a deep influence on his
life. Loving allusions to that time are constantly made,
large views were fostered, prized friendships formed. When
he first entered it the stain of blood on the pavement had
hardly dried. Not long before, as Fr. Towers reminds us,
' the parocho of the Minerva was called out from his dinner
and immediately shot. French troops now held its halls.'
One day our novice surprised his master by saying
that 'when reading the "Summa" one's faith was gone.' In
explanation he said that in the ' Summa ' mysteries ceased
to exist, so vividly were the Divine scenes brought before
him.' Burke subsequently said that after St. Thomas had
been three hundred years in his grave, and when the Church
> Fr. Burke in Cork Cathedral, May 29, 1877.
2 Pontificate of Pius IX., Yonkers, U.S., Dec. 16, 1872.
^ Sermon on the Triduum, Sept. 12, 1869.

120 LIFE OF FATHER THOMAS BURKE.
assembled at the Council of Trent, on the right of the
Pontifical chair were the Holy Scriptures, and on the left the
' Summa,' being the only books admitted into the Council.
The ' Summa ' continues to hold this high repute. One of
the first Encyclicals issued by the present Pope ' stated that
in it the very ideal of all that was brightest, greatest, truest,
and most glorious was to be found.
A mind fed on such aliment could not fail to thrive.
It would hardly become me (observes Judge O'Hagan) to speak
of the theological attainments of Fr. Burke. But I may be per
mitted to relate what fell from his own lips. He was an ardent and
zealous student of the great doctor of his order, his own patron St.
Thomas ; and to his familiarity with the pages of that unrivalled teacher
may be attributed the ease, fulness, and accuracy with which the
exposition of theological topics fell without effort from his lips. I
heard him say that in his noviceship, so great was the delight with
which he followed and meditated on the truths of faith in the
magnificent exposition of St. Thomas, that he could not expect again
to drink such joy until he found those truths realised face to face in
the presence and vision of his Creator.
He drank these truths with the greater zest from the fact
that the Angel of the Schools had had for his teacher in
philosophy an Irishman.
The gems of thought which our inquirer found in the
depths of the ' Summa ' brought to him at times the glow of
actual excitement. Once only Fr. Burke made public reference
to this book. It was at Cork in a lecture on ' Catholicity and
the Age we Live in.' Opening Milner's ' History of Latin
Christianity,' he read aloud the following in reference to
Thomas Aquinas : ' No man ever lived that investigated
more fearlessly even the most awful questions than did this
great saint. No atheist that ever was born went more fear
lessly into the question of the existence of God, or threw out
more terrible arguments against it, than St. Thomas.'
' On the Feast of St. Thomas of Aquin, i88i.

HOLY FAMILY OF ST. DOMINIC. 121
He was fearless (explains Fr. Burke) because his own soul rested
upon the immutable truths of his religion and his faith. He knew
nothing could interfere with them. No discovery or argument could
upset them, and therefore he went out with a sense of utter security,
and fearlessly pushed his inquiries into the gravest questions ever
presented to the mind of man.
Fr. Burke went on to show that the Catholic Church was
not afraid of scientific investigation.
Br. Thomas was now a member of the Holy Family of St.
Dominic. Like an ardent scion who proudly gazes on the
portraits of his ancestors in the great gallery of his home,
Thomas Burke spent hours in the companionship of St. Vin
cent Ferrer, St. Peter of Verona, St. Thomas Aquinas, St.
Pius the Fifth, Blessed Albert the Great, and other illustrious
fathers of his order. These names — the aristocracy of sanctity
— inflamed his ambition, and did not make him less a man.
One day when Burke was taking a country walk with a
priest — as we learn from a Dominican — they observed a man,
stiletto in. hand, crouching behind. There was something in
the fellow's eye that meant mischiefi Burke grappled with
him and pinned him to the ground, until a constabile coming
on the scene rid them of further danger.
An American journalist, from information supplied by
one of Fr. Burke's associates, writes of his residence at the
Minerva : ' ' Here his aptitude for learning, his retentive
' As Maguire and Eustace furnish no details of the Minerva, the following
account, kindly supplied by the Very Rev. P. V. Kenny, O.P., Prior, will be
welcome : ' The principal church and convent of the Dominican Order in Rome
is San Maria sopra Minerva, so called because built on the ruins of the ancient
temple of Minerva, in the Campus Martius. A statue of Minerva armed with a
lance has been lately discovered in the grounds of the cloister. The church was
built after the design of a lay brother of the Order, and is one of the best specimens
of Italian Gothic. Under the high altar, which was consecrated by the late Pope,
reposes the body of St. Catherine of Siena. St. Antoninus, Archbishop of Florence,
and some beatified members of the Order were priors of this convent. It consists
of two large quadrangular cloisters of unequal size, the larger being the convent
proper, the smaller being the residence of the general of the Order and his com
panions, and the Dominican Cardinal, at present Cardinal Zigliara. The Secretary
of the Index also resides here. In the convent proper are two great libraries, the

122 LIFE OF FATHER THOMAS BURKE.
memory, the poetry of his diction, and his felicity of illustra
tion, astonished not only his fellows, but his superiors.'
It was about this time that a Jew violated the civil law by
engaging a Christian servant. This girl privately got one of
his children baptised. The ecclesiastical authorities, when
the matter became bruited, took a year to examine the proofs,
and decided that the Church must take charge of the child.
It is interesting to know, on the authority of so great a thinker
as Fr. Burke, that one of the most momentous events of modern
times hinged on this seemingly trivial incident. ' I believe
myself, being a witness of these facts and analysing them, that
the case of that child was the beginning of the troubles that
have issued to-day in the loss of the temporal dominions of
the Pope, and in the bloody revolution.' This Fr. Burke said
at New York on December i6, 1872. He recurs to the same
time in a lecture delivered at Waterford :
When the Jewish child Mortara was relegated to the Catholic
faith by being baptised, he became at once the special charge of the
Pope, as the earthly head of that Church. Once baptised, Pius IX.
could not give him up, and nobly did the grand old man discharge
his trust. The fleets of England and France blocked up his ports
whilst the demand was made upon him for the surrender of the child.
Cabinets sent their envoys here and there, but the illustrious Pontiff,
relying on the unchangeable word of his Divine Master, thoroughly
conscious of his duty, was fully equal to the occasion. ' No,'
Conventual Library and the Cassanatansioni, so called from Cardinal Cassanata,
who gave it to the Order. It is the second in Rome in the number of printed books
and manuscripts — the latter embracing not less than 4,000. At present it is a
national library. Three theologians and as many lay brothers of the Order attend it
every day from nine till six P. M. to assist visitors and afford all information required.
To be a ' Cassanatansian ' theologian is one of the highest honours to which a
Dominican can be raised in the Order. There are large halls for the Faculties of
Theology and Philosophy, the convent having the privilege of granting degiees in
Thomistic Philosophy and Theology. The Minerva was also historic as the arena
wherein the meetings of the Holy Offtce had long been held. Here Galileo
received that memorable sentence beginning, 'Whereas thou, Galileo,' and in the
Minerva he abjured his condemned opinions. But since the Italian Government
entered the Porta Pia this once formidable tribunal has become a sinecure. It
may be added that the Records of the Inquisition were seized during the Revolu
tion of 1849, and now repose in Ihe library of Trinity College, Dublin.

FATHER ANGELICO.

123

replied he, ' no; you may imprison me, but that child can never be
surrendered. Non possumus ; it cannot be done.' The hand of that
child Mortara I have shaken as he grew up to the priesthood, and
I will never forget him.'
To compensate for pleasures relinquished, Thomas Burke
indulged, so far as his rule allowed, a love of the liberal arts.
' While still a novice,' observes his late Provincial, ' he was
surprised to receive one day a few pounds from home. He
waited on his superior, and asked leave to buy a piano for
the use of the novices during their hours of recreation. The
request— then a very unusual one — was granted.' ^
This happiness was now heightened by the thought — and
the words are his own — that if his ear was charmed by music
or his eye delighted by art, the Church must be recognised as
their mother, in so far as to have brought them forth from the
chaos that followed Pagan civilisation. His admiration of
art was strengthened under the example of the great Domi
nicans who had gone before him, especially Angelico. It was
a tradition in the Convent of Santa Sabina that this great
master of the ethereal touch never laid his brush to the
Saviour or the Madonna except on the day that he had
received Holy Communion. The ' Crucifixion ' he painted
reverently on his knees. ' We read of him,' says Fr. Burke,
' that whilst he depicted the Divine sorrow in the Virgin Mother
for the Saviour on the Cross, whilst he brought out the God
like tribulation of Him who suffered there — he was obliged
to dash from his eyes the tears of love and of compassion
which had produced the high inspiration of his genius.'
To the gifted Father Angelico he also refers in a passage,
relevant to the present period. It occurs in a sermon on
' The Church the Mother of Inspiration and Art,' a propos of
the completion of the fine Dominican church at New York :
It is fitting that, in a temple of my order, when I look upon
' Lecture at Waterford, February 3, 1875.
' Very Rev. B. Russell, O.P., to the Author, August 18, 1883,

124 LIFE OF FATHER THOMAS BURKE.
yonder image of my Holy Father, in imagination and without an
effort I travel back to the spot where I had the happiness to live
my student's days, and where in the very cell in which I dwelt I
beheld from Angelico's ov^fn hand a glorious specimen of his art.
These are the gladness of our eyes, the joy of our hearts. They
give us reason to rejoice with Him who said : ' I have loved, O
Lord, the beauty of Thy house, and the place where Thy glory
dwelleth.' We rejoice because they are not only fair and beautiful in
themselves, but are also the guarantee and the promise that the
traditions of ecclesiastical painting, sculpture, architecture, and music
in this new country will yet come out and rival all the glories of the
nations that for centuries upheld the Cross. They are a cause
of gladness to us, for when we have passed away our children and
our children's children shall come here, and, in viewing these pictures,
will learn to feel the love of Christ.
The grand pictures with which Italy abounds, illustrative
of the various stages of the Passion, had no small effect in
educating Burke's mind for the work of the pulpit.
Later on, when the rigours of his novitiate ended, and he
returned to Rome a fully developed Dominican, he styled
himself a polygamist in his devotion to the nine Muses, not
excluding those of Rhetoric and Tragedy. How often have
favoured friends heard him declaim the best of Shakspere's
plays I But for Thalia, Muse of Comedy, he bore through
life a passion quite undying. Even Terpsichore was not
excluded ; he more than once danced for the amusement of
some genial brother, his habit imparting a fantastic effect to
his personation of Cerrito in the Shadow Dance.
Fr. Burke's sermon on Cardinal Cullen describes Rome
at this time. Though the men he names were now dead,
monuments of their genius extended on every side, and
served to educate our student's eye.
The museums of the Vatican were springing up and being filled.
Tlie greatest scholars of the day were at work in Rome : Mai
rescuing from the pahmpsests the precious and long-lost treasures of
ancient Roman eloquence ; Mezzofanti speaking all known languages,
the wonder of the age ; Few unlocking the treasure-house of archjeo-^

CULTURE. 125
logy; Canova recalling the best days of Grecian sculpture ; Francesco
Cancellieri writing on all recondite and strange subjects ; Conte and
Calandrelli, astronomers who laid the foundations of the higher fame
of Yico, and of the great Jesuit Secchi : in a word, a host of
men illustrious in every walk of learning, science, and art, who
seemed to have brought back again to Rome the glories of the
Augustan era. Into this bright home of learning and sanctity (he
adds) the Irish boy enters joyfully.
He was something of an aesthete, but an aesthete regu
lated by asceticism ; he liked culture, but used it as tending
to make brighter the path to heaven. A philosopher, but with
a philosophy tempered by the discipline of religion ; otherwise
it ' might clip an angel's wings.' ' Perhaps,' he declared.
The best that can be said of the highest intellectual 'culture is that it
is a good immediate preparation for the development of the third
and highest life of man — namely, the spiritual life. The philosophers
of old knew the names of all the virtues, but they were unable to
practise one. They taught the beauty of purity and chastity in man,
but when it came to the trial of temptation the best among them has
left behind him a name stained with unutterable crimes.'
Rome was now occupied by French troops. Their
presence awakened stirring memories of past triumphs.
Burke did not forget his mother's parting words ; but a
fatherly interest in le petit tambour involved no infringe
ment of her injunction. How badly paid the French troops
were, we learn from his 'Address to the Young Men of
Brooklyn ' (December 15, 1872), the word ' cents' being used
to make the value of the coin clear to his audience :
I remember once at a review of the French troops seeing a poor
httle drummer boy running up and down all day, beating his drum
wherever he was sent, in order to call the troops together ; and when
he came in exhausted in the evening I said to him, ' Well, have you
enjoyed yourself to-day?' 'Eh! ma foil' answered he, 'it was a
hard day for two sous.' After he had paid for his clothing and
victuals, he had just two cents coming to him.
' Sermon at Westland Row, Dublin, December 2, 1876.

126 LIFE OF FATHER THOMAS BURKE.
For reasons which will soon appear, our novice was
removed from the Minerva to that venerable structure on the
Aventine Hill known as Santa Sabina. This old convent by
the Tiber had been once occupied by St. Dominic himselfi
His cell remains very much as he left it six hundred years
ago, and the hall still stands where he gave the habit to St.
Hyacinth. Burke on entering Santa Sabina was struck by an
old fresco over the great door depicting Dominic returning
hither at night, and escorted by angels ; but a srill more
curious relic was found in the stone, still shown, and which
tradirion states had been cast by Satan at the saint after
having overcome a temptation.
' Santa Sabina,' says Fr. Burke, ' covers the spot where
lived Marcellus, the first to introduce monastic life into the
Western Church. Here St. Jerome preached conferences to
her virgins, and on the site thus endeared Dominic founded
the novitiate of his order.' ' Santa Sabina was remarkable
for its strict primitive observance of our rules and constitu
tions,' writes an esteemed correspondent.
The year Fr. Burke was sent from the Minerva to Santa Sabina was
the same year that our province in England was re-established, and
the General appointed FY Burke, whilst not even a sub-deacon, to be
its first Master of Novices. And that he might be able to introduce
strict observance into England, the General wished him to spend
some time at Santa Sabina before his departure. Here is the simple
explanation, vi-hich I often heard from Fr. Tom himself
Br. Burke placed himself unreservedly in Fr. Jandel's
hands, to be regulated just as the Master-General pleased.
The fruit which grew from his thoughts at Santa Sabina we
find him long after casting among the ardent souls who thirst-
' Rev. P. V, Kenny, O.P., to the Author, St. Saviour's, Octobers, 1SS4.
He adds : ' S, Sabina does not belong to the Roman Province of the Order,
and is not subject, as the Minerva is, to the Roman Provnici;l, It is directly
under the control of the Dominican General. In many of the provinces of the
Order the General, for special reasons, reserves to himself the immediate juris
diction over one or two houses of men or women. In the Irish Province, Siena
Convent, in Drogheda, is subject immediately to the General, who has appointed
as his commissary or visitor over the convent Fr, Conway, late of Tallaght.'

PERE BESSON. 127
ingly followed him in his retreats. At no time did he appear
in greater strength than when conducting these exercises for
ladies at Loretto. Among the notes kindly sent for our use
by Miss Rowe — the convert daughter of a Devonshire rector
— we find : ' Think of St. Dominic and St. Francis meeting
at Santa Sabina at sunset ; how they had not got through
their meditation on the wondrous mysteries of the incarnation
before the sun rose over the Alban Hills.'
What were the points which so prepossessed Jandel in favour
of this Irish youth .'' Among various accounts of his progress
at Santa Sabina we heard one which struck us as harmonising
with his own account of the youthful St. Lawrence O'Toole.
The words, though warm, may perhaps be borrowed to paint
his higher characteristics :
They knew what was demanded of the monk and the consecrated
priest, they knew by the experience of years how complete the sacri
fice of the heart must be. But the presence of the youth among
them as he came forth in his monastic habit, with his eyes cast to the
ground, and his face radiating with the love of God, came like rays
from the brightness of heaven ; they saw in that youth, kneeling
hour after hour before the presence of God upon the altar, they heard
in that voice ringing clear and high in the tones of praise above the
chorus of voices of those who praised the Lord, as if an angel were
in them, striving to uplift his spirit totally upon the wings of song.
It would have been impossible for the aspirant to Christian
perfection to find a retreat more redolent of sanctity, or one
which inclosed higher types of asceticism. A man eminently
deserving of beatification was Pere Besson, Prior of Santa
Sabina. Br. Thomas having chosen him as his confessor,
frequent visits to Besson's room became necessary. It had
been often observed that Besson evinced a special objection
to any person entering his inner cell ; but Burke, with the
curiosity of youth, watched his opportunity to peep in unob
served. He entered with a tripping air, which immediately
gave place to a shock very unusual with him. Bluebeard's
wife, when she opened the secret chamber, was not more

128 LIFE OF FATHER THOMAS BURKE.
appalled by what she saw. The room contained no furniture
beyond one stool, a table, and a black coffin with gaping jaws,
while the white walls around bore daubs of human blood. It
afterwards transpired that Pere Besson slept in this coffin,
from which at two o'clock A.M. he rose for matins. He regu
larly used the discipline or scourge, and with a degree of seve
rity that may be inferred from the state of the walls. Perhaps
he thought of the blood of the lamb, which led God to spare
such doors as were marked by it. Fr. Besson — on this occa
sion responding to a summons — had left his penitent in an
outer room, but promising to return to hear his confession.
' Never,' said Fr. Burke, as he told the incident to his
novices, ' never did I make so complete an act of con
trition as I did then.' As an artist, though not equal to
Angelico, Besson yet possessed talents of a high order, and
painted some frescoes in the chapter-room of St. Sixtus
at Rome. Thomas Burke was much struck by this man —
one indeed so remarkable that lives of him have been written
not only by Dominicans, but by Protestants ; and the same
remark applies to his colleague, Lacordaire. Br. Thomas
watched Besson at all seasons ; to the last hour of his life
Besson was vividly present to his mind, and his example
nerved him through the many trials of a chequered course.
Fr. Burke, when preaching one of his Lenten sermons at
St. Saviour's, Dublin, reminded his ' dearly beloved brethren
and fellow-sinners ' that many a man goes forth to his daily
occupation and lies down at night without offering throuo-h-
out the whole day one prayer ; or at most, the mere thought
less recital of a set form of words.
But (he added) where is the soul, where is the spirit crushed
before God, where is the man knowing his own infirmities, remember
ing his own past sins and bewailing them in a spirit of contrition who
with temptation around him still clings to God ? Do you ever pray in
this fashion? Let every man look into his own conscience. Do you
know how to pray ? I scarcely know how to pray, and I have been
at it five-and-thirty years as the profession of my life. Listen to me.

THE AVENTINE HILL.

129

I remember seeing a priest kneeling before a crucifix in the oratory of
a convent in Italy on a Good Friday morning, and he did not know
I was watching him until he ceased to pray ; he was praying there
before a lifehke image of the Crucifixion — our Lord bleeding from
the cross. His mind, his heart and soul went into that cruci
fixion. For three hours he reafised every agony, every pain and
pang of the soul and body of the crucified Lord ; but he was not
able to speak, and I saw him rise up from his prayer, his eyes fixed
in a glassy stare upon that cross, and he threw himself about the
foot of it, and fell in a swoon as if he would die. I fled terrified, for
I was a youth at the time, and I left the man there whose prayers
had crushed him. Ah, how little do we know how to pray ! It is
the first and most necessary duty amongst us, and if any man here
expects to enter heaven he must open the way by prayer. In the
name of God, take up this practice. Throw yourselves, like men,
heart and soul into it, put before Him your wants and necessities, for
He who is your Father, who knows your soul so well, is only waiting
to hear that prayer in order to grant that which is so necessary for us.'
It was at this period that Thomas Burke first became
familiar with a disciplinary practice which is uniformly veiled
from the sight of the world. But his Discourses often make
reference to it. Thus on St. Patrick's Day, 1881, he speaks
of a servant of God ' scourging his virginal flesh until the blood
flowed down on every side — lacerated from head to foot by
the unsparing hand of this awful disciplinary penance.' ^
Burke's own cell was little better than Fr. Besson's. He
entered it, in the first instance, unchilled by the words of
Lacordaire, who styles it a tomb which the religious inhabits
during his mortal life only to pass to the tomb that pre
cedes immortality. Even then he is not separated from his
brethren, but is laid to rest wrapped in his habit ; and it is
part of the Dominican rule to regard the habit as their coffin.
Besson, Jandel, and Lacordaire had made their studies
together, and traversed Italy with knapsacks on their backs.
' Lenten Sermon at St. Saviour's, Dublin, March 20, 1881.
2 Ibid. March 17, 1881.
VOL. I. k:

I30 LIFE OF FATHER THOMAS BURKE.
When Lacordaire, however, compares the cell to a tomb, it
must not be taken quite literally. The phrase would apply
more to a monk than a friar, and though many Catholics
regard them as synonymous, they are wholly different. The
monk is a solitary ; the mission of the friar or brother is
to go among the people, advising and consoling them.
That winding path down the Aventine Hill which St.
Dominic had daily travelled on charitable thoughts intent
soon became as familiar to Burke as the staircase in his
mother's house.
An old orange tree planted in the garden of Santa Sabina
by Dominic's own hand, after having dispensed for six
centuries its refreshing fruit to the pilgrim or student, had at
last given symptoms of decay, when suddenly it sent forth a
strong new sucker teeming with blossoms, which grew into
golden fruit. This the General seemed to regard as earnest
of renovated strength in the Order ; and Fr. Burke, some
years later, brought home to Ireland as a souvenir one of the
oranges. He gave it to a member of the author's family, who
still preserves the shrivelled relic.
Thanks to the legislation of the Italian Government (writes Fr.
Towers, O.P.), if you visit Santa Sabina at the present da}', memory
wiU have to re-people its empty cells with the holy generations that
once occupied them ; but when the young Irish novice went there a
numerous community, by their strict observance of rule, showed
themselves to be true children of St. Dominic.
It was his good fortune to form the acquaintance at this
time of a great priest who afterwards did much to make
history and influence men. A Galwegian writing in the
New York Sun tells us that Cardinal \Viseman formed a
warm affection for young Burke, whom he met on one of
his many visits to Rome. He was parricularly captivated by
the merry spirit of jest and Irish fun which played inces
santly around a nature as open, artless, and sincere as a

THE ROMAN STUDENT. I31
child's. ' That young man,' he often said, ' has a wondrous
power of inspiring love. He will be a great priest yet.' The
Galwegianadds that it was chiefly from the opinionofhis power
thus early expressed that Fr. Burke was afterwards selected to
preach the Lenten sermons which Dr. Wiseman himself, when
head of the English College at Rome, made celebrated, and
which at once, by a bound, brought him into a world-wide fame.
Some apt words used by Dr. Wiseman were afterwards
quoted by Fr. Burke as thoroughly harmonising with his own
impressions of Rome :
The life of the student in Rome should be one of unblended
enjoyment If he loves his work — if he throws himself conscientiously
into it — it is sweetened to him as it can be nowhere else. His very
relaxations become subsidiary to it. His daily walks may be through
the field of art — his resting-place in some seat of the Muses — his
wanderings along the stream of time, bordered by precious monu
ments. The student at Rome so peoples his thoughts with persons
and things seen and heard, that his studies are, or ought to be,
turgid with the germs of life, rich as the tree in early spring, in the
assurance of bloom and fruit. On the darkest page of abstruse
theology there will shine a bright ray from an object perhaps just
discovered ; but on the lighter one of history and practical doctrine
there literally sparkle beams of every hue. The whole of Christian
life and history — legible still, even to the traditional portraiture of
apostles, martyrs, and their Head, traced from catacomb to basilica
and cloister, make the history of the Church, her dogmas, practices,
and vicissitudes, as vivid to the eye as any modern illustrated book
can make a record of the past. But it is written, ' Rejoice there
fore, O young man, in thy youth, and let thy heart be in that which
is good in the days of thy youth, and walk in the ways of thy heart,
and in the sight of thy eyes : and know that for all these God will
bring thee into judgment ' (Eccles. xi. 9).
The eye is not filled with seeing, nor the ear with hearing, even
when the sights and sounds are those of Christian Rome (continues
F""r. Burke). The young student of theology knew that his first duty
lay directly to God, and that there are some things far better than
knowledge, even when that knowledge is of things Divine.
The retirement and peace of Roman life, so sweetened by study,

132 LIFE OF FATHER THOMAS BURKE.
SO sanctified by contemplation and prayer, so enlivened by the
highest and grandest functions and ceremonial of the Church, so
pleasant in its learned and holy associations, were now to be ex
changed for another life, more laborous still.'
In the holy company at Santa Sabina, Burke, in the natural order
of religious fife, would have spent some years (writes Fr. Towers), but
his sojourn was suddenly interrupted, as the General called him
elsewhere to fill an arduous and responsible position. The old
Orders in England, except the Benedictines, never recovered the
blow they received at the Reformation, and so recently as 1850
there were no Carmelites, no Augustinians, only two or three
Franciscans, whilst the Dominicans had only one convent
The time had now come when the friars-preachers of
England were to be reorganised.
Candidates for the Order presented themselves in fair numbers
(continues Fr. Towers), and, that they might be trained thoroughly
in religious discipline, the young Irish student was taken from his
studies and sent as Novice Master to Woodchester, when he had
barely attained his twenty-first year.
The Master-General who took this bold course was the
Pere Jandel, and his resolve to make Burke an important
instrument in the work was not suddenly formed. But
before we enter on this new era, not in his life only, but in
that of the now flourishing Dominican province of England,
a retrospect and preamble become necessary to make both
thoroughly understood. ' ' Ordo' &c. for 1879, vide p. 270 et siq.

133

CHAPTER IV.
MASTER OF NOVICES AT WOODCHESTER.
The Dominicans possessed at the Reformation fifty-four
priories in England and Wales. In 1538 persecution drove
them into exile, and the province became utterly disorganised.
A few stealthily remained, sufficient to keep its smouldering
embers alive, and no more. Fr. Blagrave was the first who
suffered death. Edward Byng, a Cromwellian officer and
afterwards a chief of the Body-guard of Charles IL, was
one of those who, becoming a Catholic, made his profession
as a Dominican, officiated in London, and suffered for the
faith. Fr. Molineux, grandson of one of Queen Elizabeth's
generals in Ireland, is found labouring on the English mission
in 1664. The archives of the Master-General at Rome con
tain full record of the Fathers who, throughout the long
dark night of persecution, kept the flame of religion burning.
Some are described as baronets, as Graham and Martin ; one
is Raymond Greene, attached to the Royal Household at
Windsor and St. James's ; he was sent to Oxford by the
Dean and Chapter of Windsor to read for the Church of
England, but he embraced instead the Dominican rule, and
under his mother's name, Westby, did duty as a zealous
priest in London. The first Engli.sh Dominican of whom
we have clear tradition is Fr. Norton, ' who sharpened his
razor on the knee of his leather breeches,' and eked out sub
sistence by selling pints of gooseberries from his garden at
Hinckley. Here he built a little chapel in 1767.'
' One day, when Dr. Ambrose Woods, a distinguished theological writer
and Dominican Ruler, called, he found Fr. Norton washing cabbage with his own

134 LIFE OF FATHER THOMAS BURKE.
Fr. Norton had also been a Protestant. His unobtrusive
life concealed virtues and gifts worthy of a F6nelon. At
Louvain he proved his power, filled a chair, became D.D., and
finally its rector ; while his writings won prizes from learned
societies. It should be mentioned that after the Dominican
heroes of England had fallen during the tornado of persecu
tion, their head-quarters and novitiate continued for two
centuries at Bornhem, in Holland. This house had been
founded by Cardinal Howard, O.P., brother of the Duke of
Norfolk. One day Fr. Norton received his appointment as
Prior of Bornhem. No man is a hero to his valet ; and the
old woman who acted as his servant said — while Hinckley
tendered its congratulations — ' If they knew as much about
you as I do, they'd never make you Prior of Bornhem.'
Returning to England, he served Leicester from 1783 to
August 1785. One day a local trader waited upon the
mayor, saying, after he had very carefully closed the door,
' I know where there is a priest.'
' This is an important business,' replied the mayor. ' Come
to me to-morrow, when there will be a full bench.'
Meanwhile the mayor, who respected Norton's gifts and
worth, privately sent him word to fly. Fr. Norton's old
leather small-clothes were soon in rapid motion, and ere
next day's sun had set they might be seen with their owner
speeding towards Douay. Meanwhile it appeared that the
informer was heavily in debt and trying to get clear of his
creditors ; and the mayor not only foiled his scheme, but
had influence enough to lodge him in gaol as a defaulting
debtor. The French Revolution drove the English Dominicans
out of Bornhem. Fr. Norton founded a mission at Coventry,
hand. The good man bade him welcome, and hewed a large piece of fat bacon
from the flitch. During dinner the guest plied his knife and fork, but merely
feigning to eat ; and while Fr. Norton left the room for something to drink, the
guest adroitly put upon his host's plate the slices to which he himself had been
helped.

THE DOMINICANS AT HINCKLEY. 135
and returned to Hinckley, where he died in 1800, bequeath
ing his bones to the bit of Leicestershire soil that shel
tered him and had grown the fruits on which he had
vegetated. Few visitors to Aston-Flamville churchyard are
allowed to leave it until the sexton shows them Friar Norton's
tomb. The connivance extended by Leicester to the proscribed
Dominican led Fr. Ambrose Woods, O.P., to open a secular
school and small novitiate at Hinckley, and to build a chapel,
which was licensed for public worship in 1825. One of his
colleagues was Fr. Brittain, a convert. At Hinckley the priest
who, as ' Fr. Augustine,' will be found filling an important
role later on, made his studies. This novitiate did not even
make its sons wear the habit; and Hinckley was no doubt
quite unsuited as a foundation. The army of friars-preachers
assigned to each country is called ' the Province.' The recon
struction of the English Province, with strict primitive observ
ance, had long been the day-dream of Fr. Augustine's thoughts ;
and a voice whispered in his ear that he was the man to do it.
England possessed a few Dominican Fathers, hardly recog
nisable as such, and officiating ostensibly as parish priests.
The shoulders that they were urged to put to the wheel they
shrugged. It was a habit they learned in France before the
Reign of Terror drove them to England. They preferred the
frying-pan to the fire. During the penal laws it was not
unusual for the General, in memory of past triumphs, to give
to some Italian the purely honorary title of Provincial of
England. This empty rank at last died out, but, thanks to
Holland, the English Province, though often laid waste, was
never extinguished.
Fr. Augustine, while Regent of Bornhem, effected the sale
of all the property in Flanders. Twice he became Provincial,
and from 1832 to 1850 was pastor of Hinckley. 'In the
latter year the number of Fathers was so reduced as again
to threaten extincrion,' writes their present Provincial, Fr.

136 LIFE OF FATHER THOMAS BURKE.
Williams. Fr. Augustine, nothing daunted, continued to urge
energy on his colleagues. At their final meeting at Hinckley
four Fathers threw themselves on their knees, and resolved
that if any feasible opportunity presented itself they would
labour to reconstruct the long-disorganised English Province.
Next day a stranger, as he descended from the stage
coach at Hinckley, was observed making inquiries for Fr.
Augustine. This was Mr. Leigh, an eminent English con
vert, who came to offer him the handsome Gothic church he
had built at Woodchester.
But though the shackles of penal pressure had been partly
unlocked, ugly marks remained behind, and the cold of the
iron had entered their souls. The news seemed, indeed, too
good to be true ; the Fathers rather shrank from the generous
boldness of the proposal. Mr. Leigh asked leave to retire to
the chapel while they renewed their deliberations. Here his
orisons gathered increased fervour, and he returned to find
all difficulties smoothed. The Fathers had decided upon
accepting his proposal and sending a contingent of not less
than three to Woodchester.
Woodchester Paik had long been the home of the
Moretons, ancestors of Lord Ducie. Every man on the
property tells wonderful stories of their orgies through succes
sive generations, and which ended at last in an incident akin
to that of ' Lord Lyttelton and the ghost' Nor are these
stories confined to the people. In the Halliwell family — lono-
the neighbours and attached friends of the Ducies — it is told
how a figure in white, supposed to imply the Dominican
intruder, scared the late peer, probably in a dream, during
his last nights in the park. In June 1S40, Lord Ducie filled
his house with guests, as if trying to forget in their society
the unpleasantnesses that had long tormented him. But just
as he was conducting a lady into dinner, he stood aghast to
see his father's spirit in the very chair that he as host was
about to occupy. Hurrying from the room. Lord Ducie

MR. WILLIAM LEIGH. 1 37
repaired to London, and returned to Woodchester Park no
more. This is told from Stroud to Stone, and how six parsons
tried to lay the ghost. At last Mr. William Leigh, a D.L. for
the counties of Stafford and Lancaster, bought the property.
He placed, as caretaker in the house, 'a bailiff who feared not-
God, man, or devil.' One morning very early, this man pre
sented himself to his employer vowing that not all the
gold in Gloucester would tempt him to pass another night
in that house. Mr. Leigh pulled down the historic house,
with its secret chambers behind the arras, and raised the
beautiful new church in which the Dominicans have long
worked such good. Woodchester Park, a place not inferior in
picturesque grandeur to Studley Royal, and whose island in
the ornamental water and tower overlooking it were added
on the suggestion of George IV., had been old Church pro
perty ; and Mr. Leigh felt that in building a temple to God's
honour he had condoned past sacrilege and freed the place
from ban. In point of fact, however, all interdict had been
removed by the accession of Queen Mary. Mr. Leigh also
built a church in Australia. At his death, in 1873, he left
unfinished on the site of the haunted house a castle worthy
of royal occupation, but which his son seems determined never
to complete. This forsaken structure, roofed certainly, but in
other respects a skeleton, through which the night wind pite-
ously howls, is not calculated to dispel the popular superstition
attaching to the spot.
The Dominicans stopped for the first night of their arrival
at Mr. Leigh's house, near Nymphsfield. The good Fathers,
on getting into a cab next morning at seven, and telling
the driver where to go, heard him mutter, ' A strange hour,
surely, to go to church.'
Fr. Augustine took possession of Woodchester Church on
October 8, 1850, and full of zeal at once proceeded to organise
the convent and noviciate. He became Novice-Master, Vicar-

138 LIFE OF FATPIER THOMAS BURKE.
Procurator, and Parochus ; Fr. Dominic Aylward not having
been installed as first Prior of Woodchester until July 6, 1854.
Fr. Augustine seemed well qualified to direct the studies,
having been himself Regent of Bornhem College ; but how
much he disappointed expectations the sequel will show.
The old house in which primitive monastic observance was
to be revived clung to the side of a steep hill not far from
the site of the present beautiful church and priory.
The spot chosen for the novitiate house was inhospitable in the
extreme (writes Fr. Paul Stapelton, O.P.) Nothing but utter poverty
stared everyone in the face, and the stolid, wan, nay austere figure of
the vicar only added to the terrors of the necessary hardships.
Fr. Augustine- -the priest just referred to — with the
strongest zeal to carry out the rule of St. Dominic in strict
integrity, was yet ignorant of the traditions and practices of
the Order. This is not surprising when we remember that his
career from 1825 had been mainly that of a Secular priest in
England. Few Dominicans who made their novitiate or even served
as priests under Fr. Augustine can look back without a chill
to that period of their lives. Giving too literal an inter
pretation to the Constitutions in some instances, and deducing
an utterly wrong meaning in others, he exacted from the
religious, already bound by solemn vows of obedience, an
observance of rigours never contemplated by St. Dominic, and
which would have made Thomas Aquinas smile. But Fr.
Augustine had little in common with the Angel of the Schools
unless a lively faith and an indomitable strength of purpose.
Fasts came first, and Fr. Augustine found a luxury in their un
due severity. The Dominican Lent lasts for seven months,
during which time only four ounces of dry bread are allowed
for the morning collation — breakfast it cannot be called.
This, however, is strictly according to the Constitutions. A
good dinner is allowed ; but how did Fr. Augustine supph'
it? Meat under no circumstances was permitted within the

A MONOTONOUS MENU. 1 39
walls during this time. He laid in a stock of salt herrings,
which he purchased by the cask.
Week after week, and month after month, came the same
monotonous menu. At last a keg containing mullets, which
the vicar probably got cheap, was opened, and immediately
sent forth an odour by no means inviting. The good vicar
is said to have been deficient in smell and taste, which will
account for his mistake — and he was influenced by a laudable
desire to expend with economy the small funds at his dis
posal. It was not until after the arrival of Br, Thomas that
Fr. Augustine became alive to the truth. The keg, ere half
consumed, received funeral honours in the garden.'
On the Feast of St. Dominic during the year of Fr. Burke's
arrival, as is well remembered by the novices, their dinner
consisted of a red herring and cold apple-pie. This day is
kept universally in the Order as one of exceptional festivity.
In August 185 1, the Master-General Jandel arrived from
Rome to make an inspection of Woodchester Convent. ' This
is all very well,' he said, ' but you're not living according to
the spirit of St. Dominic. I will send you a young man from
Santa Sabina who is thoroughly competent to expound the
Constitutions.' There is much more to be told on this point ; but mean
while we must return to Br. Thomas, who is seeing after
what he called his ' duds,' preparatory to starting for ' Merrie
England.' ' They rigged him out in second-hand clothes from
the " Ghetto," ' Canon Brownlow writes, • so that he looked
more like a smuggler than a friar.' This is the general behef
among the friends of Fr. Burke, one which he himself did
not discourage. In point of fact, however, the clothes were
his own — the same suit which was worn by the lank youth
five years before when leaving the field of Irish famine.
• Fr. Augustine's resolute asceticism in electing to live in this style— if it in
volved some mistakes— preached a good moral lesson. ' When at Hinckley he lived
like a prince; he kept a splendid table— no doubt in compliment to the sons of
the Catholic aristocracy who resided wilh him as pupils.'

I40 LIFE OF FATHER THOMAS BURKE.
This is known to all the Fathers who were then his novices
By no means harmonising with the outgrown attire was a
long Roman hat, like a capsized canoe, which the Pere
Jandel urged him to wear. But observing some tittering
at his expense, Fr. Burke relinquished at Paris the Roman
hat, and, ' because it was the cheapest, bought a jockey cap I '
The money placed in his hands to reach Woodchester
had been calculated by the Procurator on rigid rules ot
economy, and soon ran short. When Burke landed at
London Bridge he had not enough to pay for a cab. Dazed
by the noise and glare of the great city, the timid youth
hardly ventured to a.sk his way. When he got into the
Poultry he felt more at home ; but Cheapside disappointed
a man who thought to get his dinner for sixpence. Amen
Corner and St. Paul's nerved him somewhat for the road,
until steep Holborn Hill — there was no Viaduct then —
again tried his strength. He thought, however, of the
old Dominican house at Holborn, in which Thomas Aquinas
assisted at the general chapter ; ' and the youth's step be
came firmer when he remembered that the ground had been
trodden by that angelic man. By the time, however, that he
reached Paddington he was, as he said, more dead than alive.
It was nightfall when he entered the terminus of the Great
Western Railway. He had not a farthing left, and his
stomach was as empty as his purse. Thinking that he was
now within measurable distance of his destination, he asked
the porter if he knew a place called ' Woodchester ; ' but Tierra
del Fuego would have been quite as familiar. At last he
learned that it was much farther down than Reading, or even
Cheltenham ; and when he thought how much it would
cost to reach it his face fell. The clock tower now tolled
midnight, and it sounded like his knell. ' The }'outh was so
crushed and humble,' Fr. Pius Cavanagh, O.P,, states, 'that he
' This old house— now an Inn of Court for law students— still possesses,
amidst the din of a great city, its peaceful aspect.

RECEIVES ALMS AT PADDINGTON. 14I
accosted the porter with the same deference in which he
would have spoken to his superior. He told the porter
exactly how he was situated, and the circumstances which
had brought him to England.' The only part of the station
in which there was a fire was the lamp room, and here they
let him sit.
He told me (writes Canon Brownlow) that when sitting cold and
hungry at Paddington Station, and thinking of Rome and the
brothers and Convent he had left there, then it was that the porter
thrust a hunch of bread with a bit of herring under his nose, saying,
' Here, poor devil, eat that ! ' The coarse way in which he did his act
of charity grated very harshly on the sensitive youth fresh from the
politeness of Italy, and he burst into tears.
Nevertheless he felt grateful to this porter ; and years
after, when he had becorrie the great Fr. Burke, he visited
Paddington Station, and, assisted by Fr. Pius Cavanagh,
searched every part of it with a crown piece in his hand to
bestow on the man who had erst befriended him.
Nestling in a corner of the lamp room, the weary tra
veller at last sank to sleep — possibly dreaming of ' Aladdin
and the Wonderful Lamp ' — which he had loved to recite in
Italian to the novices at Santa Sabina. But a shrill railway
whistle disturbed ' the Arabian Nights' Entertainment,' and
roused him to a deeper sense of his painful position. What
was he to do ?
At last (says Fr. Austin Maltus) he bethought him of one of the
priests of the Oratory, which then stood, not at Brompton as now,
but in King William Street, Charing Cross. He had known this
Father at Rome, and had been of some use to him. Luckily
the Oratorian was at home. He recognised Br. Thomas not without
difficulty, owing to the strange dress he wore, and extricated him
from his trouble by timely help.
There was no rail from Stonehouse to Woodchester
then, and those only who made the journey forty years ago
can realise the difficulties which beset it The journey termi-

142 LIFE OF FATHER THOMAS BURKE.
nated by an a.scent, which seemed to our footsore and
benighted traveller like that of the Great St. Bernard. He
probably took the wrong turn and crossed the hill by a
tortuous path.
' When I got to the convent the Prior had retired to rest,
and they took me for a robber.' It was not until I sonorously
said, " Nay, I am Brother Thomas from Rome," that the bolt
was withdrawn which launched me into my new duties.'
The date of his arrival was October 4, 185 1, the feast of
St. Francis. Br. Thomas cut a strange figure. With trousers
much too small for him, and a coat whose sleeves ran sadly
short, he looked like Smike in ' Nicholas Nickleby ' !
The Superior, though holding vanity in austere contempt,
saw next day that this apparel would never do. Straightway
every valise in the monastery was requisitioned for aid. Fr.
Aylward contributed a coat, Fr. Augustine a vest, and so on.
Nothing annoyed Br. Thomas more than the acuteness with
which each article was recognised by the novices ; and this
was among the keenest of the humiliations that met him
in England. Br. Thomas was pacing up and down his room at an
early hour of the morning that followed his arrival, when a
young novice named Morgan, in the joy of his heart, ran in,
exclaiming, ' So you're the new Novice-Master. Oh, Brother
Thomas, I'm so glad you've come.'
No grand inquisitor could have looked more stern than
did Burke in acknowledgment of this friendly overture.
' Pray, is not this silence time ? ' he said, to the great confu
sion of the boy, who slunk away, quite ashamed of himself
for forgetting that from bedtime till after Mass next morning
solemn silence is prescribed.
' Canon Brownlow heard that the lay brother, thinking he was a robber,
' threatened to set the dog at him.' On inquiry, it appears that there was no dog
then or since at the monastery. The dog incident must have occurred at a farmer's
house which he mistook for the convent.

WOODCHESTER. 1 43
This loquacious novice Burke afterwards nicknamed
' Morgan Rattler ' — the hero of Tyrone Power's farce, ' How
to Pay the Rent.' Morgan, on being convinced by Fr. Burke
that he had no real vocation for the rule of St. Dominic,
finally went on the mission, and died.
The Fathers who were then novices under Burke say
that for the first year they never saw him smile. The young
man was evidently oppressed by the weight of the respon
sibility that had been put on him. Another reason helped
to make his position not a happy one. The solemn Vicar,
Fr. Augustine, never viewed him cordially. He looked on
Burke as a sort of spy sent by the Italian General to watch
hiin. The Rev. S. P. Rooke, one of the six Oxford parsons
officiating at St. Saviour's, Leeds, who came over to the
Catholic Church, entered as a novice at this time. He
states that when Burke arrived first at Woodchester, though
strengthened with the authority of his office as Master of
Novices, he seemed the shyest of the shy, even when brought
face to face with his companions in religion.
Though less severe and more accurate than Fr. Augustine
he soon proved himself a rigid taskmaster, as every Father
who served their novitiate under his rule, while loving and
respecting him, will not hesitate to endorse. Among his
novices was another English convert of high attainments.
When the new master — expounding the Constitutions and
enforcing their observance — would give a mandate or any
instruction, the novice generally said, ' Aw.' Fr. Burke, in
reference to those days, long after confessed that he would
rather receive a torrent of Irish abuse than hear that simple
word.' ' What we are now about to add has no reference to the distinguished convert
just named, who was a man of high attainments and of real apostolic spirit.
Father Burke said that he found converts manifested a great greed for austerities
and penances rather than cultivated attention to their rule, of which obedience
is the essence.

144 LIFE OF FATHER THOMAS BURKE.
We have seen it stated that the intensity and beauty of
the addresses which he delivered before the novices at Wood
chester was something wonderful, and their general plan was
that which he mostly afterwards used ; but his vivid imagina
tion would constantly present new facts and points of view,
which he illustrated in a manner that quite altered the original
treatment of the subject.
This account is confirmed by Fr. Lewis Weldon, who says
that he never heard anything more beautiful than his chapter
exhortations, especially one which viewed in glowing words
all the past saints of the Order.
These exhortations were in Latin. He spoke English
so imperfectly on his arrival from Rome that some instruc
tion became necessary. There were masons at work near
the monastery. ' Good morrow,' said Fr. Burke, addressing
one. ' Good morning, we say in this country,' said the mason.
The Master of Novices, quite abashed, came into the convent,
informing them how he had been corrected by a workman.
Some time after, the mason remarked to him encouragingly
that he was ' coming on in his English ' — a compliment
which he received with dubious feelings.
The MS. of Fr. Paul Stapelton, one of the novices of that
time, after remarking how much Br. Thomas on arrival from
Rome must have found to chill him, goes on to say :
Nothing daunted, however, the Rev. Brother Thomas Burke
betook himself with primitive ardour to his task, and the ' chapter of
faults ' weekly, and sometimes oftener, made all to tremble. The
Father vicar, who was not for corporal chastisement on the one hand
proved rigid to a degree on the other, in the line of abstemiousness
and fasting ; and though Fr. Thomas now and then fruitlessly re
monstrated in behalf of his charge, whom he declared suffered
unfairly from the effects of parsimony and neglect, strange to say
he was scarcely less reasonable himself as a scourger and floo-o-er'
for he laid down most emphatically not only the principle ""and
advantages of this discipline, but insisted upon its public use in
chapter whenever he presided as novice-master. From this salutary

KERRIL AMHERST. 1 45
practice he only desisted on the understanding that the discipline
be taken privately thrice in the week — a standing order which has
never been violated for thirty years.
Br. Thomas had studied the life of St. Dominic, and was
very familiar with this practice. After describing the saint,
who remained after midnight matins before the altar, and
rapt in contemplation until dawn, he adds (August 4,
1877): There were not only traces of tears upon the pavement, but the
stains of blood — for this faithful man, as he knelt alone, would
scourge himself until the same effect was produced as on the
body of Christ when He knelt in His agony in the Garden of
Gethsemane, Some Dominicans tell an incident, said to have happened
to Fr. Burke, known as ' the eel-pie story.' Having inquired
into it, we may at once say that two Fathers, who were
at Woodchester at the time, and to whom we owe the pre
ceding facts, say that it is new to them.' A story, however,
which many believe, and Fr. Tom himself encouraged, must
not be rudely repulsed. Among the novices who preferred
leaving their salt herring uneaten were Br. Thomas and
his novice, Kerril Amherst, afterwards Bishop of North
ampton. To eat at other than meal times is regarded by
Dominicans as a serious breach of rule. But might not a
case arise which would become justifiable under the circum
stances ? One day, finding himself oppressed with great
hunger and exhaustion, Fr. Thomas is said to have asked a
lay brother for something to appease it. Nothing remained
' Woodchester at present is very different to what it was. Work and cheer
fulness go hand in hand — exemplifying the mens sana in corpore sano. Its
handsome new buildings present a luxury of art. Fresh fish, glittering like silver,
come daily to the gate ; of this the poor from every side claim the dSris ; loaves
are freely distributed ; hot tea dispensed ; and the avidity displayed shows how
well the dole is valued. The poor all belong to the Protestant faith, as well as
the farm-labourers who work for the Fathers, and more conscientious servants
they would not care to have.
VOL. I. L

146 LIFE OF FATHER THOMAS BURKE.
available unless an eel-pie. He tasted it, liked it, went
deeper and deeper, until, finding he had inflicted some
unsightly havoc, he thought it best to make a complete
clearance. At last dinner-hour came. The savoury smell from the
oven had diffused itself through the entire building, and all
had looked forward to the eel-pie, just as Goldsmith did to
the pasty. At the sides there was spinach and pudding made hot.
In the middle a place where the pasty was not.
Great mystery prevailed as to its fate, and, of all men, the
Master of Novices was not suspected. After the meal Fr.
Augustine decided upon holding the capitulum culparum, or
chapter of faults, v/hen each religious is bound to disclose,
in an audible voice, some recent failing.' The Superior
threw himself back in his arm-chair, and each successively
accused himself of a fault. When it came to the turn of the
Master of Novices, he mentioned having eaten out of meal
times. ' I don't distinctly hear you.' The disclosure was
repeated. 'What did you eat?' 'Pastry.' 'What sort?'
• An eel-pie.'
All such questioning after particulars — to the confusion of
the offender — would not now be sanctioned, assuming that the
scene really occurred. The spirit of the Constitutions woudd
be satisfied by an avowal of this breach in 'eating out of
meal-times.' Sometimes in chapter a Father or novice gently
' ' This,' says St. Thomas of Aquin, ' is a work of humility which is agreeable
to God and salutaiy to the sinner.' It is so regarded by St. Francis de Sales, who
recommends it amongst other works of perfection. The Jesuits say in their Con
stitutions, ' The religious ought not to be constrained to give an account of con
science out of confession, because they are allowed an entire liberty herein for each
person's particular comfort ;' and Rodrigues says, ' No person is obliged to give
an account of any grievous sin ; for the rule does not oblige him thereto, as it
would be too severe, and few could submit to it, and such proceeding would be
against the intention of the rule and of the founder.'— Aide life, Ti?ncs and
Correspondence of Bishop DoUe, vol. i, pp. 523 -6, The title ' Chapter ' 'took
its origin in the fact that it was, and is, customary wilh monks to assemble daily
to hear a chapter of the Rule read.

A RfiGIME OF RIGOUR. 1 47
reminds another of a fault, and notwithstanding the risk and
delicacy of such a course, not a particle of pique ever results.
How rigorous Fr. Burke was in abstinence we know from the
Dominicans with whom he finally lived ; but it must have
been carried to a remarkable degree when the newspapers
thought fit to notice it In 1874, a memoir — the result of
careful inquiry — appeared in the Nation. Among other
glimpses of his life, we learn —
Nor is it known how often, in times of fast, after an hour or more
in the pulpit of St. Saviour's, he has returned, without the smallest
refreshment, to his convent at Tallaght, that he might keep intact the
rule of his Order. Patient and even cheerful endurance prove a
man's resolution and heroism more than scaling the breach or
charging up to the cannon's mouth.
The Fr. Vicar had required them to observe the rigid fast
on Sundays ; but it was clear to Burke and the more intelli
gent Fathers that this mandate infringed the Constitutions ;
and an opportunity was taken to leave the book on his table,
hoping that, by some lucky thought, he would open the part
that explained the law. What was their delight when the
vicar one day came in wearing an unwonted smile, and
remarked, ' Would you believe, I was quite wrong in includ
ing Sundays ? ' Had the novices, or even Fathers, ventured
to point out his mistake, he would simply have replied, ' No,
sir,' and, if possible, tightened the curb.
' Fr. Vicar, I'm hardly able to speak with a bilious head
ache — may I retire to my cell ? ' a novice asked. ' No, sir,'
was the reply of this dauntless soldier of suffering.
Once while matins were being sung at midnight, a novice
fell insensible in the choir. The Vicar had him stretched at
full length, and then resumed the Psalmody, during which he
gradually recovered.
It is often necessary to bless the alb, and Fr. Burke
told his Irish brethren that, instead of sprinkling with
holy water, the Vicar all but saturated it — literally inter-

148 LIFE OF FATHER THOMAS BURKE.
preting, as usual, the words from Ezek. xxxvi. 25 : ' I will
pour upon you clean water, and you shall be cleansed.' The
good Vicar, however, well knew that holy water possesses no
virtue of its own, and derived its utility from the prayers said
over it by the Church, that all who use it may gain spiritual
and temporal health.'
Of course the novices dare not read newspapers ; but it
gratified Br. Thomas to gather that, on the great trial,
' AchiUi V. Newman,' at this time, Lord Campbell, after a
careful study of the Constitutions of the Dominican Order,
pronounced them a truly admirable code.
No contrast could well be greater than between the
stirring scenes of Rome and the enforced seclusion of Wood
chester ; but he remembered how even laics, like Southey
and Wordsworth, had fled from the vanities of the world,
and lived hermits from choice, among scenes equally seques
tered. By degrees he found that Rome and Woodchester
were interwoven by ties other than religious. The plough
share had turned up Roman coins, fine tesselated pavement,
fragments of Italian pottery, and other relics, which led to
the conclusion that the Emperor Hadrian had erst made
Woodchester— or, as he styled it, ' Udecestre '—his abode.
All this time Fr. Augustine, in addition to his work as
Procurator, discharged the duties of parish priest, and some
conversions were, no doubt, due to him. One day word came
that ' the erring man wished to see him.' He hurried down,
but found that it was merely the herring man, who was desirous
of knowing when it would be convenient to settle his account.
Br. Thomas never allowed the novices out, unless when
he himself, or a socitts specially delegated, accompanied them.
There was one walk through the park which he frequently
' The alb, or while linen vestment with sleeves -the emblem of purity- has
been worn from the earliest times by Priesls during the celebration of Mass.
Fr. Augustine, continuing to interpret sur la Iciirc, remembered that the Priest,
when pulling on the alb, is bound to repeat the prayer, ' Wa^h me, and I shall be
whiter ^han snow.'

BRINGS THE NOVICES A WALK. 149
brought them, and led to a rugged seat that he called
'usque ad lapidem'. One day, Br. Vincent observing that a
great shower was likely to fall, asked leave to return to the
convent. ' Go on,' said Burke, • you're not made of sugar or
salt ; ' and on he stalked, his ample robe fluttering in the breeze,
and followed by the little brood that he gathered under his
wing. He had not got far when the floodgates of heaven
opened, and all were speedily wet to the skin. Burke led
the van home with drooping plumage ; and the entire party
cut such a forlorn figure, that in passing the village alehouse
a peal of loud laughter was raised at their expense. Burke
winced under the taunt. The men renewed their merriment.
That evening he wrote to a Mr. Clark, their employer, who
threatened to dismiss the men unless they begged Br. Burke's
pardon. Fr. Augustine was mystified next day on observ
ing a gang of men round the priory door ; they asked to
see the Master of Novices. ' Please, sir, we're sorry,' the
spokesman said. ' But it wasn't we — it was the ale.' The
tavern where the incident occurred is the ' Nag's Head ' — a
name in itself suggestive of stirring memories to a theo
logian. There was a factory in the town, and Fr. Burke, on
his return to Ireland, described the operatives — their faces
all blue and with sardonic grin — peering out of the windows
as they passed. One fellow yelled after them, ' Dominus vo-
biscum ' — alluding, of course, to the well-known words used
by the priest when, during Mass, he turns to the congregation.
Br. Thomas had heard from his novices that more than
once they had been pelted with stones, and he judged that
it would be well to show some manhood. Whenever such
incidents were repeated — and they are an experience with
every Father who has been at Woodchester— they found it
wise to advance calmly towards the enemy, who thereupon
slunk away. ' To fly from such missiles,' he said, ' would only
lead to a renewal of the sport ; ' and he explained that it was
possible to interpret too literally the ' Imitation of Christ,'

I50 LIFE OF FATHER THOMAS BURKE.
where it says (III. ch. xiii.), ' Show thyself so submissive and
so little that all may trample on thee and tread thee under
their feet as the dust of the road.'
Every walk discovered new beauties or some thrilling
tradition. In Berkeley Castle— the most perfectly preserved
specimen of ancient feudal architecture — is shown the room
in which Edward II. was murdered ; 'his wailful noise (says
Holinshed), as the tormentors fell upon him, did plainly
move many within the town to compassion.' Br. Thomas
often visited the graveyard, and traced with deep interest the
epitaph penned by Swift, beginning :
Here lies the Earl of Suffolk's fool,
Men called him Dicky Pearce ;
His folly served to make folks laugh
AVhen wit and mirth were scarce.
Poor Dick, alas ! is dead and gone.
What signifies to cry ?
Dickys enough are left behind
To laugh at by-and-by —
a piece of philosophy which our Dominican thoroughly
endorsed. Foster Court was another branch of the property
round which the same class of tradition as at Woodchester
floats. Woodchester Park had belonged to the historic
Huntleys ; and the circumstances under which Colonel
Huntley came by his death here encourages the popular
belief that all night long a spiritual horseman traverses its
hills and dales.
There was something which Br. Thomas held in livelier
dread than witches on broomsticks or even spectral horsemen.
Among minor worries, rats now appeared. One noisy creature
having been caught by the foot, was playfully pressed on
his acquaintance, by a person who felt so privileo-ed. The
Master yelled so loudly that the austere Vicar rushed to the
spot, but with his usual energy in trying to kill the rat he
smashed the trap.

A RIGOROUS RULE. I51
Thomas Burke tried to effect some changes at Wood
chester. These the Fr. Vicar would freezingly cut short by
replying, 'We don't do such things in England.' After
Fr. Burke's arrival, and in fact until recently, all continued
to rise for matins at midnight
During the rainy and cold months of the year (writes a Dominican
Father) it was found exceedingly trying to rise from a warm bed to
walk down a wet or snowy road to the cold damp church for mid
night matins, especially during the long fasting season. Still the
courageous litUe band of apostolic men persevered in their zeal.
A large sewer was being made across the road, and one
night a Father disappeared altogether. Fr, Austin Maltus
was a man of weakly frame and emaciated habit ; and it
was not without some trouble that stronger arms rescued
him from what seemed his living grave. Work being the
real object with friars-preachers, Fr. Burke wisely felt that
strength ought not to be impaired by broken sleep. He
quietly represented this and other ill-judged austerities to
the Master-General Jandel.
At 3.45 A.M. all rise to their day's work at Woodchester.
Each religious is called with the words ' Benedicamus Domine,
to which comes the prompt response, ' Deo Gratias.' '
' The writer having been, through the kindness of the Fathers, an inmate of
the monasteiy for some days, he is able to convey an idea of the routine. Matins,
4 to 5 A.M. Contemplation, 5 to 6. Angelus Domini, 6 [repeated at 12, and
6 p.m.]. Mass, 6.45. Collation 7.15. From bedtime till after Mass next day
profound silence reigns, which is a grave fault to break. Simple silence is
observed until after dinner at 12.30. During meals Scripture and history are
read aloud. If such a rare case occurs as that there has been great violation
of rule, the offender gets bread and water. After dinner converse is allowed until
Vespers at 1.30. Study or instruction is then resumed, ending sometimes with a
walk. Compline and Rosary then come, and at times Benediction. It is a grand
spectacle to see the religious, hooded and motionless, engaged in contemplation of
the various stages of Christ's Passion. In Fr. Augustine's time no meat under any
circumstances was allowed. Fish as diet is still the rule ; but one room is now
set apart for those whose strength requires meat to sustain it. Here one Father
is allowed to talk during dinner, it being probably felt that even pleasing mono
logue favours digestion. Fr. Burke was the fi/st to explain to Fr. Augustine that
the Rule as framed by St. Dominic was full of a holy liberty. As regards the
period when simple silence is understood to prevail, it may be remarked that the

152 LIFE OF FATHER THOMAS BURKE.
Although Bn Thomas was sent by the General, charged
with a certain weight of authority, he bore his faculties
most meekly, and the Father Vicar was, of course, his
superior, whom he was bound to obey. Br. Thomas felt
with a Kempis (Book III. c. xiii.) that 'if a man does not
freely and willingly submit himself to his superior, it is a sign
that his flesh is not as yet perfectly obedient to him.'
Among the trials on which the survivors look back was
an order to make a new road near the convent. Br. Burke
and the novices daily toiled at their uncongenial work.
But that which teased them most was the gibes and rustic
coquetries of the factory girls as they passed to and fro.
One novice was accused of not working well, and they
threatened to report him to his ' master.' Other coarse chaff
— needless to reproduce here — followed. The novices re
presented to Fr. Augustine how disconcerting all this was,
but the intrepid ascetic told them to regard it as suffering
for justice' sake. Down went the pick-axe, stroke after
stroke, as if seeking to stifle language so unhallowed. Spades
would ply with increased clink and activity ; and as the
stony soil rattled into the cart, it recalled to some of the
orphaned novices the day when similar sounds came from
a mother's grave. One woman, whom Burke had nicknamed
' Rhoudlum,' brandished a fork as he passed, and felt privi
leged to say to him, ' Thee shall marry I.' One day he
stood scared to hear that this forward person was actually
at the convent gate. ' I'm coom for instrooctions,'she at last
said, when challenged to explain. She became a pious con
vert, and to this hour remains steadfast, '
real spirit of that rule is never to speak without necessity. If a lay Brother or
Father should he addressed by a stranger, he may respond on the presumed leave
of the Prior, Fathers are sometimes told off to entertain visitors ; and none
brighter could be desired. To us they seemed to unite the rich humour of
Rabelais to the polish of a Chesterfield.
' Her name is Daniel. Her daughter is now ' sacrist.iness ' of the Dominican
Church at Woodchester. Fr. Burke ma.le eflective reference to the .above
ncident in one of his sermons. Our reverend informant dcicril.es her as re-

BECOMES A DEACON. I 53
'The crucial test' was now about to be applied.
The Church (says Fr. Burke) admits within her sanctuary, to
minister at her altars, only the eyes that have never looked upon
evil, the hands that have never been defiled, the feet that have never
trodden in the paths of iniquity ; she demands from every one of her
ministers the searching crucial question. Is there a virgin soul in a
virgin body ? and if not she bids them stand aside, save themselves
in some other walk of life, but not to dare enter the sanctuary.
And again :
Why this esteem of the Church for holy purity ? Because in
God there is nothing material. He is a pure Spirit, pure action.
And, therefore, whatever approaches by immateriality — as virginity
in its highest form does to God — in the same proportion does that
thing become holy and Godlike. ' Why,' asks St. Jerome, ' was John
the only one of the twelve allowed to lay his bosom on Christ at the
Last Supper ? ' They are all there trembling with fear — they appre
hend for the first time the mystery of mysteries ; they are going to
receive their Lord. One overpowered with love comes and sits side
by side with Jesus, and leans his head upon that bosom, until his ear
catches the beating of His Sacred Heart ' How had he such
courage ?' demands St Jerome. He was the only one of the twelve
a virgin, and, therefore, he was the most loved and honoured of all.'
In 1852 our novice received the Holy Orders of the sub-
diaconate and diaconate, at Oscott, from Dr. Ullathorne,
Bishop of Birmingham.
Among the privileges thus conferred was one most con
genial to him — that of singing the Gospel at High Mass.
He could also give Communion in case of necessity ; preach
if permitted, and baptise with the parish priest. The deacon
in earlier times exercised other important functions. In the
Apostolical Constitutions he is pronounced to be ' the ear, eye,
sembling Meg Merrilies. He never could understand why Fr. Burke called
her ' Rhoudlum ; ' but this character will be remembered in Lever's Knight of
Gwynne. ' Fr. Burke for the Magdalen Asylum, Cork, February 4, 1877. He had the
authority of St. Paul (i Cor. vii. 25) for its use in the above sense, and of Tenny
son, ' For I was ever virgin save for thee. '

154 LIFE OF FATHER THOMAS BURKE.
mouth, heart, and soul of the bishop ; ' and even whole con
gregations were committed to his care. But while formerly a
man often remained a deacon all his life, the office is now
regarded as a preliminary one to the priesthood. Traces of
the ancient discipline are still found at Rome, where some
cardinals, like Antonelli, remain deacons for life.'
It was now five years since Thomas Burke had seen his
relatives in Galway. He did not like to present himself to
his sainted mother until he had something to show which
would gratify her long-cherished desire, and prove that his
religious training had produced fruit His tonsure, his Roman
collar, long-tailed coat, and solemnity of expression, made
' Nicholas,' as he knelt for the maternal blessing, acceptable
in her sight. He then visited Dr. Lawrence O'Donnell, the
venerable Bishop of Galway. This prelate belonged to the
old school, and, noticing his tonsure, said, ' What God gave
you man might lave you.' Before he left Galway, Thomas
Burke exercised his privilege as deacon of assisting at a
Pontifical High Mass in the church of St. Nicholas. Here
his tonsure again became the subject of comment. Its use
was not general among Irish Dominicans until ten years later ;
and Galway knew not what to make of it ' What a shame
' The bishop followed the usual rite by questionmg the archdeacon in attend
ance as to whether the aspirant for deacon's orders was thoroughly eligible ; and
then appealed to all present to state publicly any reason within their knowledge
tending to disqualification. After a pause the bishop proceeded to enlarge upon
the duties and dignities of the deacon. An anathema is pronounced against any
novice who would leave the church when the mysteries of ordination had once
commenced ; and he is warned that, if the vocation should seem to falter, to with-
dr.iw ere it be too late. To the administered vows of perpetual chastity, poverty,
and obedience, the novices, if numerous, express assent by one simultaneous
step forward. They then cast themselves on their faces and remain prostrate,
while the choir recites the Litany of Saints, Dr. Ullathorne gave thanks to God
for the institution of the Sacred Ministry, and then proceeded to the essence of
the rite. Placing his right hand on our Levite, he said, 'Receive the Holy
Ghost for strength and for resisting the Devil and all his temptations in the name
of the Lord.' Then investing him wilh the stole on the left shoulder, he made
him touch the Gospels, while he prayed God to enable him ' to perform' the wurk
of the ministry by the gift of His sexenfold grace.' ,The sacrament was finally
crowned by the imposition of hands, as laug't in the Acts of the .Vpostles.

THE TONSURE.

IS5

to let that young man officiate, and he just after putting the
fever over him,' was a remark which our deacon overheard
as he stood at the foot of the altar. All this and more he
told Fr. Lewis Weldon on his return to Woodchester. The
wonder only is how, on the last occasion described, he was
•able to keep his countenance. But he had always great
power of facial command and restraint.
St. Thomas holds that the diaconate is as much a sacra
ment as the episcopate and priesthood. Any baptised may
receive the first validly provided he intends to do so.' ' A
deacon,' said Fr. Burke, 'is recognised by the Council of
Trent as belonging to the hierarchy divinely constituted.' ^ He
attached such just importance to the diaconate, and he looked
so innocent, that a funny Galway priest sought to persuade him
that the office might be discharged by any prudish spinster.
He was even reminded, on the authority of the Apostolical
Consritutions (viii. 27), that deaconesses assisted at the bap
tism of females by giving unctions after the deacon ; that
they received Orders ' by laying on of hands,' and in some
cases received even the stole and chalice.^ But our deacon
replied, with Tertullian, that the exclusion of women from
ecclesiastical affairs was a principle of the Latin Church,
though Pliny certainly mentions two Christian ministrce.
It is said that Fr. Augustine tried the humility of Br.
Thomas and the novices by imposing on them such menial
offices as to sweep out their cells, and sometimes the church ;
but all are obliged by the Constitutions to do this work in
turn. One day Br. Thomas told a novice to go to Br. Dal-
matius for the broom. This was a lay brother whom the
people always insisted on calling ' Brother Damnation.' '' The
' But the Thomists aver that an infant or maniac may validly receive any
order except the episcopate, and it is the only opinion of St. Thomas Aquinas
that cannot well be maintained.
2 For the Ladies' Association of St. Vincent de Paul.
^ Vide Hefele, Concil. i. 429 et seq.
¦' They also called Fr. Antoninus 'Fr, Ananias.' An old woman, whenevei
she wanted to see Fr. Fife, O. P., asked for ' Fr. Flute.'

156 LIFE OK FATHER THOMAS BURKE.
novice returned to say that he was using the broom. ' Go
again,' said the Master of Novices. Once more the novice
returned without the broom. ' What does he say ? ' said the
Master of Novices, colouring. ' He said he'd give it to you
about the back I ' declared the truthful envoy. Burke could
hardly believe his ears. He at once lodged a complaint
with the Fr. Vicar, who cited Br. Dalmatius before his austere
presence. ' Did you say this ? ' ' Yes, Father,' After a
solemn pause the Vicar continued, ' Did you mean it ? ' ' No
—merely as a joke.' ' There, Br. Thomas,' said the Vicar,
' perhaps you are now satisfied.' Burke became so at once,
and returned to the novices loud in praise of that grand old
man, whose finest feature was his strict sense of justice.
One of Burke's favourite novices was Br. George King, a
youth of marked mental power and genial qualities, who has
been twice elected Provincial. He received his education
under Fr. Augustine at Hinckley lay school, and was present
when Mr. Leigh ' made his pilgrimage thither to offer Wood
chester to the Dominicans.
Burke christened him ' Georgius Rex,' just as he called
Fr. Lewis Weldon ' Lud,' and sometimes ' Well done, thou
true and faithful servant.' Our Master of Novices is next
found with ' Georgius Rex ' beating carpets. He had now
begun to see that it was in him to do higher things ; and,
though he never grumbled against such orders, his nature quite
recoiled from the work, and he told ' Georgius Rex ' exactly
what he felt. ' The first time I preached,' says Sydney
Smith, ' I raised such a cloud on striking the cushion that I
lost sight of my congregation.' Similar clouds now rose, but
without the excitation attendant on pulpit oratory. Burke
' William Leigh, Esq., lord of the manor of Woodchester and Nymphsfield,
was born in 1802, and married in 1828 Caroline, daughter of Sir J. Geers
Cotterell, Bart., Hereford. Mr. Leigh became a Catholic at the time of the
Oxford movement, and in testimony of his services to the Church received from
the Pope a Knight Commandership of the Order of Saint Gregory the Great.
Mr. Leigh's grandson is now in the Diaconate of the Catholic Priesthood.

THE PAIN OF EXILE. 1 57
winced under this drudgery, and his feelings probably found
a safety valve in the muscular strokes which fell ; but at last
the carpets passed to other hands.
He had been now at Woodchester more than a year ; and
during that time his face — solemn as a sepulchral urn — never
for a moment relaxed. We have already tried to account
for the cloud which seemed to shadow his generally bright
nature. Further light may be thrown by some thoughts of
his own.
The pleasure of standing upon the soil of our birth ; the pleasure
of preserving the associations that surrounded our boyhood ; the
pleasure — sad though it be — of watching every grey hair and wrinkle
that time sends even to those whom we love, these are amongst the
keenest and the best of which the heart of man is capable. There
fore it is that, at all times, exile from native land has been looked
upon by men as a penalty and a grievance. This is true even of
men whom nature has placed upon the most barren soil. The Swiss
peasant, who lives amidst the everlasting snows of the Upper Alps,
who sees no form of beauty in Nature except her grandest and
most austere and rugged proportions, yet so dearly loves his arid
mountain-home, that it heart-breaks him to be banished from it,
even though he were placed to spend his days in the choicest
quarters of the earth. Much more does the pain of exile rest upon
the children of a race, at once the most generous and the most
loving in the world, a race who look back to the mother-land as to
a fair and beautiful land ; a climate temperate ; soil fruitful and
abundant ; scenery, now rising into the glory of magnificence, now
sinking into the tenderest pastoral beauty ; a history the grandest ;
associations the safest, because the most Christian and the purest
These, and more, enhance the pain which the Irishman, of all men,
feels when exiled from his native land.
But cheerfulness is the daughter of employment, and he
had soon quite enough to do to perform the increased work
that his superiors had mapped out for him.
How his ways became more genial and his face less
imperturbable may be told. One day Br. Thomas chanced
to hear that, owing to the severity with which he enforced
among his novices a strict observance of their Rule, he had

158 LIFE OF FATHER THOMAS BURKE.
acquired the nickname of 'the Niggen' ' His complexion
being sallow, the sobriquet seemed to fit him. Instead of
showing the annoyance which he certainly felt, Br. Thomas
amiably sought to put them at ease by assuming henceforth
the pleasant exuberance of a genial schoolfellow. He became,
indeed, in a new sense, the angel of the schools. The fun
niest performances were enacted for the amusement of his
astonished followers. His first mimicry was of a thing
inanimate. There stood in the sacristy of the church a tall,
gaunt old clock, whose oak-cased breast seemed to heave
with its wheezy tick and weight of years. Our deacon
'posted himself against the wall, made his face Hke a dial,
and swung his arm as a pendulum to the measured stroke of
tick, tick, tick, tick ! followed by the guttural sound which
always preceded its effort to announce the hour.
When anything in a convent happens to be mislaid, a
paper announcing the fact is put on the loser's door. An old
priest in second childhood, who amused himself with a Noah's
ark, lost several things, and one of the first proofs of Br.
Thomas's humour was a list suspended from the priest's door,
which announced in Hudibrastic verse the various 'deficits.'
This document created quite a noise in the cloisters.^
A man who is said to have been associated in this squib
was Br. Bernard Morewood. He had been a Protestant, and
' It hardly needs to add that, while recognising him as a severe taskmaster, his
novices loved him too. • An intense affection always existed between Fr. Tom
and all the Fathers of the English province,' writes their present head, Fr.
Williams, O.P., one of his novices. ' He was quite at home with us, and seemed
to understand us so well, and we revered him and loved him in the most genuine
manner.'— F. R. Antoninus Williams, O.P., to the .4uthor, August 18, 1884.
2 The Rev. Louis Gerard, known in religion as Fr. Mary Joseph, havinc^
witnessed many of the horrors of the French Revolution, took refuge in the flee't
of Admiral Lord Hood during the siege of Toulon, and became a naturalised
Englishman. He taught for eleven years in London, co-operated in founding five
missions, served under Milner, and finally joined the Dominicans at Woodchester.
Here the old man went through his novitiate with beardless boys, and on March 25'
1853, made his solemn profession. Whenever Fr. Burke whistled the Ca ira
it threw Mary Joseph Gerard into an agony. Though hailing from the land
of the light fantastic toe, he had always proved himself ' dead against dancing.'

'GO DOWN, sir! ' 159
surprised his friends by joining the small Dominican colony
at Woodchester. His wit and antecedents attracted Fr.
Burke. Many a discussion on subtle theological points took
place between them ; and the shower of sparks which fell
from the clash of their weapons was at times bright enough.
The doctrine of exclusive salvation, as laid down in the
damnatory clause of the Athanasian Creed, had long been a
principle of the Church of England. Morewood had sub
scribed to it in both churches. Seemingly struck by the
Scriptural passage, ' The Father is greater than I,' Morewood
one day personated a Socinian. Burke called him a block
head, adding, ' What will be your feelings when you hear
the devil exclaim, " Here comes Morewood for the fire ! " ' '
Later on he nicknamed him ' Le Brule.'
With increased work came the need for wholesome
relaxation ; and Thomas Burke is sometimes found much the
same boy that Galway knew him. His old powers now
burst forth the more freely because of the reserve that had so
long enchained them.
On one occasion, when silence was understood to prevail,
though not severely prescribed, Br. Thomas, standing on a
stool, was mimicking for the amusement of his novices the
cross-examination of equivocating witnesses, ending with
' You may go down, sir.' The handle of the door suddenly
turned, and the austere face of the Vicar peeped in, sternly
saying to Burke, who keenly felt it, ' Go down, sir! '
When pastor of Cobridge his flock begged for permission to dance. For a time
Fr. Gerard seemed inexorable, but at length relented. ' De gentilmen,' he said
'must dance in one room, and de demoiselles in anoder. ' This was not meant for
a joke. Fr. Gerard was utterly impervious to all sense of humour, and regarded
the relentless efforts of the Master of Novices to chaff him as the effect of some
mental eccentricity which only excited his pity. He survived until October 1856,
when he fell with the leaves, and was buried in the cloister yard.
' Two other converts who came to Woodchester about this time were Robert
Fenton, a citizen of Gloucester, and Joseph Piatt from Leicester. Both entered
as lay Brothers, and remained with the Dominicans until their death — the first in
1873, the latter in 1880. Morewood became a priest and went to India, where he
very suddenly died.

l6o LIFE OF FATHER THOMAS BURKE.
Part of the awe which the Father Vicar inspired — he had
filled the highest offices in the Order — was due to the fact that
he never, addressed the friars as ' Father,' but always frigidly
as ' sir.' ' You'll preach to-day, sir,' would be the only notice
given some twenty minutes before the sermon — often even less.
One day, during some church service, after the Father Vicar
had removed the chasuble, he peered down the aisle, and,
observing a friar who disliked to preach on short notice,
raised his fleshless finger and beckoned him to the pulpit.
Obedience is the spirit of the Dominican Rule, and this Supe
rior constantly sought to test it.
We learn from an Irish Dominican, on Fr. Burke's own
assurance, that one day when he was going into the pulpit
to deliver a well-prepared sermon on the Passion, the
Vicar ordered him to change the subject to matrimony, as
he judged from the character of the congregation that it
would be more likely to interest them. So suddea a change
was embarrassing ; but Fr. Burke taking as his text, from
Genesis, ' A spouse of love thou art to me,' preached on the
union of Christ and the Church as the type of matrimony,
and naturally passed into the region which the vicar had
directed. To ' preach in season and out of season ' was among the
Master's new duties. ' He wrote out carefully word for
word his sermons, and took great pains in getting them
up,' writes his novice, now a distinguished preacher himself,
Fr. Pius Cavanagh. ' He used to preach with his eyes shut,
and showed a certain timidity. His natural modesty and
simplicity of character made him shy of the public gaze.' '
Fr. Paul Stapelton's MS. may now be quoted :
There was a simplicity and yet an earnestness of purpose in Fn
Burke that was bound to succeed ; for instance, in his eariy days at
Nymphsfield he would rehearse before his two companions, now
' Letter of Fr. Pius Cavanagh, O.P., St. Dominic's Priory, Newcastle-on-
Tyne.

MR. CAPES CORRECTS HIS MS, l6l
remarkable Fathers in the order, his discourse or catechism, and ask
them what to amend and aUer ; and with quite childlike docility he
took their advice, though much his juniors and his subjects besides.
And not only in his pulpit experiences was this his habit, but in what he
really excelled in by way of diversion — marvellous histrionic powers.
His art of mimicry was the result of study ; for any picture in Punch,
or any scrap that contained ' a character,' was enough for him. With
a mirror and the original by its side, he set to, and put his face
through so many contortions that at last he cried, ' Victory,' and at
once proceeded to call in a friend or ' novice ' to witness his success ;
and woe betide the one who would easily comply with his question,
' Is that it — look ? ' To say ' Yes ' in an off-hand way would not do.
It was a serious business, and whether Fr. Tom was or was not as good
as the old fish-wife, or decrepit old toper, or dilapidated old pedlar,
in the picture, was a crucial test of many a one's power of percep
tion. Yes, even to the least twitch of the mouth or turn of the lips,
&c, again and again he would sit for the observer, and to the
slightest suggestion he was as responsive as the least little one in
the nursery. Nor would he desist ui.til perfection was attained.
Mr. Capes, a distinguished Oxford convert of the Low
Church School, and afterwards editor of the Ra^nbler,
maintained close relations of intimacy with the friars, and
would probably have donned the Dominican habit but that
he was already married. Burke, on his return from Italy,
spoke and wrote Italian better than Engli.sh ; but he now
hammered away at the MS. of his sermons with such vigour
that they seemed to develop into sheets of gold-leaf — ornate
enough, but wanting in simplicity, and were therefore con
demned. He first submitted the MS. to his novices, and
finally to Mr. Capes for revision.
The same stern correction which made Burke a good boy
now made him a good writer. In one of his MSS. he de
scribed the women of Jerusalem as precipitating their child
ren from its walls. Burke said that Mn Capes gave him
the choice of ' tossed ' or ' cast,' ' and confessed that he felt
1 Statement of Fr. Burke to Fr. Lewis Weldon, O.P., to Very Rev. C. H.
Condon, O. P. , and others.
VOL. L M

l62 LIFE OF FATITER THOMAS BURKE.
tempted to 'precipitate' jaw-breakers into the fire. As
this episode is not without instruction for young preachers,
some further details may be added.
I well remember Fr. Burke telling me (writes a Dominican) how
his censor, who was a man of much culture, but severe in his taste,
used mercilessly to prune away all his fine fancies and exuberant
imaginations, and bid him keep to more sober narrative in his exposi
tion of the Gospel history. One of the canons he laid down for
guidance in the choice of words was never to use an English word
coming to us from the Latin when he could get a word of like mean
ing of Saxon birth; the latter, he contended, being more forcible and
more readily understood than the former.'
Mr. Capes still lives, and he tells us that this is 'the advice
he should give to any man who wants to write in a clear,
pure, and forcible way.' Mr. Capes was an able writer, but
his vigorous views seemed sometimes to overleap the line of
Catholic orthodoxy. For a time he returned to the Church
of England, but has again been received back by the Domi
nican Fathers. It is to be regretted that Fr. Burke did not
live to see his return, for he had never ceased to deplore the
loss of Capes to the Church.
Fr. Paul Utili, D.D., heard Burke's first sermon. ' Plis
eyes remained closed throughout the entire delivery, and his
mouth gave constant indications of its parched and fevered
state.' He was, indeed, very nervous, and the religious prejudices
with which he had now come more directly into contact in
creased this feeling. Addressing an American audience on
civil and reUgious liberty, he referred to these days :
I have lived as a priest in England, afraid to go outside my own
door for fear of insult and outrage. In passing along the streets in
a town where the population embraced but few Catholics, I have
> Letter from the Very Rev. M. A. Costello, O.P., to the Author, San Clemente,
Rome, May 15, 1SS4.

CARDINAL WISEMAN. 1 63
been personally assailed by the school children with stones, and the
teacher did not reprimand them.'
Happily, such incidents are now as rare as the fall of
meteoric stones. During the period that Fr. Burke minis
tered in England sectarian feeling ran high, consequent
on the nomination by the Pope of bishops to rule English
sees. A propos to which some one said that the English were
bad judges of cattle, because when the Pope sent them a bull
they thought it a bore. Fr. Burke told Fr. Eugene Browne
that a lady who admired the writings of Cardinal Wiseman
sped to catch a glimpse of him at Gloucester, where he was
advertised to preach. Her thoughts were so full of Cardinal
Wiseman that every cleric she saw in the train was at once
suspected to be the man. At last, observing on the platform
a pompous-looking person with a red nose, she commissioned
a porter to inquire as to his identity from the party himselfi
On his return he said that it must be his Eminence, and on
being asked why, answered, ' Because he told me to go to the
devil.' The reply is expressive of the feeling with which
Roman Catholic ecclesiastics were regarded at that time.
No doubt Fr. Burke's undisguised nationality had some
thing to do with the ' rubs ' that occasionally met him.
When lecturing at Liverpool three years before his death, he
said :
I may perhaps be met at the outset by the objection that there
are no distinctive national features amongst the Irish race. Bosh !
You are just the same as any other people. Not a bit of difference
between you. Let me ask. Is there a human animal on two feet
walking on the face of the earth that is more easily known than an
Irishman? Six-and- twenty years ago I spent the first years of my
priesthood in England, and no one ever yet saw my face and heard
me open my mouth without instantly exclaiming, good-naturedly or
ill-naturedly, ' Sir, you are an Irishman.' There was no mistaking.
The Almighty has branded it upon my face ; He has put it upon every
' At Hartford, Connecticut, May 7, 1872.

1 64 LIFE OF FATFIER THOMAS BURKE.
member of my body ; He has, I hope, imprinted it upon my soul;
and certainly He has put it upon my tongue. '
Quiet Woodchester was disturbed at this time by hand
bills announcing that certain unhallowed practices of Rome
would be exposed by one who had cast off the slough of a
slavish superstition.^ Fathers Gavazzi and Achilli had created
a furore by lectures of a similar spirit and aim, and this new
crusade promised to prove not a bad speculation. Alessandri
Messina, the lecturer on this occasion, claimed to be the son of
a Papal Count, and was familiarly known as ' the Prophet.'
The sequel exhibits the growing spirit of Burke. Knowing the
bigotry of the rural population, and their readiness to swallow
any absurd tale that favoured their prejudices, he quietly
resolved to attend the lecture, and, if possible, confute the
reviler. One version of this incident states that Burke, not
relishing the task, his Prior put it on him as a duty to go ;
but inquiry has proved the statement to be untrue. In the
Dissenting chapel at Nymphsfield the thunder threatened
to roll. Burke, accompanied by Fr. Bernard Morewood,
entered while evening service was going on. He found a
large congregation, composed largely of peasants, but includ
ing also some persons of culture and status. At la.st ' the
Convert Italian Prophet ' opened his indictment. With much
absurdity of assertion, disregard of history, and ignorance of
the places he described, were mixed up some sharp points ;
and the hot flesh and blood of the young Celt somewhat
winced under the punctures. Addressing the presiding clergy
man, he claimed the right of reply ; but it was intimated
' 'The Church in its Relation to the Irish People,' at Liverpool, Oct. $,
1880. ^ Other preachers of a low type afterwards came. The visit of Murphy
occasioned much bad feeling, and Squire Leigh's carriage, as it passed that in
which Murphy sat, was stoned. Mr. Leigh ordered his coachman to stop, and,
pointing to IWurphy, said, ' Do you see that man with red hair and nose a' little
redder still -would you be able to know him again?' This sally created more
merriment than alarm. However, Murphy soon after Nvholly collapsed, and
the neighbourhood has since enjoyed the pastoral peace for which nature de
signed it.

THE PROPHET ROUTED. 1 65
that such could not be allowed. Again he begged leave
to give an account of the faith that was in him.
' Fr. Burke told me,' writes Mr. Molloy, the brother of
one of his novices, ' that he got several broad hints to make
himself scarce ; and, as well as I can recollect, he had at one
time some apprehension of personal violence. His pluck
and ready wit pulled him through. He admitted that the
priests might have offended them, that the Pope was not
infallible ; but what had he, Tom Burke, ever done ? He
managed to get on some " stump," and in half-jest, whole-
in-earnest, played them as he would a salmon in his native
Galway.' Immediately a man cried out, ' Fair play for Purgatory ; '
and another said, ' Hear the long fellow.' The strange scene
ended by our Dominican, fully habited, mounting the Protestant
pulpit and delivering a discourse. He showed the ignorance,
the disingenuousness, the invention of Messina. He had
himself studied in the very college where some of the things
alleged by the lecturer were said to have occurred, and he
proved from the man's own statement that he could never
have been there. Further, he showed his utter ignorance of
the Italian language. 'Out of thy own mouth I judge thee'
was never more literally exemplified. Meanwhile the soi-
disant Italian disappeared, leaving Burke master of the field.
His reply, if it did not completely carry the audience with
him, at least satisfied them.
Mr. Joshua Smyth and his wife were amongst the first who
became Catholics at Nymphsfield. We lately visited them,
and were glad to find that they well remembered Fr. Burke
and his encounter with ' the Prophet.' Smyth says that his
real name was Benson. He cut a great splash, and arrived
in a chariot and horses from Cheltenham. Routed by Fr.
Burke, he drove away in the same style, finally drawing up
at the bank on the plea of getting a cheque cashed, wherewith
to pay the job-master's bill. The postillion waited patiently.

1 66 LIFE OF FATHER THOMAS BURKE.
and at last went into the bank to see what was keeping him.
The prophet, after entering by the front door, had gone out at
the rear, and thus, as a local wag said, ' there was 2. false profit
on the job.'
It is stated by Fr. Pius Cavanagh — himself highly distin
guished as a preacher— -that the first real outburst of Burke's
power in the pulpit was shown on the occasion when Fr.
Aylward, who had been conducting a retreat, fell ill, and the
young Irishman on short notice was ordered to take his
place. Fr. Aylward was no ordinary man. He wrote several
books on the mystical element in religion and other subjects,
was a Lector of Philosophy and Theology, and twice, filled
the office of Provincial.
On Holy Saturday, March 26, 1853, Thomas Burke was
ordained priest by. Dr. Burgess, Bishop of Clifton.
The holy oil of the priesthood was poured upon his head, and
with the sacred unction his hands were anointed, and head and
hand were henceforth dedicated to the sole service of his Saviour —
that head endowed with mind, that hand clean of all guilt before God.'
Fr. Burke received final orders with a deep sense of the
powers that conferred such privileges, and, without making
any demonstration, became filled with zeal for the salvation
of souls. He thought of the friars who in early ages had
raised the standard of the Cross, and resolved that at the
fitting time he would emulate their labours.
His first Mass was celebrated on Easter Sunday 1853, in
"Woodchester Church. Fr. Towers, now head of the Irish
Dominicans, was the first incumbent of the Nymphsfield
mission, but, leaving England in the April of that year,
Thomas Burke succeeded to the charge. The work was so
light here that Fr. Stapelton, in his MS., styles it ' a small
domestic mission, belonging to Woodchester Park, the resi
dence of William Leigh, Esq.'
' Fr, Burke on St. Dominic, St. Saviour's, Dublin, .-Vug, 4, 1877.

MUSINGS ON THE PAST. 1 67
Thrown in with Woodchester Park— the property which
Mr. Leigh bought from Lord Ducie— is the village of
Nymphsfield, on the old coach road from Gloucester to
Bristol. ' These villagers,' said Mr. Bridges, ' are the descen
dants of Beer and Sin.' Here are a Protestant church and
a Dissenting chapel. A few villagers embraced Catholicism,
and Mr. Leigh converted a disused inn, three hundred years
old, into a chapel and sacristy sufficient for the wants of a
small mission. Meagre as his audience was, Fr. Burke was
said to have felt so dazzled by their stare that he preached
with his eyes shut.
Was he trying to repeat correctly the discourse he had
prepared by excluding all cause of distraction ? The chapel
had been the ball-room of the deserted hostelry ; and, thanks
to local tradition, he could almost hear renewed the notes of
the old violin and the tramp of those, long since in dust, who
danced down the floor in Sir Roger de Coverley.
And then what memories would the old fireplace awaken ?
Hundreds had sat round that hearth listening, mayhap, to
thrilling tales, or the side-splitting jokes of Dicky Pearce,
to whose grave Fr. Burke had made a pilgrimage in the
spirit of Shakspere's soliloquy on Yorick. Swift, too, is said
to have sat in the old hostelry during his many visits to
Lord Berkeley, whom he at last accompanied to Ireland as
private secretary^ The past came back so vividly, that one
could almost see Dr. Johnson mounting the old staircase of
the inn, and breakfasting voraciously, while Goldsmith sipped
his sassafras,' and Boswell's pencil ran. These are said to have
been amongst the thoughts that rose while Burke paced
the worm-eaten floor of the priest's room at Nymphsfield.^
' Goldsmith's insatiable love of this old fashioned decoction from Laurus
bark is shown in the perpetual charge for ' sassafras ' made in the bills of his
landlady, and which Mr. Forster prints in the ninth chapter of his ' Life.'
^ Johnson and Boswell are found in these parts in 1 7 76. Of one of the inns
we read, ' It was so bad, sir, that — Boswell wished to be in Scotland,' — Life of
Dr. Johnson, ch. Ivi.

1 63 LIFE OF FATHER THOMAS BURKE.
Why his eyes remained closed while he preached to the
people, puzzled them. But a passage in one of his sermons
makes it clear :
If any one amongst us wishes to think profoundly, he shuts his
eyes. The greatest poets that the world has seen were blind men,
for poetry is the creative power by which every faculty of the souk
gathered into itself and concentrated in itself, afterwards pours out
by the tongue or the pen its own richness. '
Week after week Burke opened Divine service in the
quaint old house that he christened ' the Cathedral.' Rustic
penitents, who confessed in a dialect which would have
bothered Mezzofanti, were consoled and shriven. He fed
them with the Bread of Life, and afterwards helped to trim
their cottage fires, while, like the Soggarth Aroon^ he entered
into their domestic joys and sorrows.
Though most of the bishops at the Council of Trent
believed in the Immaculate Conception, they hesitated to
define it further than a declararion that while the whole
human race fell under original sin, they did not intend to
include the immaculate Virgin Mary. In 1849, Pius IX.
addressed a letter to every Catholic bishop in communion
with Rome, asking for a statement of opinion on the expe
diency of defining the question as doctrine. Nearly five
hundred Italian, Spanish, and Portuguese prelates approved.
Many bishops of France and Germany, and even Archbishop
Murray of Dublin, deemed the rime inopportune. The ques
tion has always had much interest for Dominicans, and at
Woodchester it was frequently discussed. Gregory XV, when
forbidding, in 1622, any one to maintain even in private
that the Blessed Virgin had been conceived in original sin,
allowed this privilege to the Dominicans, provided that they
confined to their own Order the expression of adverse views.
Fr. Burke, in a lecture on Pius IX., remarked :
' Charity sermon for St, Joseph's Blind Asylum, Dublin, May 20, 1877.
^ Anglici—\)[vt darling priest.

THE IMMACULATE CONCEPTION. 1 69
I once said to a poor peasant in the west of England, ' Do you
think the Pope will declare the Immaculate Conception of the
Blessed Virgin Mary? ' ' Whether he does or not,' was the answer,
' we know it is the truth, and when the time comes he will know
better than any one else.' In these words he showed that he knew
this great attribute of the Pope.
On December 8, 1854, Pius IX., attended by two hundred
bishops, defined the Immaculate Conception as an article of faith.
Meanwhile quieter doings were in progress at Woodchester.
The rural stroll covering the distance from the monastery to Fr.
Burke's spiritual charge (resumes Fr. Stapelton's MS.), all equipped
as he was for a night's stay, as each Saturday came round, finally
became quite an occasion of leavetaking. It was known that the
Father Master of the Novices would not be back for a week or
more. Now, what could detain him amongst a handful of Catholics
— perhaps less than thirty ? The fact was that there resided, or
existed, a Most Reverend Archbishop at Mr. Leigh's house, who,
having experienced a stroke of paralysis while on a passing visit
en rotile to his diocese of Corfu, had remained as a heavy but an
honourable charge in Mr. Leigh's hands. A pitiable cripple the
good prelate certainly was, who simply might be said to be vege
tating, for, by degrees, every member of his body seemed to be
attacked by the creeping malady he endured. Archbishop Nichol
son was from the North of Ireland, and his attachment to Father
Burke and our dear Father Master's love for the decrepit and
helpless prelate were most admirable. In short, Fr. Tom Burke
became the Archbishop's secretary, and this was no sinecure, as even
the novices found out by degrees. With the pliability of genius,
Burke fitted in anywhere, and already his duties were multitudinous.
Fr. Prior Aylward, too, was anxious that the talent he so readily dis
covered in Fr. Burke should find its legitimate issue. And, not
withstanding all his engagements, he informed Burke at last that
really he must preach, and that in the church too. Hitherto a
few homely but very beautiful discourses to his smallest of all small
flocks at Nymphsfield had simply made Mr. and Mrs. Leigh quite
happy, and, no doubt, had much ' quickened '—as the phrase goes—
their spiritual being. But now, at last, Fr. Tom Burke's turn for the
pulpit was to assume its right direction and proportion. And on
the given Sunday, much to the intense curiosity and interest of at
least three Oxford M.A.s, who resided at Woodchester, Fr. Thomas

170 LIFE OF FATHER THOMAS BURKE.
Burke was to preach his first sermon. Was it possible ? Yes, Fr.
Thomas trembled like an aspen leafi He was as pale as a sheet,
and his voice even faltered, but lo ! gradually it grew in bulk,
though at no time could it be said to have really filled the
little priory church. And more than all, while several of the
audience seemed spell-bound, Fr. Thomas Burke never moved a
muscle. At length — but yet much too soon — the sermon was over,
and the Mass was resumed, as it was, of course, the usual Sunday
morning inter sacra; Mr. Matthew Bridges, M.A., coming afterwards
to thank Prior Aylward for the immense treat that he had had.
We never remembered to have heard a better in our church.'
Mr. Bridges was a retired barrister, whose love of elo
quence had been fanned by Brougham, Ellenborough,
Erskine, and Eldon, and he was one of the first to recognise
the power of Edward Irving when he began to preach in
Hatton Garden. He seems to have been the representative
of Robert Bridges, who, in 1722, bequeathed 500/. for
clothing and educating the little boys of Woodchester.
Mr. Matthew Bridges took an hereditary interest in the
place ; and, as Fr. Paul Stapelton states, called upon Prior
Aylward to congratulate him on his promising son. He
next sought and cultivated the acquaintance of Fr. Burke.
One day Burke conveyed to Mr. Bridges the welcome news
that a great ecclesiastical light from the University of Turin
had been appointed by the Master-General Regent of
Studies at Woodchester. This was Dr. Pozzo, and both
went to meet him on the evening of his arrival at Stroud.
But Dr. Pozzo's appearance was so peculiar, and he made so
bad an attempt to speak English, that the old critic, whis
pering Fr. Burke, said, ' Poor prospect for a preacher, sir.'
But Pozzo could practise very much to the purpose ; and,
strengthened by a great prestige, he soon won golden opi
nions by his wisdom as a spiritual adviser, and by the ease
with which he could unravel the most intricate questions of
moral and dogmatic theolog)^
' MS. Recollections of the Very Rev. Paul Stapelton, O.P., communicated to
the Author, August 29, 1884.

CONFESSES TO FR. POZZO. 17I
Fr. Burke chose Dr. Pozzo as his confessor. The lips of
the Director must always remain inviolably sealed, but the
penitent is free to tell all that passes between the confessor
and himselfi Our young preacher reproached himself with
having felt an emotion of vanity on a recent occasion
when his sermon had proved a success. He described to
his English novices — now eminent Fathers — the pain with
which he saw a ripple of contempt play across Dr. Pozzo's
face. ' What,' exclaimed the Regent, ' vain of that poor
shambling thing ! ' — and he then went on to point out its
defects with such acumen that it crushed for ever, Fr. Burke
added, all possible germs of professional vanity. Hence
forth he went to confession before delivering his sermons,
' simply to keep himself straight.'
Fr. Burke was the reverse of handsome, and he con
stantly made jokes at the expense of his own face. ' I took
a rise out of Dr. Pozzo in return,' he said. ' I conveyed to
him soon after that I was vain of my looks.' He added
that this time Pozzo placed his hand all over his mouth, as
though trying to hide a laugh of derision, and which he
thought would prove a searing touch of caustic to cure the
raw vanity of a boy.'
One day, when ,Fr. Burke was mimicking some well-known
characters, Dr. Pozzo said, ' Could you mimic me ? '
Pozzo was a podgy man. He is described as carrying
himself like a bundle of rags, and walking in a peculiar way.
Fr. Burke, tucking up his habit, at once stumped across
the room, inhaling a prolonged pinch of imaginary rappee.
Everybody felt that the thing was done to the life.
Dr. Pozzo, as Regent of Studies, had introduced ' De-
fensios,' or circles. On a certain St. Patrick's Day the
subject of the ' Defensio ' was the apostle of Ireland. The
conflict went on with much spirit, until, coming near the
¦ Fr. Burke was probably joking when he told this, but the anecdote furnishes
an illustration of his humour.

172 LIFE OF FATHER THOMAS BURKE.
end, Fr. Burke ventured to say to the austere Father Vicar,
that, in honour of the day, the combatants ought to be pro
vided with shillelaghs and potheen. The ' Defensio ' was,
of course, all in Latin, and the chief humour of the joke lay
in the learned language in which it was clothed. It does not
appear that the Vicar smiled ; but the Regent of Studies,
like most Italians, thoroughly understood a joke, and at once
led the way for the laugh which was ready to burst out
around. Under Fr. Burke, his English novices acquired not only a
thorough knowledge of their Rule, but of Irish humour as
well. It was, indeed, a more than fortuitous arrangement
which placed under his influence those whose future work was
chiefly among the Irish in the great towns of England. To
the end of his life he spoke with delight of the affection he
experienced from those who had been his English novices.
Describing Bishop Moriarty's theological course, Fr.
Burke realised his idea of what the young Levite ought to be,
and the picture seems a reflex. ' Like the young St. Thomas
of Aquin, he was a modest youth, not inclined to assert or
vindicate his own opinions, but, when occasion demanded,
pouring forth with easy and commanding eloquence the ample
resources of a richly stored mind.' '
From these possibly tedious tracings of ours, the reader
will again gladly turn to the genial recollections of Fr. Paul
Stapelton, O.P., kindly written for this work :
But now, was the Master's own time of probation over, that he
could so lord it over his novices ? Evidently not, as Father Burke's
promotion to office had been premature ; he had yet to fill the time
of his curriculum as a student. And the time and opportunity came.
Father Master Pozzo and a young lector had arrived at Woodchester
and instituted a college of theological studies. And at the making
of the college, as its eariiest student, together with Fr. Damian
Borgogna, Fr. Thomas was enlisted.^ In spite of his other work, he
' In the Cathedral, Killarney, Oct, 8, 1877.
-' The Rev. T. Borgogna, now of the Convento Dumenicano, Corbara,

DEFENDS PUS THESIS. 1 73
was informed that he must corsider himself a formal student, bound
over to read up and take his degree within a twelvemonth. To any
one else this would have been a cause of exemption from novitiate
cares, and by anyone else time would have been economised for
closer study, till, as the day approached for the ordeal of a public
' Defensio,' agitation would have left its traces upon every feature, and
fever heat would have set in. But not at ah. Fr. Thomas seemed
unconcerned. Reading he was fond of; but how he got his theology
in between die mass of English fight hterature he devoured I could
not say. Was it at nights ? — and where ? In fact, he was seldom
seen with the ' Summa ' in hand, except when going to class. Yet
F'r. Master Pozzo had never to complain of his student Fr. Thomas
invariably knew his lesson, and often word for word by heart, as
is customary. Here were evidences of extraordinary talent Fr.
Master Pozzo could trust his man, with whom at times he could not
compare in argument himself Suffice it to say that the curriculum
was over. Such was his confidence that he felt no difficulty, as the
Regent of the Studies, to make a public announcement that Father
Thomas would defend Theses in universa theologia against all comers.
Then indeed, till within a few weeks of the appointed day, Fr.
Thomas began to look serious and preoccupied, and especially by
the arrival at Woodchester of eminent professors from all quarters.
A great tournament might be expected.
With clothes that hung about him as though they had
been thrown on a hat-stand, Br. Thomas, on appearing some
time before at the head of his novices, quite looked the
character of Dominie Sampson ; and one cannot doubt, from
the innate humour of the man, that he strengthened the re
semblance by imparting to his face a vacant expression.
Great, therefore, was the surprise with which Fr. Augustine
viewed the sudden outburst of his genius. Fr. Paul Stapelton
continues :
It is curious to recall the names of the visitors and competitors
or disputants in Woodchester Church on this memorable and indeed
unique occasion. The disputants were Father Gastaldi, of the Order
cf Charity (afterwards the illustrious Archbishop of Turin, and one
Corsica, studied with Fr. Burke at Perugia, and afterwards at the Minerva,
Rome. He accompanied him to S. Sabina, and followed him to Woodchester.
Fr. Borgogna is the best witness of Burke's inner life when in Italy.

174 LIFE OF FATHER THOMAS BURKE.
of the greatest lights of the Vatican Council) ; Fr. Jones, S,J., of St.
Bueno's, N. Wales ; Father Christie, of Farm Street ; the late Canon
Williams, of Clifton; and Fr. Raphael, of the Passionist Order; while in
the well-attended circle figured Mgr. Howard (now the eminent Car
dinal Bishop of Frascati), Fr. H. Vaughan (the indefatigable Bishop
of Salford), and Bishop Ullathorne, O.S,B. This experienced and
venerable prelate was the President of the Discussion, which in its
vigour at one time quite reminded him, as he said, ' of a Balaclava
charge.' Fr. Master Pozzo, O.P.. supported his brilliant student, and
no doubt was proud, as indeed we all were, of the abihty, the readiness,
the good Latinity (a matter Fr. Prior Aylward, then his superior, so
much admired as a scholar himself), and the nice patient civifity of
our noble representative, as he bowled over every objection with
marvellous dexterity and good humour. This wrung from the
Benedictine bishop a prophetic speech ; for he assured us that this
most creditable display of theological acumen and strict scholastic
form and dialects would strike a chord that must reverberate through
the length and breadth of the land, and would be responded to and
re-echoed in other climes. How this has been fulfilled the Catholic
world can answer. It was the tribute of a prelate of universal
fame to a simple friar, over whose tomb might be written the Apo
stolic dictum — that the sound of his voice has gone throughout the
world. '
The date of the tournament was August 3, 1854. On that
day Burke passed his examination as a Lector of Theology.
There were three Lectors present, who had each five votes ;
and it is curious to see how the voting went. For conduct
Burke got thirteen out of fifteen votes ; while in ' Scientia,' or
knowledge, he got only ten out of the fifteen. Fr. Borgogna,
whose answering was far inferior to F"r. Burke's, got higher
votes. All this transpires on consulting the original record
at Woodchester. There is a faint tradirion that Dr. Pozzo,
whom Burke had mimicked, may have allowed himself A\hen
voting to be moved by pique, but inquiry has satisfied us that
' Fr. Jones, S.J., ever after entertained an an"ectionate admiration for Fr.
Burke, whose pre-eminence as a preacher, writes Rev. Matthew Russell, S.T.!
'I heard Jones attribute in part to his consummate knowledge of the " Summa ''
of St. Thomas.'

BECOMES A LECTOR OF THEOLOGY. 175
he would be quite incapable of it. One of the voters was Dr.
Utili, who informed us that the Regent of Studies felt that
Burke, instead of giving his time to the acquisition of know
ledge, frittered it away at his small mission and in telling
stories to Archbishop Nicholson. He held that no man,
unless a second Thomas Aquinas, ought to get the full
number of votes to which a voter is entitled. Dr. Pozzo gave
Burke two blacks in the voting. Dr. Utili two more, and the
austere Fr. Augustine gave one. The entry recording the result
is signed : ' Aug. Pozzo, S.T. Mag. et Reg.' Minor or weekly
' Defensios ' had been previously held, and the name of
Thomas Burke uniformly received honourable record. How
he answered so brilliantly puzzled them, for he seemed
never to prepare. They did not know that he had already
learned by heart, in Rome, almost the entire ' Summa.'
At last the Archbishop of Corfu died — some said,
but untruly, in a fit of laughter induced by one of Fr.
Tom's stories, and he was ordered to preach the funeral
discourse, although Dr. Pozzo, previous to it, rather dis
concerted the young preacher by warning him to avoid much
panegyric. The sermon is well remembered as one of rare
power. The Archbishop had been a Carmelite, and this
afforded good scope for praise of the religious life. The
remains were consigned to the crypt of Woodchester Church,
and a monument was soon after raised to his memory. Here
several members of the Leigh family also repose.
We have already seen how Burke's feelings revolted when
compelled to beat carpets with ' Georgius Rex.' Another
duty required both to feed the furnace v.'hich blazed in the
crypt ; and our Dominican in his snow-white robe is next
found discharging the role of a stoker. But even here — -
down among the dead, so to speak — his cheerfulness well
sustained him ; for while his features, bronzed by the red
glare, twisted about in divers shapes, he greatly amused

176 LIFE OF FATHER THOMAS BURKE.
Georgius by producing on the wall of the crypt shadows
of weirdly suggestive outline. To this youth, now a highly
distinguished Father, Burke was greatly attached ; and he it
was who would hold up the caricature cartoons while the
Master of Novices shaped his own face after the model.
' I had to light two fires before saying Mass, and had
hardly time to wash my hands before going on the altar,'
were among the recollections with which Fr. Burke interested
his brethren at Tallaght.
We have seen how dissatisfied Dr. Pozzo was with Burke
for spending so much of his time at Nymphsfield. The
latter had found some gross cases of religious ignorance ; and
among the most obstinate was that of a farmer who often
fell into conversation with him.
Argument after argument, taken from Scripture and from his late
studies, did Fr. Tom pour down this man's throat — and still no im
pression — when he was startled and not a little angered by the
reply, ' Yea, friend, but be the Bible true ? ' Often afterwards were
v/e told by Fr. Tom that when he came to England from Rome he
could not have believed it possible that such an observation could
have been made in this ' enlightened ' country. Suffice it to say,
that really he was too disconcerted to ' settle ' the farmer on the
spot ; but eventually he sought another and better interview, and laid
the seeds of a complete Christian training in him and others, with a
previous groundwork of the necessary existence of God, and who
He was, and what He had done.'
Some hours were a'so given to the society of ' Squire
Leigh,' and much interest was awakened by Fr. Burke's vivid
exposition of points in ecclesiastical history not as yet fully
clear to the distinguished convert. Mr. Leigh was a strong
Tory in politics ; and from him Fr. Burke first imbibed
certain Conservative tendencies, never entirely relinquished.
In Mr. Leigh's house was found, after Fr. Burke had left
Nymphsfield for ever, some ' Thoughts ' in the handwriting of
' MS. Recollections of Rev. Paul Stapelton, O.P., August 7, 1884.

VISITED BY A PARSON. 1 77
the young Dominican, and designed to guide and guard him
in his now increased exposure to the dangers and tempta
tions of the world. This remarkable document— one very
much in the spirit of Job's compact with his eyes ' never to
think on a virgin '—will be found in our Appendix.
The people of Nymphsfield, being nearly all Anglicans and
Dissenters, required information on some controverted points,
and Fr. Burke satisfied that desire. When the preacher
was one day on his way home, a gentleman said, ' Sir, I
cannot agree with you in your devotion to the Virgin ; and I
object to the monotony of your Hail Marys.' ' What v/ill
you do when obliged to sing Holy, Holy, Holy, for all
eternity ? ' replied Burke, and the good humour of the re
sponse made both good friends.'
After the broadside which he discharged at Messina he
came to be familiarly known by the nickname ' Long Tom,'
in allusion to the famous piece of ordnance.
One day an incident occurred to which reference is made
in a sermon preached at Brooklyn, U.S., on May 5, 1872.
After showing the beneficial action of the confessional on
society and its importance in restraining theft, he asks :
How is it that Protestant employers and masters are so anxious
to have Catholic servants. Catholic apprentices. Catholic helps about
them? Because they are shrewd enough to know that the confes
sional which they despise creates honesty and enforces it There is
no stronger way to enforce honesty than to get a man to believe that he
cannot live without Jesus Christ, and that Jesus Christ is on the altar
waiting for him ; to tell him that between him and the Saviour stands
a barrier that he must overcome if he turns dishonest, and that
barrier he cannot pass without restoring to the last farthing whatever
he has unjustly got ; to tell him that if he becomes a thief — pubhc
or private — the accumulation of his thievery will build up an im
penetrable wall between him and God ; and that, until that wall is
pulled to pieces by restitution, he never can approach the sacraments
here nor the glory of God hereaften An Efiglish Protestant clergy-
' Fr. Burke to Rev. F. A. Hickey, O. P.
VOL. I. N

178 LIFE OF FATHER THOMAS BURKE.
man came to me once, when I was on the English mission, and he
said, 'Father, I come to complain of one of my man-servants.'
' Well, sir,' I replied, ' what have 1 to do with your servants ? ' ' Oh,'
he said, * aU my servants are Catholics, and I would not think of
employing anybody else.' ' What complaints,' I said, ' have you to
make of them ? ' ' Well,' he said, ' I insist on their going to confes
sion once a month, and this man has not been there for months. So
I came here to insist on his going.' ' Weh, but you do not believe in
it?' ' No,' he said, ' I cannot say that I believe in it ; but so long
as my Catholic people go, they will not steal from me, and so
long as they do not go to confession and communion they will not
receive any wages from me.'
And Fr. Burke then went on to show the great agency
which touches vice and creates honesty.
In September 1854, the rigid Fr. Vicar was removed from
Woodchester to Hinckley, Leicestershire.' Cardinal Wiseman
had long desired that the Dominicans should undertake the
Kentish Town mission, London. He had known Fr. Burke in
Rome ; and if a special invitation once reached the young
friar preacher, it would not have been easy to decline it.
Dr. Russell, then head of the Irish Dominicans, wishing to
utilise Fr. Burke's talents for his own province, called him
home to found a novitiate and House of Studies. ' We
parted,' writes Fr. Paul Stapelton; 'but it might well be
said that so deeply had Fr. Burke made his mark at Wood
chester, that to this day his very form seems familiar, and
time cannot obliterate either his presence or his work.'
' We are unwilling to take leave of Fr. Augustine without recording the
testimony of Fr. Towers, now Provincial of the Irish Dominicans, who served as a
priest under him. Fr. Towers — himself an Irishman— assures us that he received
more paternal kindness from this cold Saxon Vicar than at the hands of many
Irish Superiors to whom he was afterwards subject.

179

CHAPTER V.
AT TALLAGHT.
During the bitter time of penal laws and persecution, the Irish
Dominicans always maintained their ground (writes their Provincial,
Fr. Towers), and many a martyr and confessor of their order are
witnesses of the hard battle they fought The convents of Italy,
Spain, Portugal, and France received generously the youth who pre
sented themselves for the Irish mission. In course of time three
colleges were endowed even for the sole education of Irish Domini
cans—San Clemente, Rome ; Holy Cross, Louvain ; and Corpo
Santo, Lisbon. At the close of the last century the French Revolu
tion swept away Holy Cross ; the continuance of Corpo Santo
became inexpedient San Clemente only remained, but its limited
revenue, and the premonitory symptoms of the changes which after
wards occurred in Rome, prevented the Irish Fathers from trusting
to it exclusively to recruit the ranks of their province. It was deter
mined to open a novitiate at home.
Years after the great Dominican spoke of the need of
entering with thorough earnestness into ' the great work,' as
he says, ' of preparing Levites for the sanctuary — a succession
of the good and faithful priesthood who from the days of
Patrick have been the best beloved, as they were the truest
servants of the Irish race.' He well knew
how careful must be the training of him whose feet are to tread in
the sanctuary, and whose hands are to touch the Lord. The legend
of St. Nennius of the Clean Hand, who, when he heard as a child that
he was one day to be a priest, wrapped up his right hand so as never
to touch anything until the day of his anointing, was a beautiful
symbol of the mind of the Church, who seeks in her ministers virgin
souls in virgin bodies.'
' Sermon in the Cathedral at Killarney, Oct. 7, 1877. [From orig. MS.] N 2

I80 LIFE OF FATITER THOMAS BURKE.
To promote these great ends the house and demesne of
Tallaght had been bought for a novitiate. Describing it in
1883, Fr. Burke said : ' At the foot of the hills, which go on
increasing in grandeur and beauty until they are lost to view,
there is a place most ancient in Ireland's history.' ' It had
been already familiar to Burke through the early bard of his
choice — Davis — who, in his ' Landmarks of Border Raid,'
invests it with deep interest. But Tallaght was paved with
historic memories from Partholan and his hosts 2,800 years
before Christ, to Angus the Culdee and St. Melruan, both of
whom compiled the 'Martyrology ' of Tallaght, an ancient Irish
MS. now preserved in the Burgundian Library at Brussels.
In the eighth century St. Melruan — styled the bright sun of
Ireland — rebuilt the monastery of Tallaght, and diffused
through the religious houses of Ireland • peace, piety, and
plenty.' This went on for several hundred years (records Fr. Burke), and
then the Irish monks died away, and others, strangers indeed by
birth, but still brothers by faith — the Canons Regular of St. Augus
tine — came to the sacred house at Tallaght, sang the praises of God,
and preached His Word unchanged, as I preach it to-day. Then
came another change for Tallaght, and the place passed from the
monks to the Archbishops of Dublin. They loved the place, and
they brought with them their priests and canons ; and "the same
Word continued, and the same praise went on, and the same worship
sanctified the spot
Fr. Burke then referred to the Reformation — how the
Protestant archbishops took possession of Tallaght, and how
great cruelties were performed on its hallowed ground.^
In 1729 the ruling prelates built a castellated residence here
with the debris of the more venerable pile ; and it continued
to be occupied by their successors until Archbishop Magee,
authorised by Parliament, sold the demesne to Major Palmer,
' Sermon at St. Xavier's, Liverpool, April 8, 1S83.
2 Open-air Discourse of Fr. Burke at Tallaght on the occasion of laying the
corner stone of his new church there, Oct. i, 1882.

'TIME MAKES ALL THINGS EVEN.' l8l
one of the conditions being that he should demolish the
palace ' lest it should ever thereafter become a monastic
institution.' The covenant was strictly observed, and the
task of removing the ruins occupied three years. ' No wonder
the new archbishops tired of it,' continues Fr. Burke. ' There
were memories round the spot — there were voices in the air
— voices of ancient saints and holy ones — that made them
rest uneasily upon their beds of down.' '
The vicissitudes of Tallaght at last culminated in a mort
gage, and the place passed into the hands of Mr., now Sir
John, Lentaigne, C.B., who leased the greater portion of the
demesne to the Dominicans for 999 years. ' They got hold
of the spot sanctified by centuries of prayer and martyrs'
blood, and again erected the cross where the upas tree had
been planted.'^
On the site of the castle they built their monastery ;
the stable in which the archiepiscopal stud so long found
luxurious mangers having been converted into a modest
chapel, thus bringing Tallaght back to its original state, and
verifying Byron's apothegm that ' time at last makes all things
even.' On Fr. Burke's arrival in 1855, he surveyed with in
terest in the priory grounds some relics of the past, in
cluding a huge walnut tree, traditionally said to have been
planted by St, Melruan's hand, and which, though riven to
the earth by the great storm of 1839, still yields its fruit.
Another object was the tower— used as a belfry to this day
—originally part of the palace of Dr. De Bicknor, who from
1 3 17 to 1349 ruled as Archbishop of Dublin.
Fr. Burke liked his change of residence. Seven miles
away Dublin unfolds its length like a monster map. Mount
ing to an adjacent pinnacle, he could view the fine pro-
' Open-air Discourse of Fr, Burke at Tallaght on the occasion of laying the
corner stone of his new church, Oct. i, 1882.
2 Sermon at the Jesuits' Church, Liverpool, April 1883.

1 82 LIFE OF FATHER THOMAS BURKE.
spect, which stretched from Taney Hill to Ireland's Eye ;
from the Phoenix Park to the Plains of Meath ; from the
Three Rock Mountain to the Hill of Lyons ; the intervening
valleys ' with verdure clad ' (the name of a sacred song specially
familiar to him) brightened the view. Thinkers who heard him
preach at Tallaght in after years were struck by the contrast
between the grandeur of the sermon and the meanness of
the structure in which it was delivered. The fact of its
having been originally a large stable was not without its uses
and suggestiveness to one who loved to preach upon the
lowly birth at Bethlehem.
The glory of Ireland's priesthood, the glory of St Columba (he
once said), the glories of lona and Lindisfarne, weigh upon me
with a tremendous responsibility, to be of all other men what the
Irish priest and monk must be, because of that glorious history ; the
glory of the batde that has been so long fighting and is not yet
closed. In the peaceful seclusion of Tallaght, Fr. Burke found
leisure not only to lay up a store of learning, but to cultivate
his gifts of speech. He preached in season and out of season,
and practice makes perfect. Time was when, as Dalton
records, ' the O'Tooles invaded and devastated Tallaght with
deadly enmity and destrucrion ; ' ' and the pupil of Dr.
O'Toole was not the man to be unmoved by such memories.
Burke's fame soon spread beyond the Dublin Ridge, and
crowds of rude mountaineers — the descendants of the race
just named — instead of coming down in avalanches as of
yore, rushed for shrift and sermon.
' With something of the surprise that one would view a troop of Red Branch
Knights march down Cork Hill, Dublin, people read of renewals of the old
conflicts between the O'Tooles and the Talesmen, and which became at last the
subject of judicial inquiry at Tallaght. The Irish Times announced ' desperate
faction fighting near T.allaght between the inhabitants of Crumlin, &c, &c., on
one side and the mountain men on the other.' Constable Burke deposed that
' over ICO people were injured in one of these fights ; numbers from the mountains
have been assaulted on their way home from Dublin owing to the bad feeling
promoted by these fights.'

THE RELIEF CONFESSION BRINGS. 183
Speaking of the relief that confession brings, he told the
following incident from his own experience :
I remember a man coming to me to confession once — a big,
strapping, whole-souled Irishman, of six feet two — and when he
finished his confession and got up from his knees, he did this [here
the lecturer threw his hands above his head and stretched himself to
his full height]. ' Just look here, your reverence, look at me. Did
you see that stretch ? ' 'I did.' ' That was more than I was able to
do at all when I came in.' If there be any Catholics amongst you
who neglect this sacrament ; if there be any Protestant friends
amongst you who do not believe in it, tell me, my friends, is it any
great advantage to you to be carrying your harrowing secrets to the
grave? Is it any advantage to you — humanly speaking — to bear
this incrustation of sin and remorse, when before you is a man — his
Divine commission in his hand, and Christ himself at his side —
saying, ' Whose sins you shall forgive upon earth shall be forgiven in
heaven ' ? '
In a region where the Hell-fire Club had once held its
orgies his lot was now cast. Hardened consciences melted
before the fire of his eloquence. He well knew his own
strength, and felt that a day might come when he should be
called upon to exert it widely in bringing souls to God,
pleading the cause of the orphan, and in refuting error. In
anticipation of such a call, he daily drew aliment from the
tomes of ripe scholarship that, like the trees laden with
generous fruit, stood around him. The Fathers and the
Chroniclers, the poets and the essayists, all placed their
treasures before him; for, like the Jesuits, and unlike 'the
only form of religious life recognised up to the sixteenth
century, when its course of studies was rigidly confined to
sacred subjects,' he strengthened his mind with general
literature.^ The result was that, when the hour for action
came, it found a battery fully mounted. This discloses one
of the causes of his marvellous success in America, where,
I Lecture on ' The Harmony of Catholic Worship,' at Boston, U,S,, Sept 25,
1872. * 'St. Ignatius and the Jesuits,' a Sermon, July 31, 1880.

1 84 LIFE OF FATHER THOMAS BURKE.
often without a minute's preparation, he poured broadside
after broadside into seemingly impregnable positions.
In 1855 he was asked to assist in conducting a mission at
the adjacent parish of Crumlin. The chapel was old and
primitive ; his audience were rude and unlettered, but he
prepared as carefully, and addressed them with as much
ardour, as though they were the congregation of a cathedral.
The 'P.P.' nicknamed him Savonarola, and said that a great
light had once more risen amongst the Dominicans.
During the year 1857 Fr. Burke took part in a mission
at Rathfarnham. 'His companions in arms,' as he called
them, were Dr. Carbery, now Bishop of Hamilton, his early
patron, Fr. Rush, and the Very Rev. J. T. Towers. Here he
also won golden opinion.s. But so retiring was the man that
during the few years that elapsed between the missions and
his great sermon at Sandymount, we find him labouring
chiefly with his novices or reclaiming rustic sinners.
Twenty-seven years ago a Fr. Daly, C.C, of Rathfarn
ham, was much beloved. Ultimately his health broke
down. He was sent to Rome, and again to Australia, where
he died. During the mission at Rathfarnham, Fr. Daly, then
a languid invalid, drove up, and Burke went out to the old-
fashioned covered car in the chapel-yard to rally him. Fr.
Daly was much depressed on viewing the scene of his former
labours. Burke said : ' Fr. Daly, you are not forgotten ; ever
since we came to this mission your name is in every mouth ;
the whole congregation, even the little children, are repeatedly
talking of you. There, they are at it now. Come over.' He
helped the sick man from the car to the chapel porch, where
his ears were greeted with the well-known hymn, commenc
ing, ' Daily, daily,' &c. ' There they go,' said Fr. Burke,
'shouring out for you from morning till night' 'Thus,' adds
our informant, 'dear, good-natured Fr. Burke sought to brino-
back the long-absent smile to the poor sufferer's face, and
certainly succeeded.'

FR. power's RECOLLECTIONS. 185
At Tallaght, we are told, ' not less by reason of the lofty
intellect which commanded admiration than by the sweetness
of his nature, he enjoyed the respect and affection of all with
whom he came in contact'
Among those who knew him best at this time was the
Very Rev. G. D. Power.
Having been an old and intimate friend of Ft. Burke (he writes),
I take the liberty of sending a few reminiscences. I was his
novice for two years, was a member of the community of San
Clemente during his Priorship there, was constantly his companion
while in Rome, and for many years enjoyed his famiUar intercourse
and confidence both in Italy and Ireland.
Some of the details thus inclosed illustrate a more ad
vanced period of our narrative ; the following concerns this
page. It may be premised that the habit was restored to
the Irish Dominicans in 1852. An order from Fr. White,
then Visitor- General of the Irish Province, made it obliga
tory to wear it :
I was one of four young boys from the city of Cork who entered
the novitiate of St Mary's, Tallaght, in 1857. Fr. Burke was the
Master of Novices. I can never forget the impression his ascetic
appearance made upon me as he entered the parlour to see the
postulants for the Order. His tall, graceful, and attenuated figure,
clad in his white habit, his stern, rigid face, shaded by the cowl
which he wore over his head, his hands folded under his scapular,
and the deep, sonorous voice — sepulchral in its tone — all presented
to my youthful gaze the living image of a vigorous, ascetic Domi
nican monk. That figure might have stepped down from one of the
pictures of Fra Angelico's groups of saintly Dominicans which hung
upon the walls of that reception room, I was frightened. He
looked the very personification of the austerity and rigour of the
Order of St. Pius V., Saint Louis Bertrand, and Vincent Ferrar.
On our way up to the novitiate he turned quietly round to the
thinnest lad in the group, and said, ' My boy, we must feed you.'
This touch of humanity and humour softened me a little. The
present Bishop-Auxiliary of Cork, the Right Rev. F. H. O'Callaghan,
was one of that group. In the observances of the rigid rule of the

1 86 LIFE OF FATHER THOMAS BURKE.
Order, in the abstinences, fasts, and mortifications of the religious
life, he was always the most observant and rigid of the community.
He might have been one of the monks of San Marco in Florence,
under the priorship of Fra Jerome Savonarola. In all the recreations
of the novices he was playful, buoyant, and enthusiastic. With the
avidity and abandon of his simple, sportive nature, he would join
in our out-door games of ' hurly,' football, and handball, and be
as jubilant in victory or depressed by defeat as the youngest among
' his boys,' as he used to call his novices.
The ' ferverinos ' or homilies which Fr. Burke daily
addressed to his novices were masterpieces of touching
eloquence. Neophytes are sometimes requested to preach
sermons as a sample of their growing power. After the
delivery of one, opinions were invited and given. ' It's all
in Hay,' said one. ' It would be a long time there till you'd
make a suggawn of it,' said Burke. It may be explained
that Dr. Hay published an excellent volume of sermons, and
that suggawn is the Irish for a hay rope.
A lay friend and near neighbour, who from the year 1855
to i860 saw him daily, has committed to writing, at our
request, his impressions of the man. These embrace no
stirring incidents, and their value is derived from the accuracy
with which his hidden life is reflected by — so to speak — a
village photographer :
My own recollections of Fr. Burke go back to the time the
Dominicans took up their abode at Tallaght. We lived there in a
cottage hard by and saw a good deal of the Fathers. As time went
on they accepted as novices a younger brother of mine, who died
at Cork, and a sister, who is now with the Dominican nuns at
Drogheda. We left Tallaght about 1870, and since then we rarely
saw our old friends. Up to 1S60 I saw him almost every daj',
sometimes several times during the day. A joyous, pure, and
lofty spirit, simple and unaffected and sincere. He was wonderfully
winning, and with a certain graciousness that had not a tincture of
' condescending' about it. He often reminded me of Curran. The
low spirits, ill-health — again the high spirits and keen enjoyment of
the bright moment— the flash from darkness to light— the shape of

HEARS GRISI AND ALBONI. 1 87
the jaw, the mouth, the eyes (differing in colour, but Curran's
glorious eyes were there), the stately flow of phrase and unstudied
but ' speaking ' gesture, the fearlessness, the love of the dear old
land, purified, perhaps intensified, by his holy calling and exalted
pursuits. The pall of 181 7 fell again on Ireland in 1883.
At Christmas 1859, he had made a collection for the poor of the
villages about Tallaght. He asked me to write out some names and
assist him at the distribution. ' The wind of the word ' was enough
to attract a crowd. He managed tolerably well, but had to make
raids more than once upon a smaU Reserve Fund. Business
was disposed of very quickly, and with the dissatisfaction usual on
such occasions. When Fr. Burke saw a poor woman moving off
empty-handed, silent and sad, he called her and said, ' My child,
why did you not come up?' 'Well, Father, I was afeared.' She
had been famous for a propensity to share in any village row.
Fn Burke again retired and brought back a few shillings — wealth
to the recipient With these he bestowed a very few sweet kindly
words — a couple of seconds did it all. She shook with emotion, and
went her way ; and I observed tears glittering in his dim eyes.
I was with him at a morning concert (his first) at the Rotunda in
Grisi, Alboni, and Mario's time. We arrived early, and Fr. Thomas got
into a great state of nervousness at finding no priest present. Time
went on, still no priest Fr. Thomas had serious notions of leaving,
and seemed to have lost faith in my assurances that priests were
always to be found at morning concerts. At length one arrived,
then another, then two, three, and so on. He came from his ' stool
of repentance ' as he recognised some of them, and thenceforth gave
himself up to enjoyment as thoroughly as a schoolboy on his holiday.
He was amused that she — described in the bill as Alboni — should
prove to be so stout
Coming home that evening, he was full of the great vocalists, and
gave snatches of the songs, with quaint imitations of the performers.
After this he got a fancy to visit a ' horsemanship ' exhibition,
of which he knew nothing unless from pictures and placards
on the walls. We arranged the day and hour some time before.
I was embarrassed by his boyish eagerness, and had not the courage
to refuse to be his companion, hoping, however, every day to hear
him say that he could not go, or that somebody would tell him of
the unfitness of such a place for him. To my delight, the evening
before the great day I received the following characteristic note,
covered with horrible faces and quaint marginal pen-and-ink devices :

1 88 LIFE OF FATHER THOMAS BURKE.
S. Mary's, Tallaght :
Ye evening of Sunday.
Dear Richard — I have received an unmistakable hint from 'a
person in authority ' that my appearance at the astounding circus to
morrow would not give unmixed satisfaction, so I must look upon
it, as far as I am concerned, ' no go ; ' I am doomed to be unhorsed
and left hers de combat.
I hope I have not put you out in any way. I shall be going in
[to Dublin] as I said, and I'U call for you, so that part of our
arrangement remains unhurt.
Be ready to join me, and mind to bring the price of a hat in your
pocket, as if you went down to Galway in a jerry they'd be pressing
you to accept of a hat, but your prospects would be ruined. I once
heard a very respectable party in Galway express a decided objection
to gentlemen in jerry hats. Yours, till the night of my wake,
Thomas Burke, O.P.
• The very respectable party ' was probably his mother. Some
time after he visited me, it was one of his bad days, for his health
was always treacherous. His spirits were much depressed, and a
heavy languor seemed to double him up. He asked me to walk
with him to the Convent, which I did, he leaning heavily on
me. '\^^len we got there he asked me if I could run up in an
hour or so, when his ' lecture ' to his novices would be over. I pro
mised I would if I could make time. I went up, and on my way
heard shouting and laughing, and there was the Master of Novices
in the midst of them joining in their ' recreation.' He had a short
stick fighting for bare life to win the ball from one of the players,
who was by no means disposed to let it go. Up and down, round
and round they went, their habits tucked up and their wrists bleed
ing. It was about as droll a sight as I have ever witnessed, and
when Fr. Thomas at length threw down his 'common' and came
across to me, I was delighted to see that low spirits were over for
that day at least.
His recovery from those fits of depression was generally rapid.
After one of them I have seen him dancing down the stairs in his
habit with all the airs and graces of wild girlhood, singing —
My mother has lots of old china.
And no fair heiress but me.
Men accustomed to matins find it second nature to rise early.

SERENADES AND SERMONS. 1 89
Before dawn I have been awakened by his voice outside my cot
tage singing Balfe's ballad. A mediant father had played a practical
joke : To his daughter's balcony he brought
Her monkey in muslins arrayed.
The youth was o'erjoyed, for he thought
'Twas the form of his beautiful maid.
But his inner life — as beautiful as that of his own St Dominic —
how shall that be described ? To get full insight into it one should
visit all the convents of his Order and see how his holy words have
been cherished. His ' wit and humour ' were almost involuntary
scintillations, the bubbles of the brilliant well within — all his deeper
thoughts he gave to Heaven.
Those gems of quiet domestication at Tallaght were
not without spiritual advantage to him. A community life
which absorbed a man into itself formed all his habits,
fostered his virtues, corrected his fault's, and surrounded him
with all the helps and comforts of association and example.
These were very nearly his own words.
Fr. Burke's boyish wish to see what a hippodrome was
like leads us to say that, in point of fact, there was no more
rigid stickler for ecclesiastical discipline than he, or one who
appreciated more thoroughly the reforms which had just been
introduced under the auspices of Archbishop Cullen. Years
after he said, when preaching the praises of that Prelate :
The restoration of ecclesiastical discipline enforced by the de
crees of Thurles, which in their turn were but a repetition of the
mandates of the Council of Trent, involved some sacrifice on the part
of the clergy ; the surrender of pleasures which, tiiough innocent,
were not priestly ; their greater withdrawal from the world, the daily
and diligent exercise of prayer and study, the yearly exercises of
retreat, their external habit and clothing — in a word, all that
goes to make the holy priest and fitting minister of the dread altar
of God. It does not surprise us to hear from one of Fr. Burke's
pupils that, ' unless at time of play, or on recreation days,

190 LIFE OF FATHER THOMAS BURKE.
on which occasions a looker-on would be at a loss to know
who amongst them was the Master, no one could be more
strict or more severe, particularly if he saw the least de
liberate neglect or violation of rule.'
He also took every opportunity of making his students humble
(adds the Rev. J. P. Prendergast), and he would very often drop
remarks hurtful to our feefings, and tell something before others cal
culated to raise a laugh at some poor fellow's expense ; but if any
one did laugh, or if any of the other students forgot himself for a
moment, as by word or act to show that he was amused at the little
humiliation of the other, then Fr. Burke was down on him in an
instant, and would give him such a dressing ; and all who knew
Fr. Burke knew that he had a tongue which cut one through like a
sword. Many a time would his hard words bring bitter tears from
the poor fellow who was corrected ; while in a few minutes afterwards
they were all at play as dioiigh there was no difference between them.
On the evening before the first batch of students were to leave
Tallaght for Rome, the Provincial, Fr. Russell, paid the students a
visit, and wine was produced for the occasion. Fr. Russell, taking
the glass of wine, said ' he drank the health of the future Priors and
Provincials of the Province.' Immediately after he left Fr. Burke
returned to his students, and lest any little seed of vanity might have
fallen from the Provincial's words, he said to them, ' Priors and Pro
vincials, indeed ! There is not a man amongst you that has either
the brains or the piety to fit you for any position in the Order, and I
doubt if you are even fit to be lay brothers.' Of these students one
is now an Archbishop, and all, with one exception, have held posi
tions of honour in the Order. His remark was in keeping with his
own character for humihty, as he had a most extraordinarily humble
opinion of himself; indeed, if possible, he carried his humihty to a
fault Fr. Burke, in addressing his novices, felt that a few
splashes of cold water make a strong man stronger.
Fr. Prendergast continues, after mentioning that Fr. Burke,
notwithstanding his strictness, ' was very much beloved : '
When Fr. Burke's first batch of students were going from Tallaoht
to Rome in 1857, Fr. Folan, of Galway, who had been appointed
Prior of San Clemente, accompanied them. On the recommendation

WITH HIS NOVICES IN LONDON. 191
of the present Bishop of Hamilton, all went to an hotel in Trafalgar
Square. Fn Burke next day had an idea that the expenses might
not be so reasonable as his Lordship had supposed, and so Fr. Folan
asked for the bill. The result was a rapid retreat to a more handy
and less cosdy hotel. Fr. Burke, as Master of Novices, went with
the students as far as London, and one day took charge of them and
brought them to see Whitehall. As is well known, two of the guards
on horseback, glittering in their bright cuirasses and helmets, are always
to be seen in the adjacent gateway on duty. On this day there was
a splendid-looking fellow of colossal size, and Fr. Burke, to the
amusement of several bystanders, proceeded to march the students
before and beside him, unctuously describing and calling attention in
the most marked manner to his grand proportions and accoutrements,
flattering first to the individual himself, but at last rather calculated
to provoke the big man to draw his sword. The shy novices would
have given anything to get away ; but no, his chest, his fine head,
his feet, his calves, all must be admired — when suddenly we heard a
shout and a loud whistle so commanding that even in the din of
London it aroused us. Looking round, we saw the Prior's head
frowning out of a four-wheeler, and his little finger in his mouth about
to give another and more penetrative whistle to call our attention to
the restraining influence of his presence.'
In London, Fr. Burke heard some distinguished Anglican
divines preach. We learn from the secretary of the late
Cardinal Cullen that one of the mimicries with which he used
to amuse his Eminence was that of the late Bishop of Oxford.
Fr. Burke, in two of his sermons, quotes Wilberforce. The
higher the distinctions Burke acquired, the deeper sank his
own humility. He maintained that grace and not knowledge
was the subjugator of every evil passion :
Where shall we find the means of emancipating our will from
pas.sions and other bad influences (said Burke) ? Will knowledge do
it ? No. WiU faith do it ? No. It is a strange thing to say, but
knowledge, no matter how extensive or how profound, gives no
command over the passions ; no intellectual motives influence them.
' When you can moor a vessel with a thread of silk,' says a great
orator. Dr. Wilberforce, ' then you may hope to elevate this human
> The letter of Rev. J. P. Prendergast, to the Author, St. Pancras, Lewes,
March 4, 1884.

192 LIFE OF FATHER THOMAS BURKE.
knowledge, and, by human reason, to tie down and restrain those
giants — the passions and the pride of man.' I know as much of the
law of God as any amongst you — more, probably, than many — for
we are to teach. Does my knowledge save me from sin? Will
that knowledge keep me in the observance of the sacred vows I took
at the altar ? Is it to that knowledge that I look for the power and
strength within me to keep every sinful passion down in sacerdotal
purity — of restricting every desire in monastic poverty — of keeping
down every feeling of pride in religious obedience ? I might know
as much as St Augustine, and yet be imperfect. It is the grace
of God we need coming through fixed specific channels to the
soul. The feast of St. Dominic in 1857 was celebrated by a din
ner at the old convent in Denmark Street, Dublin. The pre
sence of two great hierarchs — Dr. Ryan, Bishop of Limerick,
and Dr. Moriarty, Bishop of Kerry — tended to shed around
some slight restraint, which the Prior tried to remove by callino-
upon Fr. Burke, who had hitherto comported himself with
the modesty of a novice, to give the company one of his
' Imitations.' Italian priests, with a very limited knowledcre
of the English tongue, had become very popular as preachers
in Ireland. The saintly Gentili was one ; the burly Rinolfi
another. Enormous audiences attended whenever the latter
preached. Fr. Burke stood up and, for the first time, under
took to personate an Italian priest, lecturing the faithful in
broken English. His first move was to cast with demonstra
tive vigour the folds of his robe from the dexter side rio-ht
over the left shoulder. With finger upraised he beo-an his
performance by undertaking to answer Dr. Cummino-, but
whom he always spoke of as ' Doctor Cummingo.' He urcred
his hearers to avoid 'otiosity," to become tinkers, and re
minded them that ' without face you cannot be shaved.' But
when at the end of each objurgation the preacher, while
seemingly trying to avert the doom which awaited sin, would
say, ' You be da— a— a— a— med,' the effect was irresistible ;
' Otiosus, free from business.

THE COMING MAN.

193

old Bishop Ryan hardly liking to laugh outright at the
phrase, but obliged to put his napkin to his mouth to con
ceal its expansion. The ice thus broken, a sociable evening
was passed, and from that hour dated the commencement
of the intimacy between Bishop Moriarty and Burke, which
death alone dissolved.
This study he afterwards changed into that of an Italian
Jesuit conducting a retreat for the English visitors at Rome.
In this, Lazarus was .spoken of as reposing in Abraham's
womb. About the year 1858 (writes Mr. Sherlock) I attended at a pro
fession of nuns in the little convent chapel of Richmond Fairview.
The fitting moment for the sermon had arrived, when a tall figure
rose from its kneeling posture before the altar, and strode with quiet
majesty to its appointed place on the platform. The figure was
draped in the white and black of the Dominican habit. The
sanctuary was filled with a dim religious light, which just revealed a
tonsured head, fringed by a ring of thick black locks that surmounted
a dark and sun-stained face, with features that were eloquent of
strength and power, and with eyes that kindled into flame as their
gaze seemed to centre upon the glories of an unseen world. The
preacher spoke. The subject of his discourse was the religious life.
The chapel was small, and his voice never rose above a whisper, but
every whisper thrilled the nerves of his hearers. All were fascinated.
He spoke of the beauty and purity and perfection of the religious
life ; he showed how it tended to raise man, even in the life below,
almost to a level with the angels ; he expounded with marvellous
lucidity the meaning of the vows Religious take, and explained their
bearing on the holy state ; and with a fervid peroration that carried
his hearers away from earthly things left them in earnest contem
plation of a glorious future. It was no mere effort of polished
rhetoric we heard on that occasion ; no skilful weaving of brilliant
phrases into rounded sentences such as may gratify the ear without
ever reaching the heart It was the full flow of an apostolic soul
that came down on the congregation then assembled, and swept
everything away on its irresistible tide. There were worldly men
present, but the worldliest among them went along in silence, ponder
ing upon the nothingness of his own pursuits. It was a sermon to
make a scoffer stand self-condemned. It was a discourse that, being
VOL. L O

194 LIFE OF FATHER THOMAS BURKE.
heard, must be embedded in the memory for a lifetime. As the con
gregation slowly defiled out of the httle chapel, the question was on
every lip, 'Who was the preacher ? ' At length one was found to say,
' Fr. Burke — ^one of the Denmark Street friars.' '
This sermon — delivered in the private oratory of an
obscure suburban convent — was, of course, never reported ;
and, except by those who chanced to be present, nobody ever
heard of it. Such was its strength that for days after — as
Mr. Sherlock assures us orally — he was torn by a strong desire
to leave the world and become a monk.
Fr. Burke's antecedents had been so modestly veiled that
Canon Dillon — the then chaplain to the convent — had never
before heard of him, but he could not avoid exclaiming, ' He
is the coming man.'
' Denmark Street had been the head-quarters of the Dominicans from 1780.
The Friary stood within two minutes' walk of the Archbishop's parish chapel
in Liffey Street — called the mensal parish, because it supported his mensa or
table. Dr. Troy, himself a Dominican and a most influential Suffragan Bishop
previous to his promotion to Dublin, is likely to have obtained for his late
colleagues the privilege of opening this chapel almost at the gate of the Archi
episcopal church. The parochial clergy, like the friars, are dependent on elee
mosynary support. Denmark Street Chapel is described by Cox's Irish Alagaziiie
for 1812 as the most fashionably attended place of Catholic worship in Dublin.
The Order had previously passed through a highly chequered career. Asso
ciated with their monastery they opened, in 1428, a school of philosophy on
the opposite side of the LiflTey, and built the bridge connecting them known
as 'Old Bridge.' It was the first of the six bridges across the Liffey, and
De Burgo says that he remembers to have seen, in his youth, the font from which
it was usual to sprinkle with holy water all who crossed it. The Provincial of the
Irish Dominicans thus communicates to the present writer the sequel of their
movements : ' After the courts of law were removed to the neighbourhood of
Christ Church, our old monastery became the "King's Inns," and remained so
until the building in Henrietta Street was completed ; it was then demolished
and the present Four Courts erected on its site. Until the Reformation we
always occupied the site given us by the Cistercians of St. Mary's Abbey. Durinp
the reign of James II. we had possession of our old house ; in it was held the
Parliament at which James presided. After the Revolution of 16S8 our abode
was in Cook Street, where we had a chapel ; from thence, about the year 1740,
we moved into Lower Bridge Street ; in 1780 we changed to Denmark Street.
Our old chapel in Bridge Street became the parochial church of St. Audeon's
and continued so until the present church in High Street was opened. The old
biulding is still in existence — used as stores by Vance and Beers.' In 1786 Dr.
Troy became Archbishop of Dublin. The first stone of the Pro-Cathedral in
Marlborough Street was laid November 14, 1S15. Liffey Street Chapel was soon
after relinquished.

195

CHAPTER VI.
WORK IN IRELAND.
Fifty years ago critics were fond of discussing the question
why pulpit eloquence was so inferior to that of the senate or
the bar. If Scotland could point to its Alison and Chalmers,
it was submitted that they were not comparable to its
Erskines and Broughams. ' In England,' asked Madden,
' where are we to look for divines, in the history of the last
hundred and fifty years, who rival in oratory Bolingbroke,
Chatham, Pitt, Fox, Burke, Sheridan, and Canning ? '
The Catholic Church in the eighteenth century, fettered by
penal bonds and fearful of arousing its persecutors to renewed
vigilance and oppression, was not in a state to send forth
pulpit orators of pretension. The only preacher who attained
much distinction was Walter Blake Kirwan, a Franciscan friar,
who afterwards joined the Established Church on the plea of
obtaining more enlarged opportunities of doing good. Avoid
ing controversy, he generally preached on behalf of orphan
charities. ' His irresistible powers of persuasion,' records his
widow, ' often produced 1,200/. at a sermon, and his hearers
sometimes threw in jewels or watches as earnest of further
benefactions.' From the stories told of Kirwan's action in the
pulpit it would appear that he did not deem divinity too
high for dramatic treatment. Plis death, in 1805, was fol
lowed by a long pause in the oratory of the Protestant
pulpit In 1 83 1 Dr. Whately arrived as Anglican Archbishop
of Dublin. He had been thrice chosen ' Select Preacher to the
University of Oxford,' and earned European fame, it was said,
by his Bampton Lectures. But, notwithstanding the prestige

196 LIFE OF FATHER THOMAS BURKE.
surrounding an Archbishop, we find James Grant writing of
Whately in 1835 :
Oratory is not his forte. He speaks in so low a tone as to be
inaudible to those who are at any distance from him, and not only
is his voice low, but it is unpleasant from its monotony. In his
manner there is not a particle of life or spirit.
After the Catholic Church had lost Kirwan it no doubt
found able exponents of its strength in Molloy, Clarke, Hayes,
Beatagh, Keogh, Maguire, and Cahill. Molloy and Clarke
— the latter a Dominican — died early in the century. Hayes
was finally silenced for opposing with vehemence the Veto.
Keogh outlived his fame and survived to 1833. Maguire
was noted not for his eloquence, but for toughness of logic in
polemic argument. Cahill, who latterly preached in a sitting
posture, had many admirers, but after the death of Arch
bishop Murray his voice was never more heard in the metro
politan diocese. All these men, Cahill perhaps excepted,
were forgotten when Burke's powers shone upon Dublin, and
all were certainly inferior to him.
France may proudly point to Bourdaloue, Bossuet, and
Massillon, and Italy to its Segneri ; but a deep thinker
who may be regarded as an expert in this line has shown
that, high as these names stand, they are really below
Burke's. I am about to be very bold — rash, perhaps— and to leave myself
open to criticism (declares the Rev, Nicholas Walsh, a chief of the
Jesuits), but the opinion is my own, founded, as I believe, on good
and solid reasons. I befieve that Fr. Burke, taking him for aU in all,
was the greatest, the most illustrious, and the most extraordinary
preacher of whom we have any record. A study of the lives of
great preachers of the time of Massillon, Bourdaloue, Bossuet, and
Segneri, showed that they were men who either preached not often
in the year, or who had abundance of time to prepare. They gene
rally stood in the pulpit of some magnificent cathedral on some
extraordinary occasion, amidst surroundings which stimulated and
inspired. Some of them never preached under two months' notice •

SERMON AT SANDYMOUNT.

197

others, like Segneri and Bourdaloue, had their three months of
unbroken retirement to prepare their Latin conferences. Others,
like Massillon and Bossuet, could, from their very position, command
their own time. To picture one of these iUustrious preachers not
only preaching often in his own church, but hurrying, for twenty-five
years, through the length and breadth of the land, or of three lands,
at the beck of every struggling nun and curate, bishop, parish priest,
and charitable institution, preaching every Sunday and holiday— at
times thrice a week, sometimes thrice a day — preaching often in
old, uncomfortable, or new unfinished churches — with for nine long
years an insidious disease torturing and wearing his life — such a
picture of any of those illustrious preachers would be a caricature,
because unreal. We read of nothing like this in the lives of those
men, and yet we all know it to have been for years the life of Fr.
Burke. It is told in the diocese of Killaloe that Dr. Jeremiah
Donovan, Domestic Prelate to Gregory XVI., was once
invited by the pastor of Feakle to preach on the occasion of
placing the organ in his church. A large audience assembled,
but the new organ failed to arrive. Dr. Donovan had carefully
prepared his sermon on church music and boldly delivered it,
the absence of the instrument notwithstanding. When driving
to Ennis that night his driver came violently into collision with
some obstacle which proved to be the organ, and its debris
was comically compared next day to 'organic remains.'
Happily, no contrariety occurred to spoil the effect of the
sermon which Fr. Burke had prepared in September 1859, on
the occasion of opening the organ at St. Mary Star of the
Sea, Sandymount.
An addition had been made to the interior adornments of the
beautiful church (writes Fr. Nugent), and Dean O'ConneU, its zealous
pastor, was anxious that the occasion should be signalised by the
delivery of a sermon by some preacher of note. He asked Fr.
Eustace Murphy, another Dominican, to preach, but the good
Father, having other engagements to fulfil, was obliged to decline.
'Will you get me a substitute, then?' said the priest 'With
pleasure,' was the reply; 'a young man shall be sent to you who can
preach far better than I '

198 LIFE OF FATHER THOMAS BURKE.
Neither the Dean nor his zealous coadjutor, Fr. David
Mulcahy, were thoroughly satisfied with the arrangement, and
their confidence in the result of the appeal was not strengthened
by observing on entering the vestry a priest robed for the
pulpit whose face seemed to them singularly vacant. There
can be now no doubt that this was one of the freaks of facial
distortion in which Burke sometimes indulged to puzzle
people whose thoughts he read. He possessed the faculty,
shared by Cardinal Cullen in a less comical degree, of
assuming at times an appearance of stupidity. Perhaps
both saw wisdom in Montaigne's precept, ' The best policy
is to seem foolish and to act wisely.' That the^first im
pression produced on Fr. Mulcahy was due to waggery on
Burke's part is the more likely when we compare it with
the account given of the way in which his majesty of aspect
impressed all who heard his sermon at Fairview, and at a
time when no prestige enshrined his name.
Fr. Burke ascended the pulpit at Sandymount (records a writer
in the Liverpool Times), and, taking for his subject the intimate con
nection between art and the genius of the Catholic Church, preached
a sermon in which eloquence, richness of imagery, originality of
thought, and freshness of illustration were so charmingly combined
that the congregation were rapt in wonder and delight. Fortunately
there was a representative of the Freeman's journal present, and
next day the lengthy report which appeared in that widely circulating
journal was perused with keen interest throughout the country.
After the sermon a person by no means rich said to
Fr. Mulcahy, ' I came to give you one pound, but this man
has knocked five out of me.'
The orator threw his whole heart into this sermon.
Music at all times went to the depths of his very soul, and
stirred every fine feeling and tender sympathy. Of Burke it
might be said as of Byron, that he woke one morning to find
himself famous.
Next day (writes Mr. J. R. O'Flanagan, who shares the warmth of

'STAND AND DELIVER!' 1 99
descriptive power possessed by the Irish Bar), Dublin was ringing
with the account of the wonderftU sermon preached at Sandymount.
Never was anything finer. It equalled Massillon— it surpassed
Bossuet — it rivalled Rirwan.
The reporter sent by Dr. Gray, the Dublin journalist, to
Sandymount, was Mr. Frank Sullivan. His attention became at
once so riveted, he tells us, that he made no attempt to report
the eloquent preacher, but followed him from the vestry to the
parish priest's door, and there ventured to explain his object.
' If you will take from under the folds of your habit the MS.
of your sermon and kindly let me see it, the favour would be
appreciated.' ' How do you know I have a MS. ? ' replied
the Dominican. ' By the artistic and logical arrangement of
your discourse.' ' But if I give you up my MS. what will
St. Thomas say ? ' At last he smilingly surrendered it, saying,
' Twice to-day I have been made to stand and deliver ; ' and
this is how so full a report appeared.
The fame of this sermon reached France ; and the P^re
Mercier tells historically that it was ' dans un sermon preche
dans I'Eglise de I'Etoile de la Mer qu'il apparut pour la premiere
fois ce qu'il devait etre.' ' The Very Rev. G. D. Power, Fr.
Burke's former novice, writes to the same effect. Indeed,
even most of the Fathers of his own Order in Ireland seem
to have been quite unprepared for this success. But we now
know on the authority of the men who worked with him in
Gloucestershire that his sermons thus early were such that
even old critics of the long robe called to congratulate his
superiors on the marvellous eloquence of the young preacher.
Cheerfully obeying the mandate which sent him ' to organise
the novitiate ' in Ireland, he relinquished, as it seemed, the role
for which God and nature meant him, and to which passionate
instinct — but not ambition — pointed. Speaking of the Sandy
mount sermon as ' his first great one,' Fr. Power adds :
I well remember how one afternoon he came to recreation with
' VAnnSe Dominicaine, p. 408.

200 LIFE OF FATITER THOMAS BURKE.
the sermon he had prepared. Walking up and down the ' Friars'
Walk,' a lovely shady avenue of the beautiful grounds at Tallaght,
he read his sermon to the novices, stopping frequently to ask me
or them 'if that would do,' and requesting suggestions. This
was done in genuine simplicity and great humility. The beautiful
story of the Good Samaritan was the gospel for the Sunday. I
remember very vividly the application of the neighbourly and humane
acts of the Samaritan, his pouring on the oil, and dressing the
wounded man from Jericho, &c., to the action and inspiration of the
Church in her use of music, to soothe, elevate, and spiritualise fallen
human nature. The passages here were very fine, full of poetry, and
suggestive of a high artistic cultuie. ' I believe they liked the sermon,'
was his remark on his return from Sandymount, where he had
preached ; one which immediately placed him in the fore-front of
pulpit orators.
Fragments from this sermon appear at pages 84 and
105. ' Ce fut pour tons, selon la parole du P. Lacordaire, le
premier coup de clairon de sa renommee,' records 'L'Annee
Dominicaine.' And yet at the opening of the new Dominican
church in Dublin, soon after, Fr. Burke was not the priest se
lected to preach the oration.
The success at Sandymount was followed, on November 25,
1859, t)y an eloquent panegyric on St. Catherine, preached in
her church, Meath Street, by Fr. Burke. Another on St.
Vincent was delivered at Castleknock. He was also asked to
conduct a retreat at Maynooth College. In its halls, filled
with the echoes of genuine sacred oratory, his voice was warmly
welcomed. His discourses, unlike penitential exercises, shed
such fascination that old and young thronged forward long
before the hours for which they were announced, and took up
their positions anxiously looking out for the rich treat coming.
'We have found a hitherto undiscovered mine,' said Canon
Farrell. This was the beginning of one of the most prominent
phases of his career. He was regularly employed in conduct
ing retreats for the clerg)- in various dioceses, having directed
so many as twelve in a single year; while from all parts of

SPIRITUAL RETREATS. 20I
the country innumerable demands were made on him for cha
rity sermons.
Spiritual retreats, which Dr. Doyle revived with salutary
effects, owed their birth in the first instance to St. Ignatius
of Loyola, whose book on the subject exhibits a rare know
ledge of the human heart The retreat formerly lasted four
weeks ; but a shorter period is found to work best. Priests,
laics, students, all confessed the advantages they derived
from Fr. Burke when conducting those sacred exercises.
Retirement, silence, self-examination with a firm resolve to
make the retreat as though it were to be the last, were all
mighty materials on which the preacher worked.
About this time Dr. Thomas FitzPatrick met him travel
ling by boat, on the beautiful river Lee, accompanied by
Fr. Falvey, the eminent polemic and pastor of Glanmire.
Repartees were freely interchanged. The priests, like two
practised swordsmen, fenced and parried, cut and thrust,
brightening the interest of that proverbially picturesque
journey. Falvey, like Burke, was a mimic, and he cleverly
portrayed the peculiarities of his own Bishop, Dr. Murphy.
The second occasion on which Mr. Frank Sullivan met Fr.
Burke was at the station of the Ulster Railway in Dublin.
The Dominican was going to preach at Dundalk, and Sullivan
was deputed to report him. Anxious to enjoy the sweets of
his society in undisturbed luxury, he persuaded the guard to
place a private compartment at their disposal. The preacher
jumped in, the pressman followed, feeling almost as grateful
to the guard as if he were St. Peter, who held the key of
still higher privileges. The enjoyment of that journey, Mr.
Sullivan say.s, served his memory as an elixir for years
after. While cigars were freely smoked, rich anecdotes and
stories of rare comicality fell in exhaustless profusion,
until at last the porters, sonorously yelling ' Dundalk,' re
minded Sullivan that all terrestrial joys are doomed to end
too soon.

202 LIFE OF FATHER THOMAS BURKE.
As it is notorious that Fr. Burke was a smoker, it may be
well to add that for some years before his death he added
to the suffering of his life the mortification of abstaining
from the use of tobacco. His Prior says that it would
have proved a solace to him in pain and solitude, but his
superiors felt that the practice was one not quite suited to
a religious. A physician has said that 'smoking favours
contemplation ; ' the contemplation referred to in this sense,
however, is not of the kind inculcated by St. Dominic.
Father Burke's first Mass in Galway was celebrated under
painful circumstances. His sister Nora had long been
stricken by illness, one of the most touching features of which
was an occasional gleam of hope in her own recovery, but
hallowed by the most perfect resignation to God's will. Fr.
Burke received from the Bishop permission to say Mass in
her bed-chamber. During its celebration she was supported
on a mattress by her mother ; and Fn Burke happening to
raise his eyes for a moment saw that she was dead. Mrs.
Burke had previously noticed the same sad fact, but, impressed
by the solemnity of the holy sacrifice, never betrayed the
slightest emotion of grief or surprise until it had terminated ;
and the celebrant felt bound to keep his feelings under similar
command.' He had probably this scene in his mind when preaching
at Killarney on the decline and death of the girl in the Gospel.
' Gradually her strength decayed, and the light faded out of
her eyes ; the pulsation of her heart ceased.' Fr. Burke's ap
preciation of suppressed sorrow was shown in his grand de
scription of Christ solemnly entering the house, silencing those
who filled it with the noise of their vain lamentations, and
saying, 'The maid is not dead, but sleepeth.'
The splendid Dominican churches of Cork and Limerick,
' Mrs. Burke's philosophic calmness is inherited by her daughter Bridget. At
Fr. Burke's funeral, while other members of the family indulged in paroxj'sms of
grief, Miss Burke's silence implied ' the composure of settled distress.'

LORETTO ABBEY. 203
contrasting so strongly in their grandeur with the modest
West Chapel long familiar to him in Galway, charmed and
delighted him. In his former pilgrimage to the ruined
Abbey of Athenry, and in his visits at eventide to the
sadly defaced sculpture which surrounds the West Chapel,
close by his native spot, he had mingled his tears with the
dew that stood in sparkles on the tombs. Thinking of the
words of St. Augustine, 'In that He died He showed Him
self man ; in that He rose again He proved Himself God,'
Fr. Burke said :
Has not the Irish Church risen again to more than her former
glory ? The land is covered once more with fair churches, convents,
colleges, and monasteries, as of old ; and who shall say that the reli
gion that could thus suffer and rise again is not from God ?
It was about this time that Fr. Burke's connection as con
fessor to and conductor of retreats in Loretto Abbey, Rath
farnham, began. Tallaght is about four miles from Loretto,
and the frequent walk to his work served Burke's health, un
less on one occasion when during frost he fell, and for some
time after was disabled from the effects. The Superioress
of Loretto observes in one of her kind communications
addressed to the present writer :
For more than twenty years his wise and holy counsels were
never wanting to us, and even now his voice, ever urging us on
in the service of God, seems still to echo within these walls, yet our
memories are of the earnest religious, who devoted his energies year
after year, in spite of harassing pain, to the laborious work of training
souls for God. His frequent retreats to nuns, children, and to ladies
living in the world were always marked by great variety and exquisite
adaptation to the needs of those to whom they were addressed. It
was touching at these times to see the simple humility with which
our dear Father concentrated his great powers on saying to each
'the word in season' which would sink into the heart and bear
fruit' Mrs. Frances Ball, the foundress, was a person of such a
' Letter of the Superioress, Loretto Convent, Rathfarnham, Nov. 23, 1883.

204 LIFE OF FATHER THOMAS BURKE.
Stately and judicial bearing that her brother, Mn Justice Ball,
humorously said that 'she should have been the judge, and he
the reverend mother.' This great nun was so important a
personage that Fr. Coleridge and the Rev. Dr. Hutch have
each written her life. Fr. Burke found his first interview
with Mrs. Ball a little embarrassing to a man of his humility
and social shyness, and he often told friends the mode by
which he made the frigid nun relax. He described himself
as sitting in deep awe on the extreme edge of his chair,
twirling his hat, when one of the young ladies who accom
panied the Superioress glanced casually at a mirror. Mrs.
Ball at once admonished her, quoting from Proverbs xxxi. 30 :
' " Beauty is vain ; the woman that feareth the Lord, she shall
be praised." Comeliness, child, is a grace from God, and we
should carry it so in His honour. The Creator who gave it
can remove it by sickness. It is an old remark that children
who are fair to view grow up downright ugly.' ' The excep
tion is sometimes found, reverend mother,' said Burke. ' I was
noted for being a very handsome child, and I have preserved
my good looks.' Mrs. Ball smiled ; the child smiled too, and,
the ice thus broken, Fr. Burke at once felt himself at home.
Next day one of the younger pupils, encouraged by some
fantastic faces which Fr. Tom made for her amusement, asked
him why his mouth was so wide. Mrs. Ball sternly reproved
this levity, but he sought to put the awed children in good
humour by explaining apologetically that when he was an
infant his mother crammed him with solid stirabout, and,
moreover, with the same big spoon which his father used.
Fr. Burke's features, it will be remembered, were not hand
some, nor did his tonsure tend to improve nature's work. He
often ridiculed his own face, and latterly, when mixing with
boys on their playgrounds, he has amused them by subjecting
his nose to funny changes. At some of the nuns' schools,
when singing ' Annie Laurie ' and other sentimental ballads,
he has produced much comic effect by pointing — at touch-

CONDUCTS RETREATS. 205
ing moments — to the same feature. But though his face in
repose was not commanding, yet, when delivering a divine
message, it would light up with earnestness, and the search
ing eye suggest massive power and majesty. Mrs. Ball,
writes the Rev. G. D. Power, ' regarded Fr. Burke with the
highest and holiest esteem. He was her spiritual adviser
and counsellor for years.'
Part of his generous plan was to utilise the gifts of wit
and humour with which he was endowed by spreading around
him some alleviation of the cares and woes of life. He
sometimes followed Liston's imperturbable example, and the
lady who has succeeded Mrs. Ball as Superioress assures
us that she cannot recall an instance — even during his hap
piest sallies — that he really laughed. For a long time he
regarded as the first law of gravity, ' Never to laugh at your
own jokes.' Later on, when surrounded by clerical listeners,
his stories gathered increased piquancy from the infectiousness
of his laugh.
In conjunction with Fr. Towers, he opened in May 1861,
at Navan, a week's retreat to the Young Men's Society. It
was about this time that when travelling by train a tourist
whom he knew fell into conversation with him. ' Yonder is
one of the round towers of Ireland,' said Burke, pointing
towards a well-known object of archseological interest, ' and
here is another of them,' he added ; thus informally present
ing Fr. Towers, who was then of a much fuller habit than
now. In conducting a retreat for the clergy of Meath, his master
hand swept the chords of their various emotions. Previously
it had been the fashion to surround retreats with gloom.
Novel expressions now roused the attention of an audience
who under the former system might sometimes drift into
drowsiness. It was during the Meath retreat that he took
one of the Latin hymns and translated it into beautiful English
words. ' I also heard him give one retreat to the clergy of

2o6 LIFE OF FATHER THOMAS BURKE.
our diocese of Ferns,' writes no lenient critic — Canon Doyle,
of Ramsgrange. ' His eloquence quite fascinated me. I
could listen to him for hours,' The canon, in conclusion,
speaks of him as ' the gifted, the beloved soggarth, as he was
affectionately and familiarly called.' '
In 1862 Fr. Jandel, General of the Dominicans, made a
visitation to Ireland. One of the regulations then enforced
was the tonsure. Fr. Burke assured Fr. Callan, S.J., that to
him was due the restoration of the tonsure. Thus it would
appear that he urged it on Jandel ; but we have heard that
other Fathers were quite as anxious for it According to
Fr. Mercier, O.P., ' Fr. Burke was named by his Order
member of the Committee for the Revision of the Constitu
tions ; ' ^ but this cannot have been until the grand chapter
of 1871. From the time of Tertullian, Christians were exhorted to
avoid vanity in the arrangement of their hair, and the Fourth
Council of Toledo in 633 ordained that all priests should shave
their heads, leaving only a rim of hair behind. The Synod
of Worcester in 1240 prescribed that the tonsure should in
crease in size with each step of the priesthood ; adding a re
minder that St. Paul had made a complete clearance in this
respect. During earlier ages the use of" the tonsure became
the subject of angry controversy. Jerome took a middle
course and condemned eccentricity, both as regards long hair
and shaven heads.'
On June 30, 1862, Fr. Burke preached at the dedicarion of
a new church at Lanesborough. A like ceremony at Clondalkin
on August 10, 1S62, brought out his powers to such purpose
that Dr. Lynch, now Archbishop of Toronto, who ofliciated
with Dr. Cullen at the function, was so much struck by the
' It is pleasant to find that, unlike some other adv.anced politicians who ceased
to admire Fr. Burke when he failed to join their platform. Canon Doyle's appre
ciation of the man has continued undiminished.
" L'Annee Dominicaine, No. 279, p. 409.
^ Vide In Ezech. xliv.

PROFESSION OF A NUN. 207
man that the thought of getting him made a bishop in
Canada seems to have had its birth during the delivery of
this sermon. When we come to the year 1875 this point will
be more fully noticed.
The profession of a nun, at which Fr. Burke was so often
a conspicuous figure, is a very interesting spectacle. The
Bishop, seated on his throne, asks the novice if she is willing to
persevere in the observance of celibacy, and, on receiving her
acquiescence, he places her hands between his while she
solemnly pronounces her perpetual vows. The Bishop then
kneels in front of the altar while the choir chants the Litany
of the Saints. At a later stage the professed nun retires to a
robing room, and reappears, when the prelate puts the ring on
her finger and the veil on her head, together with a bridal
wreath. A profession cancels a promise of marriage, and
unless in the most extreme case, sanctioned by Papal dis
pensation, a girl once professed can never return to the world
or even enter another Order governed by milder rules. In
some Orders a black pall is spread over the prostrate nuns
while they make their vows. The formula of reception takes
place one year anterior to the profession. The postulant
kneels before the Bishop in a splendid bridal dress, and then
her hair is cut off. A beautiful sermon on Faith, Hope, and
Charity by Fr. Burke rendered memorable the reception
into the Convent of St. Clare, Harold's Cross, of Miss Whelan
by Dr. Meagher, V.G. This took place on December 19,
1862, and on February 10 following he preached on a similar
occasion. Dr. Meagher, as usual, officiating.
I accompanied Fr. Burke with a number of pious ladies to the
profession of a nun at a country convent (observes Canon Pope). They
seemed so subdued that he deemed it well to rouse them by some
fantastic performance. Reducing his height, he personated to the
hfe the tiny Vicar General, Dr. Meagher, in the act of receiving a
novice, and asking the solemn question, ' My child, are you  '
&c. The little falsetto voice in reply was inimitably natural, but
the fictitious Dr. Meagher was so perfect that I could have sworn it

2o8 LIFE OF FATHER THOMAS BURKE.
was he who spoke. On the same occasion he gave an admirable
imitation of the notes of a fiddle ^ la Paganini.
The solemn ceremony of a profession always wound up
with a dejeuner, which Fr. Burke never failed to make most
enjoyable by his exhaustless fun. One moment he was making
puzzles to amuse children, the next telhng some of the
strange stories which have been elsewhere described. Sir John
Lentaigne praised his sermons as very flowery. ' No wonder
I'd h^ floury' replied Fr. Tom ; 'wasn't my father a baker? '
Up to this period, but not after, Fr. Burke prepared his
sermons. Dr. MacNally, Bishop of Clogher, a prelate who
earned increased prestige from brilliant antecedents as head of
' the Dunboyne ' at Maynooth, paid Fr. Burke the compliment
of asking him to preach on the occasion of blessing a bell in
his diocese. Fr. Burke, to make his sermons as perfect as
possible, pressed into the service every point that could
enhance their effect ; and on receipt of Dr. MacNally's letter
he procured from Mr. O'Byrne the ' German Anthology of
Mangan,' merely to see Schiller's lines on the founding of a bell.
Dr. MacNally had long been famed as a rigid observer of mi
nute detail in all church ceremonials ; but in this instance he
innocently travestied a rite which under circumstances of less
diflRculty could not have failed to prove imposing. From the
following statement of the bare facts furnished in writing by
the highest ecclesiastical authority in the diocese it will be
guessed how much Fr. Burke made of the materials when at
Maynooth College, on a social occasion, he described the scene :
In the summer of 1861 (records the document before us) the
blessing of the bell of St Mary's Church, Clontibret, took place, the
officiating prelate being the late Most Rev, Dr. MacNally, who is
well remembered as a great stickler for the observance of the
liturgical rubrics. When the Bishop was equipped for the ceremony
he insisted on going aloft to the tower, where the bell had been
previously hoisted. Clad in cope and mitre, with pastoral staff in
hand, he proceeded to squeeze himself up a very narrow staircase and
afterwards to make the ascent of a high ladder, preceded and followed

BLESSING A BELL. 209
by a posse of priests and acolytes, including Fr. Tom Burke, who
was to preach the sermon of the day. The small chamber, already
half filled by the bell, was so crowded that one of the clergymen
unfortunately trod on the Bishop's toes, on one of which there was a
troublesome corn. The Bishop could not repress an audible ex
pression of pain, adding that there was no rubric for such acts.
Here the chanters intoned the proper Antiphon, but were
summarily pulled up by Dr. MacNally complaining that the note
was incorrect, and calling on Fr. Burke to set them right. Fr.
Tom then attempted the intonation, but he too was incontinently
silenced, the Bishop declaring that they were ' all wrong ! all wrong ! '
With admirable simplicity Fr. Burke requested his Lordship to give
them the proper note, whereupon the prelate made some audible
effort, and the whole affair proceeded as weU as could be under
trying circumstances.
There was one part of the performance which Dr. Mac
Nally did not silence — Fr. Burke's sermon. This mentioned
how God had commanded Moses to make trumpets of beaten
silver to announce the passing of the ark. Having eloquently
dwelt upon the second great purpose of the church bell, the
daily commemoration of the mystery of the Incarnation by
the sound of the Angelus, he said that in its familiar chimes
various emotions would be expressed. It would be busy
ringing on festivals. In the crisp air of Christmas it would
gladden their hearts. Easter would be ushered in by its joy
ous notes ; not only the feasts of the Church, but their own
joys and sorrows would find their voice in this tongue of the
Church. The glad young bride coming to put her virgin hand
in that of her husband, would rejoice to hear the bell telling
of two hearts made happy in God. When the aged lay on
the bed of sickness, feeling that the soul was ebbing into
eternity, while the terrors of judgment made the agony of
death well-nigh insupportable, the bell would toll its sad,
deep note, calling upon all who heard its voice to put up a
prayer to assist their dying brother ; and when they and their
children would be laid at the foot of the altar, while the
Church intoned over them the words, ' I am the Resurrection
VOL. I. ^

2X0 LIFE OF FATHER THOMAS BURKE.
and the Life,' the sad note of the bell tolling in its tower
would sound like a prayer that He might raise them up
again. He concluded by telling them to remember that the
bell would be consecrated by chrism and holy oil, that its voice
might go forth with the potency of God's blessing upon it to
dispel the evil phantoms of the air, to scatter the spirits of the
storm, to shield them from ' the business ' that walketh about
in the dark,' and to save their crops, flocks, and families from
any devastating angel that might spread its wings above them.
The MS. before us concludes with a scene hardly of
sufficient importance to print, but which perhaps ought not
to be excluded, coming from such a source. The Bishop and
Fr. Tom left the church together, and as they were taking
their seats in a carriage observed a cripple seated in a box on
four wheels drawn by a dog, and appealing loudly for alms.
' Where are you from ? ' asked Dr. MacNally. ' Galway, my
Lord,' he replied, while Fr. Burke's eyes sparkled to hear it.
' You should stay at home,' said the prelate. ' Your Holiness,
that wasn't the way the Apostles treated the poor cripple at
the door of the temple.' ' What did they do for him ? ' The
cripple said, after some hesitation, ' Well, your honour, if
they gave him nothing, I'm sure they did not take the nose
off him.' ' Good, my Lord,' whispers Fr. Tom ; ' that deserves
half-a-crown.' The Bishop took the hint, enjoining the man
to return to Galway as fast as he could.
' His favourite helps in the preparation of his sermons,'
writes his former novice, Fr. Power, ' were the works of St.
Thomas, Paolo Segneri, and John Henry Newman.' But
indeed there never was a man who had less need to prepare.
The digestive faculty of his mind was most remarkable. He
had but to skim hurriedly a chapter of the ' Summa,' and its
cream remained ready for immediate use. Proofs of his
marvellously retentive memory will be found in facts men
tioned later on by Fr. Power.
' Vide T>oua.y BiWe (Vsaha xc. 6). In the Anglican version 'pestilence' is
given instead of ' business,' and the Psalm is the gist.

MISSION WORK BEGUN. 211
Missionary work, on which Fr. Burke now more fully
entered, is an authorised crusade to some remote parish with
the object of arousing the tepid to ardour, and by a succes
sion of strong blows putting error to flight. He found that
sermons often left some snug corner of "the conscience un
reached, and hence the need of a series of appeals, prayers,
and meditations searchingly stimulative of penitential feelings.
Among the fruits of a popular mission are the rekindling of
faith, the relinquishment of old feuds, the repudiation of criminal
connections, the re-cementing of separated couples, and the
restitution of dishonest gains. It cannot be denied that some
persons confess to the missioner who might hesitate to di
vulge to the resident pastor ; and, moreover, missioners are
armed with powers to deal with cases ordinarily reserved
for episcopal absolution. If Fr. Burke found it necessary,
like St. Vincent Ferrar, to rouse by terrifying themes, he
never failed to reassure in the end with beautiful exordiums
on the mercy and love of God. These often brought forth
floods of tears. From the pulpit he would proceed to the
confessional, and there reap the rich harvest sown by his
eloquence. The mission generally ended with a renewal of
baptismal vows, and the dedication of the parish to his early
patron, the blessed Virgin Mary. All persons well'acquainted
with the scenes of these missions cannot fail to have been
struck with the changed face of family and parochial life by
which they are invariably succeeded.
On the Feast of the Conversion of St. Paul, Frs. Burke
and Prendergast, O.P., commenced a good work at Sheffield.
For the opening ot our new mission (writes Fr. Prendergast) a
Protestant church of some kind had been obtained at White Cross,
Sheflield. Fr. Burke and I went there for three weeks ; we had Mass
at five o'clock a.m. at the new place, and had evening service both
there and at the parish church daily. Immense crowds attended.
The mission began with a sermon from Fr. Burke, ex
plaining its objects and the means to reach them. There

212 LIFE OF FATHER THOMAS BURKE.
were three discourses each day. Fr. Burke preached on
death, judgment, hell, intemperance, cursing and blaspheming,
scandal, &c. The ninth sermon was one of crowning grandeur
— on Heaven^the last on Perseverance and the observance of
the Ten Commandments. Fr. Burke's first sermons at Sheffield
during the retreat were at a quarter before five A.M., and
even then (observes Brother Joseph) a large audience had assembled.
On the last night of the mission one discourse on the Apostles' Creed
lasted from seven to a quarter past ten. This was followed by some
splendid psalmody, in which all the congregation joined. Among
several remarkable conversions made was that of an infidel with a
wife and seven children. Previous to this change Burke told the clerk
that the chief diffictUty he found was in providing godfathers and
godmothers for so large a party. ' I'll supply all that,' said the
clerk, and of course he did so. A tall black man was one of the
most punctual and exemplary attendants. During the mission Fr.
Burke, in one of the more sensational sermons which missioners are
sometimes obliged to introduce, bemoaned that the devO had entered
into their midst All eyes were immediately turned to the spot where
the sable stranger stood, much to his own and the preacher's dis
comfiture. Fr. Burke was greatly pleased to see the fruit of his labours,
especially the number of converts made. Yet God did not
permit his joy to be full. Years after, when preaching in
America on the vice of intemperance, he told the following
painful incident :
I was on a mission, some years ago, in a manufacturing town in
England. I was preaching diere every evening ; and a man came to
me one night, after a sermon on drunkenness. He came in— a fine
man ; a strapping intellectual-looking man. But the eye was almost
sunk in his head ; the forehead was furrowed with premature wrinkles ;
the hair was white, though the man was comparatively )'oung. He
was dressed shabbily, scarce a shoe to his feet, though it was a nio-ht
of drenching rain. He came in to me excitedly, after the sermon. He
told me his history. ' I don't know,' he said, 'that there is any hope
for me ; but still, as I was listening to the sermon, I must speak to
you. If I don't speak to some one my heart will break to-nio-ht'
What was his story ? A few years before he had amassed in trade

THE SHEFFIELD MISSION. 2 1 3
twenty thousand pounds. He had married an Irish girl — one of his
own race and creed — young, beautiful, and accomphshed. He had
two sons and a daughter. For a certain time everything went on
well. ' At last,' he said, ' I had the misfortune to begin to drink :
neglected my business, and then my business began to neglect me.
The woman saw poverty coming, and began to fret, and lost her
health. At last, when we were paupers, she sickened and died. I
was drunk,' he said, ' the day that she died. I sat by her bedside.
I was drunk when she was dying.' ' The sons — what became of
them ? ' ' \Ye\\,' he said, ' they were mere children. The eldest of
them is no more than eighteen ; and both are now suffering penal
servitude.' ' The girl ? ' ' Well,' he said, ' I sent the girl to a school
where she was well educated. She came home to me at the age of
si.xteen — a beautiful young woman. She was the one consolation
I had; but I was drunk all the time.' 'Well, what became of
her?' He looked at me. 'Do you ask me about that girl?' he
said ; ' what became of her ? ' And the man sank at my feet ' God
of heaven ! She is on the streets to-night ! ' The moment he said
those words he ran out. I went after him. • Oh, no, no ! ' he
said ; ' there is no mercy in heaven for me.' He went away, cursing
God, to meet a drunkard's death. He had sent a broken-hearted
mother to the grave ; he sent his two sons to perdition ; he sent his
only daughter to be a living hell ; and then he died blaspheming God !
The Rev. J. P. Prendergast, who was his colleague in this
memorable mission, is now priest of St. Pancras, Lewes, and
has been kind enough to write down some details of small
incidents which grew out of it.
After the mission Fr. Burke and I went to see the cathedral at
York. When we had gratified our curiosity and had returned to the
railway station, and had taken our tickets for Dublin, we met one of
the English Dominican Fathers on his way from Newcastle to Stone
to assist next day at the consecration of Mother Margaret's new
church. He induced us to alter our intentions, and we went on with
him that night as far as Derby. We put up at an old English inn
near the Cathohc church. We could get but one room in which
there were only two beds, and, as we were three, it was clear that one
only could have a bed for himselfi It was my fortune to have the
bed, and Fr. Burke and the other arranged as best they could.
However, there was very litde time for sleep, owing to inexhaustible
gossip on old times with the Father from Newcasde, who was an old

2 14 LIFE OF FATHER THOMAS BURKE.
friend. I should have mentioned that soon after our arrival at the
inn we learned from the crowd and from the light in the windows
that there was something going on at the church. So we went over
and found that one of the Fathers from Haverstock Hill was con
ducting a short mission, and doing it all himselfi We called on the
parish priest. The Dominican Father had begun the evening service,
and was giving his instructions, after which he would preach, and
then give Benediction. Feather Burke's arrival was most opportune
to supply a sermon. The parish priest and the Father from New
castle attacked him on the subject, and although I never saw him so
unwilling to preach, yet he gave way, and the parish priest expressed
delight that there was such a treat in store for his people. Fr. Burke
robed himself and retired to a private room to put a few thoughts to
gether for the occasion, and we were saying what an agreeable surprise
it would give the congregation. Meantime the parish priest wrote on a
slip of paper and sent it out to the Father who was giving the retreat :
" Fr. Burke is here and will preach the sermon for you.' After a
few minutes the boy returned with the same slip, on the back of
which was written, ' Thanks ; I will preach myself I need not say
what confusion there was in the camp, and Father Burke was not
well pleased in being asked to make a fool of himselfi But he spoke
pleasantly of the incident after, and with the Pastor of Aries, said,
' He who preached himself did more than St. Paul did, who preached
Christ crucified.' Next day we went on to Stone, assisted at the
consecration of the church of the Bishop of Birmingham, heard the
Bishop of Northampton preach, was present at a grand entertain
ment in the Town Hall, and then returned to Ireland.
During the progress of the Sheffield mission, Fr. Burke
had recruited his energies at intervals by the strange expe
dient of making a puppet sailor dance for the housekeeper,
Mrs- Uttley, and Mr. Stephens, clerk of the church. This
performance was given on the kitchen flags, when by
some invisible thread he caused the automaton to dance
every form of jig and reel to the music of his own oral
whistle. Mr. Stephens became so much charmed by Fr.
Burke that he followed him to Ireland and entered under
him as a lay novice at Tallaght He is now well known as
Brother Joseph, attached to the Dominican house in Dublin.
It may be explained that, as female servants are ex-

MISSION AT MANCHESTER. 21 5
eluded from monasteries, all domestic services are dis
charged by lay brothers. The success of the rehearsals just
referred to led Fr. Burke to give on his return to Ireland
several performances of the dancing man. He originally got
it from a friend whom Fr. Burke always called ' Puss White,'
and who lived under the ' Hell Fire Club,' near Tallaght.
Between this wonderful story-teller and Burke the closest
intimacy subsisted. He had largely derived the tales
from his grandfather. Bumbo White, and T. O'Mara. Mr.
White tells us that the first time he introduced the dancing
man at a clerical gathering, a priest, utterly confounded by
the trick, and failing to make the automaton move on being
challenged, traced with his thumb a cross over the mysterious
thing — possibly not uninfluenced in his suspicion by the
locale from whence it hailed. The rapidity with which ' Puss
White ' could change his dress and assume strange characters
charmed the kindred spirit of our genial friar. White had
been at school with Gustavus V. Brooke, when he probably
first acquired his Thespian taste.
On Montpelier Hill, near Tallaght, stands the old struc
ture wherein the meetings of the ' Hell Fire Club ' once held
sway. Fr. Burke when one day taking his novices for a walk
over the hill showed them the house to which on a tem
pestuous night he had been summoned to the bedside of a
dying Christian. Their ramble becoming interrupted by a
shower, all entered this house for shelter, and Fr. Burke was
soon recognised with passionate exclamations of gratitude and
delight by the mother of his former penitent.
In May 1863, Fr. Burke entered on a mission at St.
Wilfrid's, Hulme, Manchester, in which he received most
valuable assistance from the Very Rev. J. T. Towers, now
Provincial O.P., and Fr. Albert Buckler, an eminent English
Dominican at Haverstock Hill. ' After this date,' writes Fr.
Towens, ' he gradually fell off from mission work, the calls
upon him for charity sermons becoming so incessant'

2l6 LIFE OF FATHER THOMAS BURKE.
When engaged in conducting those missions the voice of
the friar preacher reached many a seared conscience. Men
might be there who had committed sins worse than those
that brought the deluge of fire upon the dries of Pentapolis.
Such men were reminded that if they had violated the laws
of this worid as they had outraged the laws of God— if they
had insulted human society as they had insulted the Lord
Jesus— if their iniquities were only taken cognisance of by
an earthly tribunal— how heavily they would be dealt with.
They would perhaps be dragged from their firesides by the
arm of jusrice and taken publicly through the streets, every
eye peering curiously, every hand upraised. Possibly the
criminal might be flung into a prison, and, after days and
days of waiting and anxiety, again find himself in the open
court The world would be called on to bear testimony of
his crime. No feeling of his would be spared, nor durst he
shrink into a corner to hide his guilty head. In his transit to
the prison he might be exposed to the groans of the multi
tude previous to being disposed of as the world deals with its
criminals. But (he would sometimes add — substituting the lamb for the lion)
if this sinner appear before the Son of God and say, 'Saviour Judge,
let us enter into judgment,' Christ takes him by the hand, wards off
the crowd, brings him into a secret tribunal, calls no witnesses against
him, allows no finger of shame to be pointed, listens to what he has
to say against himself He says, ' Speak, my son, and speak freely.'
He speaks his deeds of shame, it is true, in the ears of man. That
man is there as the representative of the Lord Jesus, Whose mercy
he is about to minister. He hears the whispered word. It must not
be heard by the Angel of Mercy who is there, but only by the sinner
and the priest of Christ That word falls upon the priest's ear ; for
a moment it enters into his mind, and in a moment it passes
away — just as on a calm summer evening some person takes a
pebble and flings it into the bosom of a deep, placid lake ; for an
instant there is a ripple, the waters close, and no human eye shall
ever see it again. So, for an instant, the sound of the sin makes but
a ripple upon the mind of the priest, thrills for an instant, and passes
into the unfathomable ocean of the merciful heart of Christ The

ADVANT.-VGE OF CONFESSION. 217
waters of His mercy close over it, and that sin is gone — gone for
ever ! Not eye of angel, not eye of man, nor eye of God at the hour
of judgment shaU ever look upon it again ; for the blood of Jesus
Christ has fallen upon it and washed it away. How litde it costs the
priest to say, ' I absolve thee in the name of the Father, Son, and
Holy Ghost.' How little it costs the sinner! Scarcely a humilia
tion. If, indeed, a man had to proclaim his confession, and make
it publicly ; if a man had to make it before the faithful, on a Sun
day, as all the people come crowding in to Mass ; even then, if such
a confession would obtain pardon for me, great God, would it not be
a great boon to be able to purchase such a grace even at such a cost
— nay, even at the ruin of my character ? It would be cheap, con
sidering what I got in return. If the law of Almighty God said to
the sinner, ' I will bring thee to the stake — and only at the last
moment, when the last drop of life's blood is coming from that
broken heart — then, and only then, will I absolve thee.' Would it
not be cheaply purchased — this pardon of God, this grace of God,
this eternity of God's joy in heaven — even by the rendering of the
last drop of our blood ? But no ! Full of love, full of commisera
tion, Christ comes to us with mercy, sparing every feeling of the
sinner, making every diflftcult thing smooth, trying to anticipate, by
His sweetness, all the humiliation and all the pain, shrouding all
under that wonderful veil of secrecy which has never for an instant
been rent since the Church was founded ; and in the end it is the
only tribunal where, when a man is found guilty, the sole sentence
pronounced is one of acquittak In other tribunals he receives his
punishment. In that of penitence, all a man has to say is, ' Of
these am I guilty before my God, with sorrow I confess them ! ' The
only sentence is, 'You are acquitted ; go in peace.'
It was about this time that the Rev. J. P. Prendergast and
Fr. Burke conducted a mission for a fortnight at the parish
church, Navan.
But still more important work (writes Fr. Prendergast) was the
mission at Crosskeys, Co. Cavan, where with four other Fathers
we laboured for four weeks. We lodged at the house of a very
good old gendeman who was the cause of much amusement during
the mission, and who was a great admirer of the Sovereign Pon
tiff, and particulariy of Fr. Burke, but who very often failed to
carry his admiration so far as to go through snow and host about a
mUe to hear him. On these occasions he was always most anxious

2l8 LIFE OF FATHER THOMAS BURKE.
to cover his absence by marked praise of the sermon. When
we would be coming to his house from the chuich, no matter
what the time, he would meet us with a glass and the brandy
botde, and say, ' Well, now, Fr. Burke, you're ' lost ; a litde of
this wiU do you good.' Then, when each in turn dechned the at
tention, he would say, ' Ah, you are not wise ; ' and, taking it
himself, exclaim, ' Here's to the health of the good holy Father ! '
Particularly on the occasions when he remained at home he would
say on our return, ' By the virtue of my solemn oath (this was a
favourite expression), Fr. Burke, you are the greatest preacher in
Ireland.' When asked how he liked the sermon, he said, ' You sur
passed yourself to-day ; the devil such a sermon was ever preached
before in Ireland.' I need not teU you how Fr. Burke would adroitly
draw out the old gentleman, and what a constant source of amuse
ment all this was during our recreation and rest from our hard work.'
Fr. Prendergast adds that he has not an idea as to the
date of the mission at Crosskeys ; this will be found sup
plied in the following portion of the ' Recollections ' which
the Bishop of Kilmore has kindly placed at our disposal :
The Crosskeys mission, parish of Denn, diocese of Kilmore
(writes his Lordship), took place in October 1862. It may well be said,
without any reflection on the good zealous Fathers who were with him,
that Burke was indeed the very soul of it. The late Rev. Patrick
Gilroy was parish priest then of Denn, and lived in the remote
hamlet of Crosskeys. Gilroy was a low-sized, guileless man, who
had a very high idea of himself and his people, and who said a
thousand good things without being conscious of it. It is quite a
common thing in Kilmore yet to say, ' As Fr. Gilroy would put it.'
Burke enjoyed Gilroy very much, and drew him out wonderfully.
' I tell you, Fr. Burke,' said Gilroy, after the mission, ' it was the Denn
mission that made a man of you ; ' intimating that Burke had been
quite an obscure monk tiU he had the good fortune to be sent to the
Crosskeys mission. Gilroy ever after remained a 'character' in
Fr. Tom's eyes. Whenever he visited Kilmore afterwards he would
not be happy without Gilroy, and to see GUroy was enough to set him
off in a kink of laughter. In October 1868, Fr. Burke preached in
our Cathedral, in aid of the orphanage attached to Poor Clare Convent,
Cavan. Of course the sermon was a great success in every sense,
' Letter of the Rev, J. P. Prendergast, St. Pancras, Lewes, March 4, 1884.

BISHOP CONATY'S RECOLLECTIONS. 219
and a large party— lay and cleric— was invited to dinner, which
came off in the refectory of the school. As in duty bound,
according to the good old custom, I gave the health of the distin
guished preacher when the cloth was removed. Burke responded
in his own fehcitous way, beginning in a low tone, and looking very
serious all the while. As he got on with his speech, glancing down
to where Father Gilroy was sitting, he said that his sermon would
not have been half such a success were it not for the presence of the
good parish priest of Denn, whom he happened to see in the church.
The very sight of him had actually inspired him. GUroy's name was
almost as weU known in Rome as in Cavan ; for everywhere Burke
went he hung some racy anecdote on his name.'
' Denn's Theology ' was of course among the chaff with
which Burke plied poor Gilroy.
Fr. Burke took a special interest in the diocese of Kil
more. At one time the Bishop of Kilmore was the only
Catholic prelate in all Ireland.
The infirmities of Dr. Browne, the venerable occupant of
this see, led him in 1863 to call for the help of a coadjutor.
A feeling prevailed that his choice ought to fall on the great
preacher who had just won golden opinions in Cavan, and we
learn from the Galway priests that they were anxious to see
Burke wear its mitre. But Burke himself was more desirous
to wear the cap and bells for the amusement of his novices
in hours of play, and was sincerely happy when, on May 24,
1863, Dr. Conaty accepted the burden.
Canon Burke, che late Pastor of Saggard, was a man
of formal manners and aspiring social tendencies. He was
almost the only priest who attended the Viceregal levees, and
had the honour of receiving at his table the Commander
of the Forces, Lord Strathnairn, and the Chief Secretary
for Ireland. He liked ceremony, and expected, if he did
not openly require, its observance. Part of Tallaght was
under his jurisdiction. Canon Burke announced a visit to
' Letter of the Lord Bishop of Kilmore, Cullies Plouse, Cavan, to the Author,
May 6, 1884.

220 LIFE OF FATHER TPIOMAS BURKE.
the convent by command. Father Tom, with his usual love
of fun, organised a band of boys, who, as the parochus
advanced, struck up 'See, the conquering hero comes ! ' They
were not very conspicuously posted, and their instruments
seemed to consist of every imaginable sort, from the sack-
but to a jews-harp. A rather effective noise was produced and
favourably impressed the visitor, who, innocent of the science
of music himself, was easily played upon by others. What
seemed a fiddle, bagpipes, &c., were doubtless vocal sounds
produced by Fr. Tom himseifi The delicacy and danger of
the experiment gave additional zest to the performance of it.
This canon, irreproachable in the discharge of his priestly
functions, was even stern and sometimes querulous. Curates
regarded Saggard as Purgatory, and would have preferred to
receive an appointment to Siberia. One false note might
have betrayed the trick and led to irksome consequences.
The Rev. W. H. Anderdon, whose face was quite a sermon
in itselfi had been for some years a very popular preacher in
the church of the Catholic University, Dublin, Dr. Newman
being its rector. On the retirement of Fr. Anderdon to
England, to which he was naturally attached by birth and
belongings, for Dr. Manning was his uncle, Fr. Burke took
his place in the pulpit. Here he introduced that class of
discourse known as Conferences, whereby Lacordaire and
Monsabr6 had enchained audiences in Notre Dame. Fr.
Burke never saw Lacordaire ; but the Dean of the Cathohc
University, who had been listening to Lacordaire for years in
Paris, was greatly struck by Burke's resemblance to him as a
preacher. Lacordaire, he says, used such graceful action that
when his exquisitely fashioned hands would emerge from
beneath his habit all regarded it with pleasure ; and the same
remark applies to Fr. Burke. Our Dominican's Advent Con
ferences at this time, mainly on the Eight Beatitudes, have
been published in America. Of the second — one peculiarly
his own — he said :

ADVENT CONFERENCES. 221
The Christian must be not only a man of faith, living for Divine
purposes, influenced by supernatural motives, grasping at the in
visible beneath the forms of things that appear ; but he must also
be imbued with the virtue of meekness.
It is the opinion of a sound critic, Mr. W. K. Sullivan, then
Professor in the Catholic University, and afterwards President
of the Queen's College, Cork, that Fr. Burke's sermons at
this time greatly surpassed the orations which, when he
became more famous, he delivered in Cork.
He was now Prior of Tallaght, but his activity outside was
not hampered by the cares of government. From March 2
to 30, 1 863, we find him daily preaching in the church of
the Catholic University ; at other times attracting large
audiences in the old Dominican Chapel, Denmark Street.
Time was when from timidity or other causes he preached
with eyes shut. The face of each edified listener now became
familiar to him.
There is a third motive for our joy this morning. May I,
dearly beloved, in this, which I may call the closing day of our Lent,
congratulate those whom I see before me ! The constant attendance
of many amongst you during the last forty evenings has made your
faces famUiar to me. Over these countenances have I seen from
time to time the expression, now of sorrow, now of joy, but always
one of sympathy with Jesus Christ. Of this am I a witness, and on
this do I congratulate you. If it be true that the Christian man is,
indeed, a man in whom Christ lives, according to the words of the
Apostle, 'I live no longer, I, but Christ lives within me;' then,
according to His words, you are lost to yourselves, you are dead,
and your life is hidden with Christ in God. Ifi then, the Christian
man be the man in whom Christ fives, well may I felicitate you
upon every emotion of joy and of sorrow that has passed through
your hearts and over your faces during these forty blessed days ;
because these emotions were the gift of Christ, and the evidence of
the life of Christ in you, and of your familiarity with Christ's image.
May I congratulate you on a good confession and a fervent commu
nion ? May I, in heart and spirit, bow down before every man
amongst you to-day, as a man who holds in his bosom Jesus Christ ;
as a man whose heart is not an empty tomb, like that in the garden

222 LIFE OF FATHER THOMAS BURKE.
outside Jerusalem ; not occupied merely by an angel, but whose
heart is the sanctuary wherein the glorified Saviour dwells this day?
The Dominicans at Tallaght, unlike secular priests, recite
the Divine Office together in choir every morning ; but it occa
sionally happened that Fr. Burke, owing to special engage
ments, failed to join his brethren, and therefore was obliged
to read it alone. All priests are bound to repeat the Office
daily, under pain of mortal sin ; but among their various
duties it is not easy to grasp this observance at hours perhaps
best suited for its study. Hence it is that a priest engaged
in reading his Office in a train or along some rural road, as
he walks, is an object familiar among us.
Any one single passage of the Scriptures (observes Fr. Burke)
represents, in a few words, a portion of the infinite wisdom of God.
Consequendy, any one sentence of those inspired writings should
furnish the Christian mind with sufficient matter for thought for
many a long day. Now we priests are obliged, every day of our
lives, to recite a large portion of the inspired Word of God in the
form of prayer. Never was there a greater mistake than to suppose
that Catholics do not read die Scriptures. All the prayers that we
priests have to say — seven times a day approaching the Almighty 
are all embodied in the words of Holy Writ ; and not only are we
obliged to recite them as prayers, but we are also obliged to make
them the subject of our daily and our constant thought
Fr. Burke having been detained at a long church service
in Dublin, sought fresh air on the outside of the omnibus
which ran part of the way to Tallaght His Breviary was soon
produced, and he was deep in its contents when an eminent
manufacturer of aerated waters— an Evangelical  havino-
joined the other passengers on the top, felt privileged to
read him a lecture. 'The Lord tells us, sir,' he said,
' that when ycu pray you should not be as the hypocrites
who love to pray in public, and at the corners of streets,
that they may be seen by men. Now,' he added, ' when I
pray, I enter into my closet, and when I have shut the door.

POLEMIC BADINAGE. 223
I pray in secret,' alluding of course to our Lord's words
(St. Matthew vi. 6). Without looking up, Fr. Burke replied
aloud, ' Yes, and then you come on the top of an omnibus
and tell everyone all about it ! '
When they again met it was inside. Mr.  , on enter
ing, said, ' It's as hot as Purgatory.' A general titter followed.
' So you believe in Purgatory ? ' said Fr. Burke. ' Not I,
indeed,' responded the polemic disdainfully. Fr. Tom, with
a solemn face but a twinkling eye, retorted, 'Well, if you
won't believe in Purgatory you may go to hell.' For an in
stant the other waxed indignant, but, catching the real mean
ing of his reprover, laughed heartily. A new Prior, however,
who had succeeded Fr. Tom, and happened to be also in the
car, failed to see the wit of the alternative offered, and
enjoined him by his vow of holy obedience to be silent.
Fr. Burke's final interview with his tormentor belongs to a
more advanced period, but is inserted the more readily because
it furnishes an amicable sequel.
There was a novice who bggan his course with Fr. Burke
in 1857, but whose theological progress, owing to sickness
and other causes, was so much retarded that, when Fr. Burke
returned Prior to Tallaght, he found the same man still a
novice under him. Burke, chagrined by this and other wor
ries, one day sought the calming influence of the open air
by travelling on the omnibus. He again took out his book,
feeling that he was as much entitled to read travelling as the
man mentioned in the Acts who, ' sitting in his chariot, read
Esaias the prophet' He was again twitted by Mr.  ,
who, full of religious zeal, seemed constantly on the watch
for him. The friar paid no heed. At last, one remark
more pointed than the rest was followed by another to the
effect that Fr. Burke evidently did not know him. ' I know
you too well,' he replied. ' You are the windy water-maker.'
Mr.  replied, 'You are in anger with me, and if this
heavily laden 'bus were now to capsize, it would not be well

224 LIFE OF FATHER THOMAS BURKK.
for you.' Fr. Burke gave him his hand, and we believe that
they never met again.
To the last he was fond of the top of a tram bound for
some rural or marine suburb, and of returning by the same
conveyance. It required courage on his part to do this, for
some ascetics think that a position of such prominence is ill-
chosen by a priest. Fr. Burke was amused by an incident
which occurred at this time. The Vicar-General, afterwards
Cardinal MacCabe, observing Fr. Dan O'Keefe, of St Paul's,
perched in the situation described, wrote to ' Dear Keefe '
suggesting that in future he should travel inside the vehicle.
O'Keefe, who was a rough diamond, replied, ' Dear Cabe, I
have often seen you on the top of a horse. Get thee hence
forth inside the animal.'
Within the Order or outside it Fr. Burke's sense of the
ludicrous was ever sensitively ready to be tickled.
A big strapping fellow from Waterford (writes Fr. Power, one of the
novices) was presented for the reception of the habit. When led to
the altar steps by Fr, Burke (then Master of Novices), the postulant
was asked by the Provincial what religious name he desired to
assume In a strong thick brogue the good young fellow answered,
' Joachim, Father,' which he pronounced very empharicaUy, ' Choke
him. Father.' It went very hard on Father Tom to repiess a broad
smile at the idea suggested by the big lay brother.'
' The district round Tallaght was his world. Its pastor, who had done
good work in his day, had now become effete ; and this inertia greatly struck our
preaching Friar, so full of life and energy. This priest was informed by his
Bishop that really he must preach. Novices and others were amused by Fr.
Burke's portrayal of the old man trying to do so, but coughs and expectoration
were the result of the effort. The Archbishop told him to get a book and read
an Instruction to the People. Fr. Burke said that thereupon he bought an old
book called the 'Mirror of the True Religious; or, the Glories of the Mission.'
Our Friar created much amusement by personating the old pastor, doubled up with
lumbago, and reading aloud the 'Mirror,' whilst an acolyte held a candle to assist
him. ' St. Francis lived on bread and water ' — (groan) — ' and slept on the floor "
— (groan)— 'and when the saints had to do so much to save their souls, how much
more ought ye to do ? '
The reflections of the ' Mirror ' were marked by rigorism, and it was men
tioned that for a priest to break silence before Mass was a mortal sin, ' He did

THE MONTH OF MARY. 225
Tallaght in the month of May appears at its best.
Not a day now passed that he did not preach among the green
trees to the people, or address ' Ferverinos ' to his novices.
One of his sermons on Mary, delivered in America, glances
through a vista of the past :
Oh, when I think of the women that I have met in the dear old
land of faith ! the women oppressed from one cause or from another !
— some with sickness in the house ; some with, perhaps, a dissolute
son ; some with a drunken husband ; or t'Ue fear of impending calamity
— how often have I seen them coming to me in the month of
May, and, brightening up, say, ' Thank God, the month is come I I
know she in heaven will pray for me, and that my prayers shall be
heard !' And I have seen them so often come before the end of
the mouth, to tell me with joy in their eyes that the Mother heard
their prayer ; then was I reminded of the mysterious cloud that broke
out in the heavens and rained down the saving rain. One have I
before me, whom I knew and loved, a holy nun who for more than
fifty years had served God in angelic purity and heroic sacrifice.
For seven months she was confined to a bed of suffering that
deepened into agony. And during those months her prayer to God
was to increase her pain ; not to let her leave the world until one
whom she loved dearly, and who was leading a reckless hfe, should
be converted unto God. Weeks passed, and month followed
month, and frequently did I sit at the bedside of my holy friend.
That time she spent upon the cross, truly, with Christ. But when the
first day of May came I knelt down by her bedside, to cheer her with
prayer and sympathy. She said, ' I feel that the month is come that
wiU bring me joy. It is Mary's month, the month when prayer
grows most powerful in heaven.' Before it was over he for whom
she prayed -was converted to God. The sacrifice of suffering was
accepted, and she who began the month in sorrow ended it with joy.
His sacred graces are poured out at the instance of Mary's prayer.
They will produce to-day the flower and leaf of promise.'
As Fr. Burke's undying devotion to Mary is constantly
found asserting itself in his life, it may be well to inform some
not know till long after,' said Fr. Burke, ' that the book had been condemned by
the Council of Trent'
But there can be httle doubt that in all this he was amusing his novices with a
scene more likely to take place than one which had actually occurred.
I ' Divine Faith the Principle of Christian Life,' Brooklyn, Oct. 29, 1872.
VOL. I. Q

226 LIFE OF FATHER THOMAS BURKE.
readers who do not belong to his Church that it never ap
proached ' Latria,' or divine honoun Preaching at St. Vincent
Ferrer's, New York, on May i, 1872, he a.sked, ' Is it lawful for
you or me to kneel down and adore the Blessed Virgin Mary,
the mother of God ? No. Adoration belongs to God alone.'
He was never happier than when joining on Corpus Christi
in the splendid Office of the Blessed Sacrament — almost the
last work of Thomas Aquinas.
Not only must the grandeur and truth of their religion be ever
brought home to Catholics (says Fr. Burke), but their duties must be
constantly put before them, the laws of God and of the Church
explained to them in practical detail and homely example ; the
various emotions of joy and sorrow frequently aroused, conscience
kept alive by remonstrance and reproofi and appealed to by the
arguments of their faith ; error, danger, and sin detected and de
nounced ; access to the Sacraments rendered easy ; the services of
the Church made attractive ; and interest in the things of God
excited in the hearts of aU.'
The lay correspondent who has already given us a glimpse
of Fr, Burke at Tallaght writes that —
He was seen to even more advantage at what he called ' func
tions ' than in the pulpit — such as the blessing of the great beU at
Tallaght ; processions in the ' Friars' Walk,' where stUl stands the
granite socket of an ancient cross. At the May processions an altar
was erected beneath a canopy of trees on a natural eminence, to
which the Blessed Sacrament was carried and benediction given, the
priests and novices chanting litanies and little girls in white scattering
rose leaves. The people knelt on both sides of the ' Friars' Walk.'
I remember once a poetical friend whispering to me, ' See, the daisies
bend their heads as the procession passes, and now see, they bend
their heads the other way as it returns.' Fr. Thomas was a great
stickler for the minutife of the ' functions,' and if he could not have
them with all the pomp and observances of San Clemente or the
Minerva, he exerted himself unsparingly in trying to carry them out
even to the smallest detail (which he loved to tell had a deep mystic
meaning) with the means at his disposal. Fie pla3'fuUy told me that
he hoped he'd go to heaven some time, and that functions would be
continually going on there. Many a time in his poor little chapel at
' Sermon at Pro-Cathedral, DubUn, Nov. 27, 1878.

ST. MARY'S, TALLAGHT. 227
Tallaght he'd preach to his confraternities and small audience as
carefully, as fervently, and as earnestly as if his congregation were
vast, mixed, and critical. Unspoiled by fame, there was as litde
' self,' beyond his actual personahty, in the last sermon he preached at
Tallaght in 1883 as in the first in 1855. I would sometimes say a
flattering word to him after hearing one of these grand discourses,
and he'd reply, ' I suppose I am becoming a talking machine,' and
then very quickly change the subject to something pleasant and not
over-profound ; then there would be the merry laugh and passing
jest, bright as the flash of the firefly.
This, however, anticipates. Tallaght is a secluded spot, and
somewhat inaccessible to visitors. Our correspondent's de
tails, though trivial, may be given, because the outer world
knew nothing of the scenes he described. During the delivery
of the discourses to which he above refers, Fr. Burke noted
every face to such purpose that when he next saw some
cloistered sisters whom he higli!!^ esteemed he would amuse
them by mimicking every yawn, every squint, every wheezy
cough that marked his lowly audience. To another favoured
few he depicted one ragged old crone in the body of the
chapel, who never ceased scratching her chest and diving her
hand into the same region to bring forth a lozenge which she
placed in her mouth. The same crone one day, in her ad
miration of the preacher, offered him, as he left the chapel,
some of these sweetmeats.
At St Mary's, Tallaght, a pyramid formed from the
vertebrs; of a whale adorned one of the wide walks. It was a
legacy from the Protestant archbishops who had lived there.
Towards the close of one Lent, when people were beginning
to tire of fish diet, a party of visitors turned in to inspect
the fine grounds attached to the convent.
They came upon Fr. Burke, who was strolling along in a meditative
mood (writes the Rev. G. D. Power). ' Father,' asked one, ' would you
be so kind as to tell us what those huge bones represent ?' ' Certainly,
ma'am. Those are the remains of the Wonderful Whale which Jonas
swallowed — a terrible fellow for fish.' Not one of the party noticed
the inversion of the Bible story. Q 2

228 LIFE OF FATITER THOMAS BURKE.
The following, given on the authority of a priest who
witnessed the incident, reminds one of the acts recorded of
Lacordaire. We tell it with hesitation ; but we feel fortified
by the words of the Pere Chocarne, O.P., the biographer of
Lacordaire :
Ought we not simply and frankly to tell the truth at all risks ?
... It seems worthier of the man whose victories we are relating.
Why should we not now have the courage to tell and the public to
hear of those things which he had the courage to do ?
At a raffle held for a charitable purpose the prize offered
was a silver teapot. During the drawing the name of a rich
priest peeped forth as the winner, and Fr. Burke, on the spur
of the moment, said, ' Oh, what does he want with it .' — draw
again.' Late that night the novices heard loud knocks, and
these were to summon them to an adjoining room, in order
to hear an avowal which their master wished to make. He
then publicly reproached himself with what he had done, and,
kneeling down, required the novices to approach him in suc
cession, and for his penance and humiliation to place their
right foot upon his neck.
From ' grave to gay,' was his dail}' programme.
From every class may be gathered traits of the man.
A gardener at Tallaght tells that on one occasion after
Father Tom had got his tonsure shaved, and was leaving
the barber's house, he met at the door a swain who wanted
to get his hair dressed for a walk with his sweetheart.
' Take care how you go in there, or you may be treated bar
barously,' Fr. Burke said. ' See what he has just done to me.'
The youth, scared by the shorn spot to which Fr. Burke
pointed, went away resolving to make his conquest without
the vain aid he had contemplated.
A reporter, gifted with graphic power in description, but
who had never mastered the science of stenography, had long
been attached to a leading journal. Whenever Fr. Burke
preached he waited on him with a request to commit to

DANIEL IN TI-IE LIONS' DEN. 229
writing an abstract of his sermon. A brother Dominican has
often seen him start, when prostrate after the labours of the
day, on hearing the announcement that Mr.  was below.
He would rather make a pilgrimage with peas in his shoes
to Lough Dearg than re-travel with pen the ground orally
gone over ; ' it took more out of him,' he said, ' than half
a dozen sermons.' But he was so amiable that he would
generally do violence to his feelings and act as desired. It
was about this time that the services of Father Burke were
enlisted to preach at St. Catherine's, Meath Street, on the
occasion of opening a new organ. A most interesting sermon
was expected, and Fr. Burke had previously promised to pre
pare a vigorous outline for the reporter. The discourse
surpassed expectation, and at its conclusion the preacher was
informed that the pressman awaited the MS. But Fr. Burke
had forgotten all about it, and declared to his dismay that he
could not possibly find time to supply it even then. Matters
were beginning to look awkward, when the Rev. James Daniel
undertook to represent to the preacher that if no report ap
peared next day it would occasion comment and possibly cost
the reporter his place. ' I have now to go to Rathfarnham to
hear the confessions of the nuns,' replied Fr. Burke, ' and as I
must return here by six to meet the parish priest and his guests
at dinner, you will see that with every disposition to oblige
it is wholly impossible.' The tact of Fr. Daniel smoothed
the difficulty. He proposed to follow Fr. Burke by car to
Loretto, and there to take down from his lips a rcchaitffe of
the sermon that had just delighted Dublin. The preacher
assented. Fr. Daniel repaired to Rathfarnham. There, in a
few detached intervals between the confessions he heard, and
the whispered instructions offered, Fr. Burke, in a room
usually allotted to his use, re-delivered to empty chairs the
coveted oration. Next morning ' Fr. Burke's last sermon,'
strengthened in its process of regeneration, was duly given
to the world.

230 LIFE OF FATHER THOMAS BURKE.
' I heard something in your last sermon which I never
heard before,' a prelate once said ; but when asked what it
was, replied, ' I heard the clock strike twice.' Instead of
delicate hints like this it is customary in some churches to
sound an alarm bell whenever any of the curates whose turn
it was to preach exceeded the limits prescribed by the Council
of Trent. On the occasion of one of Burke's finest sermons
in Meath Street, an active cleric, opining that he had spoken
long enough, disconcerted everyone, except the preacher, by
sounding the alarm.
He had been advertised to preach at Blackrock, near
Dublin, and, being the season when people frequent the seaside,
a great audience gathered. The hour arrived, but not the
preacher. At last a carriage dashed over the gravel into the
chapel-yard. Fr. Burke hastily explained how he had been
finishing a retreat at Rathfarnham. But a bishop who offi
ciated at a function with which it wound up had illustrated the
saying, ' Great people move slowly.' And had not Mr. Talbot
Power placed his blood horses at Fr. Burke's disposal there
would have been no sermon at Blackrock that day.
In a small bright room off the Loretto Chapel, Fr. Burke
heard for many years the confessions of the nuns. He sat in a
plain oak chair with his back to what was seemingly a partition,
but which consisted of a cross-barred brass lattice, within which
was stretched and secured a large sheet of green silk. Through
this rigid barrier the person who knelt behind could not be
recognised. The community embraces at least one hundred
nuns and novices. Three whispered words from each ' peni
tent'— as even saints in confession are technically styled 
sufficed to tell Fr. Burke which of his spiritual children was
there. Each particular case, with all its little joys and
sorrows, he knew as thoroughly as though it were his own ;
and the aged nun who told us this adds that in six words he
was able to afford as much consolation and counsel as would
take any ordinary confessor half an hour.

231

CHAPTER VIL
CARDINAL CULLEN AND COMEDY.
It was about this time that Fr. Burke first undertook the
perilous game of mimicking Cardinal Cullen. On the first
occasion that he attempted it he was rather taken aback by the
Cardinal suddenly coming behind him, asking, ' Whose speech
was this ? ' Fr. Burke in reply muttered something about the
Bishop of Peterborough. 'And what does he say?' 'He
says he has got no dogma, my Lord.' ' ' And he's right,'
proceeded the Cardinal, turning away satisfied. Later on his
Eminence became so fond of Burke that the latter could take
what liberties he liked with him. ' Come up here, Fr. Burke,
and tell some of your funny stories,' was almost a stereo
typed invitation when dinner and grace had concluded. But
Burke held his head higher than that of the mere Court jester ;
and his opinion was often invited on questions of gravity.
Fr. Burke, in his panegyric on Cardinal Cullen — at the Pro-
Cathedral, Dublin — described ' his days spent in labour of
mind and body with scarcely a shadow of relaxation, nights
of which the greater part was given to toil, prayer, and study.'
And in the same sermon he referred to 'his cheerfulness and
joyousness, which is the inheritance of the pure of heart.'
Fr. Burke would sing for the Archbishop several songs,
part of whose piquancy was due to the fact that the author
' Fr. Burke, in his lecture on ' The Promise of Christ Fulfilled,' says that
the bishop's words were, ' It is the proudest boast of our Church of England that
she has no dogma ' — that is to say, no fixed form of opinion. ' I do not harbour a
thought, much less express it,' added Burke, 'which would be painful or dis
respectful to any man.'

232 LIFE OF FATHER TPIOMAS BURKE.
always refused to supply a copy of the words. These included
' The Lower Castle Yard,' and a song illustrating the results
of a proselytising lady's crusade. At Kingstown there is
an institute called ' The Bird's Nest ' :
Her child she sold for paltry gold.
To Kingstown he did go, ma'am,
From the mother's breast to the vulture's nest.
The robin wiU soon be a crow, ma'am.
Another lyric was devoted to recording the vicissitudes of
a cook, ' Hanna McGorman.' This wild doggerel was set to
a most peculiar tune which seemed to include three airs. In
sineing- it Fr. Burke was at his best. The climax went on to
record, if we correctly remember :
As she rode into Tralee town
Upon a horse of high renown.
The night being dark she sliddered down
And fell behind a tradesman.
One evening Dr. Cullen, in his usual matter-of-fact
manner, asked, ' And what became of her then ? ' ' Oh, she
went into the workhouse and died, my Lord.' ' I hope she
received the last rites of the Church,' the Archbishop said, in
a half-abstracted way, and true to ofiftcial instincts. Having
heard ' Hanna McGorman ' on a subsequent occasion sung,
he said, ' That is a very strange song ; it has neither beginning
nor end to it.' All who knew this great hierarch will pardon
these traits of his simplicity.
The song called ' The Lower Castle Yard,' which Fr.
Burke used to sing for Cardinal Cullen, was written under the
following circumstances. A printer of Quilp-like aspect, named
Nugent, published for many years in Cook Street an almanac
highly seditious in tone and filled with strictures on Dublin
Castle, the seat of Viceregal government. He was at last
summoned to show cause why information should not be
taken against him, and returned for trial. Then it was that

PRACTICAL JOKES. 233
the melancholy muse was wooed by a supposed .street ballad-
singer. ' Oh, Wirra ! Wirrasthrue,' says she,
'Sure Dublin's noblest bard
Is tuck before his tyrants
In the Lower Castle Yard.'
The prisoner's counsel, Mr. Curran, however, having offered
to give sureties for his client's appearance if the Crown desired
to continue the prosecution, the proposal was agreed to, and
Mr. Porter, the police magistrate, dismissed the case.
So good luck to Frank Thorpe Porter,
That expounder of the laws,
Likewise to Adye Curran,
Who was counsel in the cause. ,
They tanned the hide of long Whiteside
And did him disregard,
And freed our printer from his fangs.
In the Lower Castle Yard.
A Viceregal A.D.C. drove up to Nugent's door in Cook
Street, and asked for a copy of this song. ' Go to  ,' was
the reply, naming a region even less inviting than Cook
Street. ' I that have defied three Governments in their
efforts to snuff me out, am I to be bearded in my den by a
flunkey like you ? '
Authentic stories are told of Fr. Tom's practical joking,
before which the pranks of Hook and Lever pale. An
American Bishop arrived at Cork in the midst of the fuss
incidental to the opening of a new bridge. Travelling by rail
to Dublin, desiring information regarding the country through
which he passed, and having but a few days at his disposal to
see it, his Lordship addressed himself to a solemn-looking priest
who sat opposite. This was Fr. Burke, and the opportunity
for a practical joke was too tempting to resist. ' Yonder,' he
said, ' is the Gap of Dunloe, to the left is the Giant's Cause
way, with its endless pillars of basalt ; Vinegar Hill rises to

234 LIFE OF FATHER THOMAS BURKE.
the right, and between its base and the Sugar-loaf the waters
of Lough Neagh stretch forth their broad expanse of blue.'
The Bishop's eyes glistened as they followed with vivid in
terest the storied panorama. A .sheet of water was pointed
out as Killarney, and, when passing a bog on which a ray of
sickly sunshine fell, the Bishop, in reply to a polite query, was
told, ' Oh, that is the valley lay smiling before me.' ' And
these military,' said the Bishop, ' how is it that at every
station we pass a detachment is drawn up ? ' Fr. Burke con
veyed that it was to do his Lordship honour, though the real
fact was that the Viceroy had been expected to open with due
pomp the new bridge in Cork. On they went, travelling ' from
pole to pole,' until, entering the Archdiocese of Cashel, a
castle caught the Bishop's eye. ' That, my Lord, is the
Castle of Thurles,' said Fr. Burke, as indeed it was, 'the
great stronghold of the Cullens in days of yore,' which of
course it was not. ' The patrimony of Thurles is still held by
the present representative of the race, Paul Cullen.'
'And that structure crowning yonder hill,' said the Bishop,
' pray what might that be ? ' ' The hill and hall of Tara.'
' Wonderfully good state of repair,' said the Bishop. ' Yes—
we wish to preserve such things as historic memorials.' It
was the workhouse.
So charmed was the stranger that he ascribed to some
more than blessed accident the good fortune which brought
him face to face with so bright a cicerone, and when at last they
were compelled to separate, his expressions of gratitude were
loud and warm. ' To whom am I indebted for so much
pleasure and information ? ' said the prelate. ' Fr. Amherst,'
was the meek reply. Meanwhile his Lordship, on arrival in
Dublin, was asked by Cardinal Cullen how he liked Cork and
such glimpses of the country as he had been able to obtain.
He replied that he had already seen every object of interest
in Ireland, including the patrimony of the Cullens, and that
he owed all to the assistance of a priest whom he had

AN AMERICAN BISITOP HOAXED, 235
casually met ' I suspect I know the gentleman,' said
Cardinal Cullen. The version usually given of this story
goes on to say that presently the door opened, and ' the Rev.
Thomas Burke ' was sonorously announced, while almost at
the same moment the welcome news that dinner was served
averted the awkwardness of a presentation.
Some say that their second meeting took place not in
Dublin, but the following year in Rome during the Vatican
Council. The American Bishop had felt deeply hurt by the
trick ; and Cardinal Cullen, whether to reconcile the two men,
or for the humour of the thing, brought them together.
' Think not my spirits are always as light,' was as true in
Burke's case as in Moore's. Their second meeting is said to
have been one of the few instances in which Burke collapsed,
though he was afterwards able to amuse social audiences with
a graphic account of the whole adventure. He left Cardinal
Cullen's table early, whispering to a friend that this was about
the most practical retreat he had ever conducted. It was Fr.
Burke's fate to meet this prelate again in America, and we
regret to add that a reconciliation never became complete.'
Burke on another occasion, when travelling by rail from
Dublin to Cork, personated a German professor of languages,
and in that character conversed all the way with some
affable cosmopolites.
Fr. Burke one day observed in a toy-shop a demi-mask
so like the Pere Jandel, Master-General of his Order, that
he at once secured it. A pair of spectacles increased the
resemblance ; and when a Fr. Villaraso, O.P., visited Tallaght,
Fr. Burke entered the room where he sat, and, personating
the general, conversed with him for some time in French
without awakening suspicion. On another occasion, at night,
a lay brother in charge of the hall door escorted the fictitious
general downstairs, and held a light to show him the way.
' The above is compiled from the recollections preserved by various priests who
heard Burke himself tell the story.

236 LIFE OF FATHER THOMAS BURKE.
Some of the greatest minds have not hesitated to con
coct similar amusement In the ' Life of the Rev. Sydney
Smith' ' such things maybe found ; and many pracrical jokes
are recorded as having been played by Sir James Mackintosh,
Dickens, and Moore— not to speak of Hook and Lever.
From what has been already stated, it hardly needs to
say that Cardinal Cullen and Burke continued good friends.
For many years no banquet took place at the Archiepiscopal
Palace which Burke was not asked to grace and enliven.
The Cardinal liked genius and wit in a priest, provided that
he who bore both was a humble man. Swagger he snubbed.
But Burke was humility itselfi and innocent as a child. The
endless adulation he received only made him think the less of
himselfi In this fact is found the secret of Cardinal Cullen's
affection for him. This prelate, borne down with care, worry,
and work, as he often was, found it a real relief to listen
to Fr. Tom pour forth his exhaustless stream of humour ;
and so intimate did they become that many persons have
seen Burke mimic him in his own presence. This may
have been permitted for another reason besides that found in
' Lady Holland describes Sir James Mackintosh bringing with him as a guest
to tlie Rev. Sydney Smith's a young Scotch officer. Sir James passed off the
future Canon of St. Paul's as Sir Sidney Smith, the hero of Acre. ' Giving
Mr. Smith the hint, he instantly assumed the military character, performed the
hero of Acre to perfection, fought all his battles over again, and showed how he
had charged the Turks, to the infinite delight of the young Scotchman, who was
quite enchanted with the condescension of "the great Sir SuJney, " and to the
torture of the other guests, who were bursting with suppressed laughter. Nothing
would serve the young Highlander but setting off at midnight to fetch the piper
of liis regiment to pipe to " Sir Sudney," who said he had never heard the bag
pipes ; upon this the parly broke up instantly, for Sir James said his Scotch cousin
would surely cut his throat if he discovered his mistake. A fe.v days afterwards
Sir James Mackintosh and his Scotch cousin met Mr. Sydney Smith with his wife
on his arm. Pie introduced her, upon which the cousin said in a low tone, " I did
na ken the great Sir Sudney was married." " Why, no," said Sir James, a little
embarrassed, "not ex-act-ly — married —only an Egyptian slave he brought over ;
Fatima — you know." Mrs. Smith was long known in the little circle as Fatima.'
Moore's Diary (v. 300) describes the subsequent Chief Justice Doherty and
Sir 1'. Crampton, armed with squirts, lying in wait until the coaches were starting,
Crampton saying, 'Reserve your fire till the coachman says "AU right!" and
then I'll take the front outside passengers and you the hind ones, '

THE ROMAN DENTIST. 237
the winning humility of the man. It is related in one of Fr.
Segneri's sermons that a grand cavalier of Lombardy was
stalking through the streets of Milan, when a snow-ball
struck him. The blood mounted to his cheeks, and, grasping
his sword, he turned to resent the insult But, finding that it
came from a lady whom he had known and loved, he was
quite flattered by the attention.
Canon Walter Murphy was a man so precise and natty
that Fr. Tom in his stories often made him the polished peg
whereon to hang them. Archbishop Cullen, from his long
residence in Italy, -was always amused by Fr. Burke's pictures
of Italian life, including that of the quack dentfist from
Tuscany, who with falsetto voice and bray of trumpet drives
down the Piazza di San Agnesi at Rome, and implores all
sufferers to submit to his muscular arm. Burke has described
before a roomful Canon Murphy sitting down in the piazza
and abandoning himself to the small mercies of the dentist,
who meanwhile would try to encourage his patient by ex
hibiting a bag crammed with trophy tusks, including the
tooth of Melchisedech. The dialogue in mingled Italian
and French was very comically given. At last Burke, start
ing up, would get behind the Canon's chair, and, holding his
chin, seem to extract the peccant member. The glitter of a
dessert knife suggested a forceps, and at last the climax came
in the exhibition of something like a tusk, but which was
part of the ivory handle, disclosed by sleight of hand while
the rest lay concealed. Once, when asked to give this per
formance, he complied, saying that ' he was an old hand at the
stump' If no one chanced to be present on whom he cared
to operate, he used a loaf of bread as the skull, previously
surrounding it with a napkin.
This was a performance for which Fr. Tom was often
asked. Owing, however, to the exhaustive style in which he
gave it, the effort proved a more serious tax on his strength
than a Good Friday sermon.

238 LIFE OF FATHER THOMAS BURKE.
But once begun (writes an English Dominican), Fr. Burke in his
excitement has been known to seize the first head which came to his
hand, and he had been operating on an eminent Cardinal for a
minute before he became fully alive to the temerity of his act ;
but his Eminence took the thing well, and laughed as heartily as
any of them.
When the dentist's patient was a willing confederate, it
always bettered the effect Fr. Burke said that an Hon. and
Right Rev. Prelate was his best ally, because he always
knew the right moment to scream.
Among other Italian studies was that of the Improvisatore ;
the man playing on the mandoline ; and the Roman barber.
Fr. Burke, as he put his dinner-napkin round the neck of some
willing victim and feigned to shave him, accompanied the
operation with an oral torrent of news about the' Pope and
cardinals — all, of course, in the vernacular tongue. But his
repertoire included local portraits too.
Some years ago a blind beggar and his dog daily took up
position in Nassau Street, Dublin. The man played doleful
airs upon a tin whistle, and the dog held in his mouth a small
bag for coin. ' Tip ' was quite as great a character as his master.
Burke amused social circles by portraying both. Some of
the time he was posed as the dog begging, his hands hanging
down like paws, his face now one of perfect canine expres
siveness, and he did not hesitate to hold between his teeth
the little skull-cap of his Order. Next moment he chano-ed
into the blind man, discoursing music from a flute.
Another mimicry was that of Zozimus. But Burke had
never seen Zozimus, and his performance, however pleasant
was merely an imitation of an imitation. Fr. Tom was o-reatly
amused at seeing the thing done by a brother humourist, and
in this instance the pupil surpassed the master.
Zozimus was the sobriquet of a ' beggar ' vocalist and
lecturer named Moran, who thirty years ago boasted that he
walked in the footsteps of Homer, and was as well known in

ZOZIMUS. 239
Dublin as Nelson's Pillar. What old cirizen does not re
member that tall, gaunt, blind man, dressed in a heavy long-
tailed coat and a dinged high hat, armed with a blackthorn
stick secured to his wrist by a thong and finished by an iron
ferule ? His upturned face displayed the whites of sightless
eyes ; his boldly marked facial muscles gave decision to his
aspect ; his guttural voice often highly sonorous — his Dublin
brogue, rich and mellifluous — accompanied by a strange lisp on
special words — tempted mimics to go and do likewise. Even
ing after evening Zozimus made his pilgrimage through the
streets, advancing with slow and measured steps, and halting
at intervals to collect in a hat, whose crown frequently let coin
escape, the alms of the faithful. The dirty man often seemed
ill at ease during his recitals, and by way of explanation said,
' My buzzom friends have become my backbiters.' His
great popular recitation was ' The Life, Conversion, and Death
of St. Mary of Egypt, who was discovered in the Wilderness
in the fifth century by the pious Zozimus.' This extra
ordinary poem, compiled from the 'Acta Sanctorum,' was
written in the last century by Dr. Coyle, Bishop of Raphoe,
and opened with some notice of the imperial throne of
Theodosius, a holy hermit in Palestine —
Whose shining virtues and extensive fame
The world astonished — Zozimus his name.
Other versions of the poem were given by our Dublin street
bard, including —
On Egypt's plains, where flows the ancient NUe,
Where ibex stalks, and swims the crocodUe.
And which in due time became most sacrilegiously parodied.
Not the least amusing part of the man's recital had
been its frequent interruption by 'jackeens,' and by his own
threats to ' cut the shins from undher them if they didn't stop
their irreverent devarshion.' When making a halt, he would

240 LIFE OF FATHER THOMAS BURKE.
cry, ' Gather round me, good Christians. Am I standin' in
puddle ? ' They would lead him to a dry spot ; but too often
tricks were played which again made him threaten, ' If you
don't give over I'll leave some of yez a case. You all remem
ber what St. Paul said in his Epistle to the Romans (for he
never wrote to the Protestants) : " A halfpenny won't make
you or break you." ' He would then resume his 'full, true,
and particular account of the career, severe penance, priva
tions, and miraculous conversion of St. Mary of Egypt —
blessed be her holy name.' '
Fr. Burke would sometimes change to another well-known
beggar by pulling down over his eyes his small skull-cap to
represent a shade, and grasping by both hands a blackthorn
stick. At other times types of character rather than indivi
duals were depicted, including news-boys shouting in the
streets exaggerated versions of alleged sensation incidents,
with which Dr. Cullen's name somehow generally got
mixed up.
Gloomy men condemned P"r. Tom's exhaustless mirth.
They failed to see the motives that prompted it and the
benefits it produced. Such men should weigh the words of
him who said :
I know of nothing equal to a cheerful and even mirthful con
versation for restoring the tone of mind and body, when both
have been overdone. Some great and good men, on whom very
heavy cares and toils have been laid, manifest a constitutional
tendency to relax into mirth when their work is over. Narrow minds
1 Zozimus had been always a favourite ' part ' with local wags, and it is on
record that a sham ' Zoz ' once took his rounds on the same night as the real man
and created quite a sensation on Essex Bridge, where both met and their sonorous
tones mingled, to the confusion of their respective followers. On this occasion
the real man called the other an 'impostherer,' but the latter gave back the
epithet, and touchingly complained of the heartlessness of mocking a poor dark
man. Words ran high, and the sham ' Zoz ' said, ' Good Christians, just give me a
grip of that villain, and Fll soon let him know who the real " impostherer " is.'
Then pretending to give his victim a ' guzzler,' he pressed some silver into his
hand and vanished.

TITE CARDINAL AND COMEDY. 24 1
denounce the incongruity ; large hearts own God's goodness in the
fact, and rejoice in the wise provision made for prolonging useful
lives. Mirth after exhaustive toil is one of nature's instinctive efforts
to heal the part which has been racked or bruised. You cannot too
sternly reprobate a frivolous hfe ; but if the hfe be earnest for God
or man, with here and there a layer of mirthfulness protruding, a soft
bedding to receive heavy cares which otherwise would crush the
spirit, to snarl against the sports of mirth maybe the easy and useless
occupation of a small man, who cannot take in at one view the whole
circumference of a large one.
Years went on. The Cardinal drudged through his daily
toil, and the brilliant Dominican stood at his side. We well
remember that during the distribution of prizes at the
Carmelite College Fr. Burke whispered his jokes to such
purpose — especially when punning on the name of one
applicant — that his Eminence was unable fromi laughing to
articulate the formal words which it became his duty to
offer. An alderman was fond of giving full-dress soirees musi-
cales. Their great attraction was Fr. Burke, but too soon came
his whispered adieu, saying it was time for the Cinderellas to
leave. On one occasion here he gave, with other things,
imitations of a mendicant family whom he had often heard
sing in the streets of Rome. The voices of father, mother,
and daughter, the last a real alto, were powerfully given,
accompanied by the twang of three distinct instruments on
which they played. The father's blindness Burke imitated by
throwing his eye-balls seemingly into the back of his head,
and exhibiting while he sang nought but whites.
He also often amused the Jesuit Fathers with these freaks,
and they assure us that 'in portraying the singing family,
and especially in the change of features, one could almost
swear that several persons were engaged in giving the per
formance.' Another was that of a troubadour serenading his
love. Near the convent in which some years of bis life were
spent in Italy lived a Juliet, who was occasionally brought to
VOL. I. R

242 LIFE OF FATITER THOMAS BURKE.
her casement by the ' Com' e gentil ' of a love-sick swain. It
was a rich scene when Burke, at some clerical party, struck
up on a tongs or bread-basket, if no guitar was at hand, a
' tum-tum' accompaniment to his bursts of passionate melody.
These things are nothing when told in print. All their
merit was due to Burke's marvellous mobility of features
and play of hands, not to speak of his ventriioquial gifts.
But some of his friends expect that a record of them should
be made, and we pretend to give little more than a dry list.
Among the songs that Fr. Burke sang at this time were
' Finegan's Wake,' ' Scroggins's Ghost,' and the ' Galliant
Hussar.' The Irish melodies, of course, had their turn ; but
he was equally good at English lyrics, and nobody surpassed
Fr. Tom in the feeling and force with which he rendered
' Tom Bowling ' and 'All's Well'
When Prior of Tallaght, he was very intimate with a
family who lived at Ardavon, a picturesque retreat over
hanging the river Dodder. Its proximity to Loretto made
it specially convenient to him. His rule rarely allowed him
to dine out, but his evenings were frequently given to the
society of that genial family. Here he would sing, both in
comic and sentimental vein, accompanying himself on the
piano with a touch worthy of the Abbe Liszt. One of the
best of the more touching lyrics was, ' What are the Wild
Waves saying ? ' — suggested by the story of Paul Dombey.
When the hbretrist of 'Parience' introduced that mar
vellous litany of jarring and incongruous names, including
Thomas Aquinas and Anthony Trollope, the association was
not so absurd after all. If Fr. Burke, at Tallaght, gave his
mornings to Thomas Aquinas, he gave his evenings to
Anthony Trollope. His favourite story was ' Barchester
Touers,' -which the novelist himself used to tell had been
written entirely in the train. But the ' Ingoldsby Legends,'
by the Rev. R. H. Barham, was his sovereign antidote for
blue devils. How often has he amused his friends, and

GENERAL LITERATURE READ. 243
sometimes his novices, in their hours of play, by reading for
them, with rare elocurionary tricks, ' The Jackdaw of Rheims,'
' The Lay of St. Aloys,' ' The Legend of Palestine,' ' Roger
the Monk,' or ' The Ingoldsby Penance,' and ' My Lord Tom
Noddy I ' He greatly liked the ' Copperfield ' of Dickens,
and confessed that over many passages in it he had often
wept. This was no exaggeration. He was at all times as
easily moved as his own audiences. A brother Dominican,
Fr. Kenny, has seen him weep when reciting the ' Morte
d' Arthur' of Tennyson.
But Fr. Burke, though an omnivorous reader up to a
certain period of his life, finally held this appetite in check.
Among the notes supplied for our use by Mrs. Grehan, from
whom we shall have frequent occasion to quote hereafter,
are the following :
Once in a severe fit of iUness he was given TroUope's tale of the
' Three Clerks ' to read. He liked it much. ' Though I was in
such agony this morning,' he said, ' I could not help laughing out
loud over poor Charlie's first eft'ort of genius. Then he read out
passages in the most amusing manner. But in another book by the
same writer he was quite horrified that one of the heroines, while
engaged to a particular man, tried to captivate another. ' Do you
tell me,' he said indignantly, ' that such things can take place in
society ? ' This suggested a train of most beautiful thoughts on the
sanctity of the tie of betrothal, and what ought to be its good effect
on the character, even of persons not actually religious. Afterwards
he seemed to scruple this innocent recreation. ' I had been read
ing a harrowing story,' he said ; ' and it would come into my
head in my prayers — in and out like the teeth of a saw. No, it is
impossible to combine novel-reading and mental prayer. My poor
mother had only one weakness, and that was a good novel. Up to
the age of fifty she would read it if it came in her way, and then
would fling it aside with anger at having so wasted her time.'
Fr. Burke did something as a magazine writer and
reviewer at this time. We can particularly identify a paper
in the 'Hibernian Magazine' for April 1864 as his, which
opens with a feeling reference ' to the dear child of genius

244 LIFE OF FATHER THOMAS BURKE.
just dead— Adelaide Proctor.' This paper shows how familiar
he was with poetic literature generally. Scott's ' Marmion '
and Dante's ' Inferno ' are both noticed. Fr. Burke remarks
that a Cork poet, Mr. Condon, had rendered into English,
with much fidelity, ' the rhyme and metre, the turn of
thought and phrase of the great Florentine,' and he hoped
that the entire ' Divina Commedia ' would soon be translated.
This poet was the brother of one of his favourite novices.
On Sunday, May 29, 1864, was laid the first stone of
the new convent of the Irish Novitiate House at Tallaght.
While the Provincial handled the trowel, Fr. Burke embedded
the earthenware vessel containing coins and a parchment
record. He preached the sermon on the occasion, and a
modest record states ' that while Frs. Condon and Verdon
sang the Mass " De Angelis," Fr. Burke presided at the
harmonium.' To some it seemed a sad coincidence that it
was in this house that the founder should find his death
bed. But Fr. Burke became so fond of Tallaght that, during
his wanderings in other lands, in broken health, and often
depressed in spirits, he compared himself to the hare panting
to the spot from whence it fled, and there lying down to die.

245

CHAPTER VIII.
PRIOR OF SAN CLEMENTE, ROME.
There is no virtue more manly and ennobling (said Fr. Burke, when
preaching on the Second Beatitude) than that which enables a man
to govern himself and his own passions. How can a man rule others
who is unable to rale himself? How can a man associate with others
who is powerless and unable to live with his own soul in peace ? He
truly is fitted to be an Anax Andron — a king of men — who has
learned by meekness to keep the little kingdom of his own soul and
body in the proper order of subjection to reason. Every virtue is a
power — the very word ' virtue ' means power — and what is more terrible
in its power than meekness ?
Fr. Burke's colleagues saw that he possessed in an eminent
degree these latter gifts. Therefore the young man was en
trusted with the duty of ruling others. In obedience to the
voice of authority, he once more prepared to leave his native
land, and take up the reins of government as prior of the oldest
Basilica in Rome. But it was a spot consecrated in his eyes
by glorious memories of those old Irish Dominicans, on whose
trials and triumphs he loved to enlarge ; and with a light
heart he entered on his work.
Since 1667, when San Clemente had been handed over
to the white-robed preachers, it had been always a centre
of that culture for which they are distinguished. Here two
very remarkable Irishmen had already held office — Thomas
Burke, or De Burgho, Bishop of Ossory, author of the
' Hibernia Dominicana,' and John Thomas Troy, Archbishop
of Dublin. The Very Rev. P. V. Kenny, late Prior of St. Saviour's,

246 LIFE OF FATFIER THOMAS BURKE.
Limerick, and now Fr. Vicar of St. Mary's, Tallaght, has
communicated to us for insertion the following details of the
journey to Rome : —
In September 1864 Fr. Burke was appointed by the late Master-
General of the Order, the Most Rev. Fr. A. V. Jandel, Rector of the
Irish Dominican College of San Clemente, Rome. He was also
appointed to the office of Master of Professed Novices or Students,
and Lector in the Second Part of the Summa of St Thomas of Acquin.
This latter post he held at San Clemente for two years. On Sep
tember 20 he set out for the Eternal City, taking with him four
students — Brs. V. Hood, A. Wheeler, D. Molloy, and P. V. Kenny.
Fr. Conway, O.P., of Cork, and Fr. M. Lynch, O.P., of Tralee, accom
panied him. Fr. Burke had charge also of two nuns of Loretto
Convent, Rathfarnham, who were going to spend the winter at
Cannes. All were seated in the train at Holyhead, when a man
came to the door, and, although the carriage seemed full,
forced himself in. Fr. Burke offered some slight objection,
but the traveller replied that he had paid for his seat as well
as he. Fr. Burke addressed the novices in Latin, after which
he proclaimed profound silence. Opening his breviary, he
read for an hour, and then, with the most solemn of faces,
proceeded to stare at his vis-d-vis. The man thought that
he had got among a lot of lunatics, and, ere the train had
fully stopped, sprang upon the platform.
It may be premised that ' Quarter Tense,' or Ember Days, is
a period of severe fast with Catholics. Fr. Kenny continues :
It was the Vigil of the Feast of St Matthew Ap. and Quahior
Tense. We took nothing for breakfast but a cup of tea and a litde
bread, so that when we arrived in Holyhead, after four hours' sad,
our appetites were pretty sharp. They were destined to remain so, as
we could not get meagre fare at the railway hotel there. The tedious
run to London, therefore, was by no means a pleasant trip. We
put up at Ford's, in Manchester Square, and next day went to the
F"oreign Office to procure our passports. It was with no little diffi
culty we succeeded, being quite unknown in those quarters We
visited Westminster Abbey, St. Paul's, and the Houses of Parliament

FR. KENNY'S RECOLLECTIONS 247
In the Commons we saw Prince Humbert, now King of Italy. I
shall never forget his hollow, delicate, and apparently careworn
appearance. You would not give a year's purchase for his life.
We crossed over to France vid Newhaven and Dieppe in a very
bad boat. Nearly every one on board was sick. In Paris we stayed
at the Vatican Hotel, which Fr. Burke failed to recommend to future
voyageurs, saying that there is very little in a name. Next day we
went to our Convent of the Carmes, Rue Vaugirard. Here Fr.
Burke made the acquaintance of Fr. Monsabre, the great preacher
of Notre Dame, and a friendship sprang up between them which
nothing but death could sever. They had gifts in common. Both
were sons of St Dominic, great preachers, great humourists, and
great, too, in their deep humihty. We spent Sunday in Paris. F"r.
Monsabre preached in our church. Fr. Burke was struck by the
fact that the audience were all women — not a man in the vast build
ing. The following day Fr. Burke took the students to a hatter's to
procure Roman or long clerical hats for them. He was told by the
Fathers of the convent that the hatter lived in the Rue du Cherche-
Midi. Fr. Burke forgot Rue, so we spent the whole day walking
through Paris looking for Cherche Midi. Often did he stop to ask
where was Cherche Midi. ' Cherche Midi ! je ne sais pas, monsieur,'
was the usual answer. Addressing a gendarme, Fr. Burke said, 'Je
cherche le Cherche Midi.' The alliteration tickled the oracle in the
cocked hat so completely that ' his moustache went up and his nose
went down.'. At last, happening to meet an Enghshman well acquainted
with Paris, he put to him the usual question, and received for reply,
' You are in it, and the hatter you want lives two doors from where
you stand.' The Fathers of the convent had a good laugh at us when
we returned late in the evening, quite tired, searching for Cherche
Midi.
We left Paris for Lyons, and here another mistake occurred. Fr.
Burke had omitted to write to the Fathers of our convent that they
might expect us; so when we arrived late at night they had retired to
rest We knocked and knocked at the door, but all in vain. At last,
making all the noise we could for nearly half an hour, a lay brother
appeared and let us in. The Fathers got us some supper, and as they
had made no preparation for our arrival, we had to go to the nearest
hotel for the night. The Prior sent a lay brother with us to show us
the way, for we had long since dismissed our drivers. On our way
to the hotel we came suddenly on a travelling menagerie, the show
man holding forth to a vast crowd of the lowest class in Lyons. Seeing

248 LIFE OF FATHER THOMAS BURKE.
a number of Religious in their white and black habits walking through
the streets at eleven o'clock at night was something new to them,
and stranger than the menagerie, for they immediately left the show
man and his wild animals and followed us to the hotel, shouting all
the way and uttering severe threats. The hotel-keeper had great
difficulty in keeping them from bursting into his hotel. This was
our first taste of a French mob, and it was not a pleasant one,' We
left next day for Marseilles. We stayed for some short time at our
convent there, and visited Notre Dame de la Garde. The weather
was fearfully hot, and we suffered very much ascending the hill to
the sanctuary. Fr. Burke went from .Marseilles to our convent at
St. Maximius, in the Department of Var, for three Irish Dominican
students whom he was to take with him to Rome. Their names
were Brs. P. Power, D. Slattery, and V. Prendergast. The journey
was made in a diligence. Coming back with the students, he found
that every place in the inside of the coach was occupied ; so there
was nothing for it but to mount on the top and make the best of it.
It was late in the evening when they left St. Maximius. The night
was fine ; so covering themselves with some oil-cloths, and making
a pUlow of a big dog they found there — a gentle drowsy beast — they
went to sleep and did not awake until they found themselves next
morning in Marseilles.
Thursday evening we sailed from MarseUles, and touched at
Genoa next day, where the steamer remained eight hours. We dis
embarked and visited the ' City of Palaces ' and churches, and saw
nearly all that is worth seeing in ' Genoa the Proud.' In the evening
we left the port and arrived next day at Leghorn. The steamer
would wait for some six or seven hours, so Fr. Conway, Br. P. Power,
and Br. P. V. Kenny resolved to take a drive to Pisa, about eight
mUes off, and see the Duomo, the Campo Santo, Leaning Tower, and
B.aptistery. It was a lovely day, and the ride was most enjoyable.
Fr. Burke was amused at my astonishment to see a man ploughing
with a yoke of oxen, and holding the plough with one hand, whUst
with the other he held a large green umbrella over his head to shade
himself from the hot sun. It was the first time I had seen an
Italian plough, which a man could easily carry under his arm. We
left Leghorn in the evening and arrived in tlie Papal harbour of
Civita Vecchii on Sunday morning. We immediately disembarked and
went to hear Mass at our church in the city. About twelve o'clock
' The brutal spirit shown to Fr. Burke and his novices culminated, not long
after, in the massacre, by the Commune, of the Dominican Fathers at Paris.

THE ROSARY. 249
we took the train for Rome. After dinner at San Clemente we went
to pay our respects to the General at the convent of the Minerva,
and were just in time to see the great procession of the Holy Rosary
pass into our church.
The Nuncio at Paris had said to Fr. Burke, ' I would wish
to entrust to your care some despatches for Cardinal Anto
nelli — place them under your head every night until you
reach Rome.' On arrival he proceeded with Fr. MuUooly to
the Varican. Fr. Mullooly remained in an ante-room while
Antonelli took Fr. Burke into an adjoining salon, of which
he closed the door. The Cardinal's servant, unconscious
that he was watched by Mullooly, placed his ear at the
keyhole, while his Eminence conversed with Fr. Burke.
P>. Mullooly reported the circumstance to the cardinal, who
subsequently discovered the man to be a spy in the pay of
the Sardinian Minister.
It was on Rosary Sunday, 1864, that Fr. Burke entered
on his duties as Prior of San Clemente. Everything con
nected with that devotion attracted him. The brads were
never from his side by day ; he wore them round his neck at
night.' His new church at Tallaght he dedicated to Holy
Mary of the Rosary.
The following letter, addressed to an old lady who had
been already the favoured correspondent of Bishop Doyle,
is about the longest that Fr. Burke was ever known to write.
The idea expressed, that he was not to preach for the next
three years, proved, as will be seen, delusive. His ' dear
children of Rathfarnham ' means the nuns of Loretto :
San Clemente, Rome : November 12, 1864.
LM.D. My dear Mrs. Jones, — Your kind letter was the first and only one
I got since my arrival in the Eternal City. It gave me very great
1 The use of beads, as a help to memory in reciting prayers, is so old a practice
that we find the monk Paul in Pherme holding 300 pebbles in his lap, and casting
them away one by one as each orison ended. This is recorded by Palladius in the
fifth century.

250 LIFE OF FATPIER THOMAS BURKE.
pleasure, for which I thank you most sincerely. It was so kind of
you to think of the poor ' exile of Erin,' and to send me such good
and welcome news about my dear children of Rathfarnham, &c. &c.
Well, we got safe to Rome— no accidents— no banditti — no sickness.
All— even Fr. Conway, who is so hard to please — enjoyed their
journey, more especially after we got into Burgundy and the South of
France. The weather was delightful. Since my arrival in Rome I
have given myself up altogether to fasting and mortification, and I
am become already so spiritualised that there is a project mooted to
run my head into a tub of plaster of Paris to serve as a model of
St Bernard. Wouldn't it be delightful ? If the idea be carried
out, I'll send you a nice little bust to put on the chimneypiece in
your own room, and when your lady friends visit you, you can take
the favoured ones to see it, and they will turn up the whites of their
eyes and say, ' Ah ! there he is ! ' Now to be serious. I said
my first nine masses in Rome for you, as I promised, and I make the
express memento for you, which I also promised. I cannot say the
other masses which you ask, for the following reason. There is a
great multitude of obligatory masses attached to this convent, and
one of the rules of the house is, that each priest celebrate for
the house every day and enter his mass in the sacristy book. Of
course a man is allowed now and then to apply his mass for a private
intention, but this very rarely. Now, if I were to say so many
private masses, being prior of the house, the other priests might
think it unfair to be so exacting on them ; so, you see, noblesse oblige.
I must first do myselfi and then only can I call upon others to do.
This rule extends to everything else as well as to the masses, and so
my life here just now is what you would call hard enough; but, thank
God, I am in rude health, and able for it. My appetite is wonder
fully improved ; my cough is gone, and I have not had any necessity
to wear the red flannel as yet, but it wiU stand well to me in the
winter, which promises to be severe in Rome this year. Well, now
that I have done with my detestable self, let me ask howjjw^ are.
I hope well in mind and body, living an interior life of patience,
prayer, and union with God. I'm sorry for Kate that Fr. Eustace
was so hard about the music. As for your enjoyment of the matter,
you can do without it ; you have not much enjoyment, but neither
have you much labour ; not like poor Kate, who would require
a httle treat and relaxation, poor child.' You can offer all such
1 The sister of Mrs. Jones had become the wife of Vincent NA'allace the com
poser, but the marriage failed to prove a happy one ; \\'allace was a Protestant,

SITS FOR A BUST. 25 I
privations to God ; and, without some such mortification, I don't
see how you can come up to aU that God justly expects of you.
Think how litde of this world's joys the Virgin Mother tasted, and
how great her joy was on earth, notwithstanding all her sorrows, and
how great her glory is to-day. Now, don't be afraid, I'm not going
to preach. I have given up preaching for the next three years.
The Sundays appear so queer to me— no congregations — no sermon.
I intend to get into the pulpit some day, when the church is
closed, and bawl out a bit, just for ' Auld lang syne,' I inclose you
the copy of Fr. Justin's request, and I hope that you wUl be successful
in helping poor dear Tallaght. Please to give my kindest regards
to Mrs. James and my young friends. When I get an opportunity I
wUl send you some little souvenir blessed by the Holy Father. Pray
for me, and believe me sincerely and affectionately yours in Christ,
Br. Thomas Burke, O.P.
Fr. Conway is well and desires to be remembered.
The Prior's humility is shown by signing his name after
the manner of a lay brother.
The project to make him sit for a bust of St. Bernard
claims explanation. Fr. Burke had been asked by Mr. War
rington Wood,' the sculptor, to afford facilities for a study of
his head. The compliment was conveyed to Fr. Burke in terms
so flattering that his friends in Ireland failed to gather the
extent of it from the misleading remark he dropped. Indeed
it was regarded as one of his jokes, and few are aware of the
existence of this fine bust. ' I remember accompanying Fr.
Burke to see it,' writes Dr. Maziere Brady. ' He said it was
not a good likeness, as it was not ugly enough. I never knew
a ihan with so little personal vanity.'
The prolonged fast of which Mrs. Jones is apprised was at
last relaxed. Writing to his sister, he says: 'Your letter
Miss Kelly a Catholic. Dr. Doyle's letter to Abp. Murray, requesting his per
mission for the marriage, is now before us. Mrs. Wallace resided with Mrs. Jones
in Rutland Square, Dublin, within a few doors of the Dominican Friars. Mrs.
Jones died in June 1884.
1 This, we believe, was the same artist who made a study of his head in
plaster. Copies in relief were largely sold in Rome, and a small cast of it is
now preserved at Tallaght. ' The likeness seemed so good,' observes a Domini
can, ' that the artist was entrusted with the monument to Gregory XVI.'

252 LIFE OF FATITER THOMAS BURKE.
enriched the luxury of a cup of chocolate and a fresh egg, on
which I was regaling when it reached my hand. This, you
will say, is nice mortification for a poor Dominican.'
Even in Rome (writes Mr. Sherlock) Fr. Burke was not destined
to obtain release from his extraordinary labours as a preacher. Here
Cardinal Wiseman had been wont to deliver in English the cus
tomary Lenten sermons at the Church of Santa Maria del Popolo.
When his promotion to the head of the newly created English hier
archy made it necessary that he should quit Rome, his place in the
pulpit was taken by Dr., now Cardinal, Manning. Called suddenly
to England on the death of Dr. Wiseman in 1865, Dr. Manning in
turn left the pulpit of Santa Maria vacant A successor was looked
for, and the Superior of San Clemente was selected. At short notice
he took up the course of Lenten sermons, and even there, in the very
centre of the Cathohc world, his zeal, piety, and eloquence purchased
for him the title of Prince of Preachers.' Lent after Lent his
sermons were gladly called into requisition.
For some months previous to the events just described
Fr. Burke preached. Persons who were in Rome at the close
of 1864, and in January 1865, de.scribe Fn Burke as then a
familiar figure in the pulpit.
These services used to be attended by large and critical
audiences, consisting largely of Protestant tourists whom the feasts
of the Holy Season attracted to the Eternal City (writes Mr.
T. P. O'Connor, M.P.)
' How can they preach unless they be sent ? ' Fr. Burke
more than once muttered. But the answer was assuring. He
feh his mission strengthen while he traced in an unbroken
chain the power the Church possessed from the day when
the hands of Christ pressed upon the head of Peter. Not
one link in that chain was wanting, he said. The Catholic
' The Illustrated London News of July 14, 1883, says of Fr. Burke, 'This
eminent divine, by far the most impressive and popular orator in the Roman
Catholic Church, was designated by Pius IX. as the " Prince of Preachers." It
was not only in his native tongue, but also in Italian, that he preached with won
drous eloquence.' As regards the title said to have been bestowed by the Pope,
we record the statement, but cannot find authority for it. We have heard the
epithet, however, applied to Burke by Cardinal Cullen.

THE TRIPLE CROWN. 253
preacher was sent by Pius, who was of Gregory, who was of
Pius, who was of Leo — and so on until he came to Clement,
who was of Cletus, who was of Linus, who was of Peter, who
was of Christ, who was of God.
These thoughts had been fostered by a great stimulus.
Years after, when preaching in Dublin on the death of Pio
Nono, Fr. Burke said :
It was my privilege to know something personally of him, for
years to live under the light almost of his presence, to behold him in
the moment of supreme glory, to behold him kneehng before the
altar of God in the presence of Jesus Christ — when he instantly, and
apparently without an effort, fell into that wonderful abstraction of
prayer, so that the very sight of him was a most vivid memento.
Thesewere thedaysof temporal as well as of spiritual power.
That triple crown which rests upon the Pope's brow (Fr. Burke
explained) is made up of three distinct circles of gold. The first is
symbolical of the universal episcopate of the Pope, for ' there shall
be but one fold and one Shepherd ; ' the second represents the
supremacy of jurisdiction by which the Pope governs not only all
the faithful in the world at large, feeding them as their supreme
pastor, but by which also he holds the supremacy of jurisdiction over
the anointed ministers and the episcopacy itself in the Church of
God ; the third circle of this crown represents the temporal influence
which the Pope has exercised and enjoyed for over one thousand years.
When refuting, at New York, a statement that the Pope
had heavily taxed the Roman people, he said :
The house I lived in, if calculated from the amount of land that
we paid taxes for with what is levied in Ireland, would be exactly
16/. a year. What do you think we paid? — and we were more
heavily taxed than the lay people, because Pius IX. put the heavy
taxes on the priests, and spared the people— 15 doUars a year.
When I was in Rome there were hundreds of schools, one in
almost -"very street. At eight o'clock a.m. the priests of St Joseph's
would go out ringing a bell and caUing at every house, making the
parents send their children to school, and if they had not breakfasted,
they would give them a breakfast And in the evening they did not
allow them to go about the streets, where they could not fail to learn
vice, but each one was returned home. You would see the children

254 LIFE OF FATHER THOMAS BURKE.
marched out like soldiers, and with each ten or twelve of them a
priest to bring them back to their parents.
Fr. Burke speaks of ' the house in which he lived.'
He took up his residence in San Clemente during a very
interesting period. Tradition has always maintained that
the modern church of San Clemente — the most perfect
model of an early Christian basilica — is built upon the actual
site of the saint's dwelling. The original basilica was dis
covered in 1857 by excavations prosecuted under the direc
tion of good Fr. Joseph Mullooly. The capital of a buried
pillar having in the first instance peeped forth, he was led to
dig deeper, with results full of charm. Nave, aisles, rows of
deftly chiselled columns, came to light. While the earth was
being removed, the long buried walls gradually disclosed
strange figures in fresco — all busily engaged in the movement
of various stories familiar to historic students. As a link of
ancient Christian art with the early Italian school which
miraculously escaped the devastations of Diocletian, those
frescoes — with their outstretched hands — were warmly wel
comed. This attitude — one of ardent devotion — characterises
every votive painting in the crypt Later on will be found
some funny stories connected with Fr. Burke and them.
San Clemente is indebted to Fr. Mullooly in other ways.
During the Garibaldian revolution the insurgents entered the
wine vaults of the community outside Rome, drove in the
heads of the casks, and drank the contents. Thereupon Fr.
Mullooly hoisted the British flag over San Clemente, and
thus preserved its treasures.
Fr Burke was very popular with the English-speaking
people, and whenever he preached the church was packed.
Here is a sample of the style which he found they liked best
It is the opening of a long sermon preached on the second
Sunday of Advent, 1865, in Santa Maria del Popolo. This
church is built on the site of Nero's Tomb ; and Luther,
when in Rome, lodged in the adjoining monastery :

PREACHES IN ROME. 255
The Catholic Church is a puzzle to the world. Men reproach
her for her ambition in desiring the first place, and brooking no
rival. Not content with labouring for her own chUdren, she is con
stantly trying to convert others to her faith and disturbing the world
in her search after proselytes ; thrusting her theology and her
disputes under people's noses, distracting men from their business,
disturbing the peace and quiet of families, compromising Christian
nations with the heatiien by the efforts of her missionaries. She
won't leave the Chinaman to smoke his opium in peace, or the
Japanese to hug himself in his isolation, but she must provoke them
to acts of cruelty and persecution. She must be buUding churches,
founding missions and establishing Orders, spreading convents, fight
ing, disputing, criticising, and even anathematising. The world tries to
silence and quiet her, now by contempt, now by threats, now by
getting angry and making nasty laws, and yet she wiU persist in
making herself heard and felt Every now and then some English
or American paper cries. Where are we ? These Catholics are going
to devour us. Look at England ! Ten years ago there were only so
many bishops, so many churches, so many monasteries, and now
they are trebled. Look at America. Why, we are all going to be
made Romans whether we will it or not Contrast the Catholic
Church's perpetual turmoil with the placid quiet of the Oriental
Churches. Compare her fierce ambition with the modest bearing
of the Church of England. . . . Look at these Jesuits ! — you
find them everywhere ; we are constantly offended by the sight of
Cathohc priests, books, crucifixes, nuns. Everyone received ,into
the Church seems to be suddenly changed, fiUed wkh an unquiet
spirit, and a thirst to bring in others. When a Protestant he was
a quiet, gendemanly fellow, not bothering his own head or his
friends ; but he got bitten by those Ritualists, and he's gone over to
Rome, and gone stark mad as well. He's constantly talking about
religion ; he goes to Mass at strange hours in the morning ; he can't
get on without his priest ; men say that he has lost interest in many
things, and hint that he is thinking of joining one of the Orders, and
going to get murdered in the Chinese missions, or to kiU himself
slaving in the slums and hospitals of some great city.
On the other hand, we children of the Church also are struck with the
amazing energy of our Mother. We know her to be the oldest institu
tion in the worid, yet we see in her no sign of old age. Old age brings
with it a cessation of growth, a wasting away, a decline of strength,
an apathy and neglect of the purposes of life, a second childhood.

2S6 LIFE OF FATITER THOMAS BURKE.
But the Church is acknowledged, even by her enemies, to be as
fresh and vigorous as she was two thousand years ago. She still
grows, and the aged mustard-tree puts forth leaf and branch, flower
and fruit, in every land. She questions every comer, examines
every doctrine, prescribes for every moral disease, denounces and
punishes every crime, with as keen an interest and as vital an
energy, as in the days when the Apostolic Council sat in Jerusalem,
when John the Evangelist denounced Cerinthus, when Paul ex
communicated the incestuous Corinthian, when Peter preached in
Corinth and in Rome. The secret of all this is faith, and it is
to this that I invite your attention to-day. Friends admire and
enemies decry the activity of the Church and of her children, but
friends and enemies alike admit it. We are accused of many things,
but no one dreams of accusing the Church of apathy, of indifference.
Nay, our very activity is the foundation for those charges of ambition,
of intrigue, of restless zeal, of troublesome intermeddling, which
are made against us ; and yet, if we reflect upon the nature of Divine
faith, we shall find that this very activity is one of its essential
attributes, one of the signs whereby it may be known to exist among
men. For faith is the image of God, the reflection in the human
intelligence of that truth which is God Himself. And consequently,
faith must be not only one, because God is essentially one, but it
must also be active, because God is pure, essential, and eternal action.
' Deus est actus purus,' says St Thomas, the prince of theologians.
This is a high and mysterious saying. Let us consider it
He then went on to show how, when time began, God set
on all things the stamp of that wonderful life and action
which was His own essence. The features of Christ's work
were followed, and the energy of unfailing life in the Catholic
Church recognised. He also preached in the church of Santa
Maria de Monte Santo ; and his sermons at St. Andrea
della Valle, the Theatine Church, are well remembered.'
' He had the entree to all the artistic salons,' records an
American memoir of Fr. Burke, ' and during his visits to the
' ' Here during the octave of the Epiphany every year there is celebrated
solemn High Mass in one or other of the rites sanctioned by the Church. The
Dominican rite has the day after the feast, the Ambrosian the followincr day
then the Easter rites fall in in turn. A sermon is also preached in a different
language every day.'— I'ery Rev. P. V. Kenny, O.P., to the .Author.

BECOMES A DILETTANTE. 257
Studios picked up very many valuable paintings and rare
line engravings.' This belief is general, but Count Sheriock,
who was Fr. Burke's companion on these expeditions, con
fesses : ' I cannot boast that either of us was very successful
in our trouvailles, or that we ever got hold of any real
treasure.' Some pictures which had seemed the work of the
old masters, Fr. Burke brought to Ireland, but the candour
of Dublin art critics quite disenchanted him. A few really
good ones, however, remain at Tallaght as memorials of Fr.
Burke's taste for art. His own word paintings,- such as the
' Groupings of Calvary,' often derived breadth from contem
plation of the grand works in which Rome abounds.
When I lift up my eyes here (he said), it seems as if I stood bodily
in the society -of these men. I see in the face of John the expression
of the highest manly sympathy that comforted and consoled the
dying eyes of the Saviout It seems to me that I behold the Blessed
Virgin, whose maternal heart consented in that hour of agony to be
broken for the sins of men. I see the Magdalen, as she clings to
the cross, and receives upon that hair with which she wiped His feet
the drops of His blood. I behold that heart, humbled in penance
and inflamed with love — the heart of the woman who had loved
much, and for whom He had prayed. It seems to me that I travel
step by step to Calvary, and learn, as they unite in Him, eveiy
lesson of suffering, of peace, of hope, of joy, and of love.
The only thing he really valued was a ' beautiful soul ' (writes Miss
Wyse, who knew him well in Rome); no matter where he found it, in a
duchess or a beggar, it won his friendship and appreciation. I have
seen many instances of it As usual, he was most attracted by the
poor. He considered the highest piety was found amongst them. I
remember his standing before a large crucifix in San Clemente,
and telhng me, with tears in his eyes, of the beautiful sight he
often witnessed when he came out to say Mass — in an old woman, or
oftener many a young one — groups of them — kneeling in prayer
before it and kissing it ; and the earlier, the greater the number. And
then how wonderfully he would speak of the beauty of the souls of
litde chUdren — 'the real temples of God and the abodes of the Holy
Spirit.' ' I am always happy,' he said, ' when I am with a litde chUd.'
I frequently met Fr, Burke in Rome in 1865 (observes the late
VOL. I. S

2S8 LIFE OF FATPIER THOMAS BURKE.
Archbishop of Tuam), and was at a loss to know which to admire
most, his wonderful eloquence and delivery in the pulpit, or his
brilliant social qualities, which I had frequent opportunities of
appreciating at the Minerva and elsewhere.
Canon Brownlow, formerly of Cambridge, has supplied us
with some graphic jottings. Those illustrative of the present
period now come :
My recoUections of Father Burke date from October 1864, when
he gave a retreat of ten days to the students of the English College.
I had never heard of him before, and my first impressions of him were
formed from his spiritual side. I have got the notes of that retreat
now. It was admirable in its arrangement, solid in its matter, clear
and precise in its theology — every point resting on a definition of St
Thomas — full of happy and telling quotations from Holy Scripture in
the Vulgate— and every now and then a burst of tender piety or an
appeal to every noble and generous sentiment in the young clerics
whom he was addressing. Sometimes, if he saw us looking depressed
or drowsy in the afternoons, he would cheer us up and rivet our
attention by some racy anecdote or graphic sketch of incidents that
might happen to us in our future priestly life. Some thought his
ideal of the hfe of a priest too highly pitched, but it was what he had
set before himself, and he could hold up no lower model to those
whom he directed either in his retreat addresses or in the more
personal words which fell from him in the confessional. Those only
who knew him in public or social life can form an idea of what a
real spiritual man he was underneath all that brilliant surface of wit
and humour which dazzled and often misled those who met him only
in society. The malady which finally carried him off had already
attacked him, and he was advised to smoke as an alleviation of the
pain that often prostrated him. He was afraid of the students being
scandalised at seeing the ascetic preacher of the retreat indulging in
a cigar, so he used to come up to my room, as he thought my more
mature years would understand the necessity for this relaxation, and
diis was the beginning of our friendship. My attraction for him
needs no explanation ; but I suppose my being a convert, and being
able to tell him many things about English Protestant life and modes
of thought, interested him, and I always found a warm welcome at
San Clemente. I once had the happiness of spending ten days with
him and his novices in their convent of San Michaele at Tivoli, and
the charming htde excursions, and merry flow of humour at the

CANON BROWNLO"W'S NOTES. 259
recreations with which he tempered the severity of the monastic
discipline for these young Irish religious, will ever remain among the
happiest recollections of my life. I remember one Sunday we
walked over to the Irish College there, and the intense delight that
his arrival caused among the students, who were kept under a rather
rigid discipline even during the villeggiatura. He pitied them for not
having the freedom that we Enghsh students enjoyed, and as often
as he could he visited them, and had them all crowding round him
to listen to his ever-ready fund of amusing anecdote. The peals of
merry laughter would attract the attention of the grave rector, who
would come to see what was the matter, and would speedily be seen
laughing as heartily as the rest. There were not many books at San
Michaele, but I remember distinctly the works of Dr. Newman, and
some of Mr. Kenelm Digby's. For Dr. Newman, Fr. Burke had the
greatest reverence. He had never seen him, but he would get very
indignant when any attack was made upon him by some over-
zealous Catholic, who misunderstood certain expressions of the great
Oratorian.' Fr. Mullooly (adds Canon Brownlow) was as great a contrast to
Fr. Burke as can be conceived, kind-hearted, worthy man as he was.
Being most matter-of-fact, he was very slow in seeing the point of
a joke, and many were made at his expense by his lively Prior. Yet
Fr. Burke had a profound respect for him. On Burke's appointment
as Prior, when the Irish novices were put under his charge, Fr. Mul
looly retired into the position of syndicate, and thus continued to
manage the temporalities of the convent with that prudence and
thorough knowledge of Rome and the people which his long resi
dence there had made habitual to him. On Fr. Burke's installation he
assembled the community and addressed them in chapter, paying a
well-merited tribute to the wisdom of F"r. MuUooly, and, turning to
him, said that he trusted he should always have the benefit of his
counsel and experience, and declared that he should never, during
his term of office, do anything without his advice. After the
chapter was over, Fr. Mullooly remarked to another Father, ' Seems
a sensible young man, that 1 '
It was about this time that beneath San Clemente the
interior of the Temple of Mithras was discovered. The
antiquity must be great, for De Rossi says that, after the
' Letter of the Very Rev. Canon Brownlow, M.A., St. Mary's, Torquay,
July 4, 1884. s 2

26o LIFE OF FATHER THOMAS BURKE.
death of Julian the Apostate, the use of subterranean ceme
teries ceJlsed. But some clue to the site of the temple is said
to have been afforded by certain lines of Prudentius, and Fr.
Mullooly dug with a will. Mullooly was not handsome, but
graced with learning and holiness.
Among the objects of interest dug up in the subterranean church
was a marble bust of a young man. This (writes Canon Brown
low) was affirmed by the learned to be Adonis, and Fr. Burke
succeeded in persuading the good bursar that it bore a striking
resemblance to his own rather homely features ; and his great
amusement was to get the simple-minded man to explain the
antiquities to an admiring throng of visitors, and to prompt them to
ask questions about this bust Poor Fr. MuUooly fell into the trap,
and would tell his audience that it was a bust of Adonis, adding, ' I
am told that it bears a striking resemblance to me.' A celebrated
French archaeologist announced his intention of visiting San Clemente
to see the antiquities. Fr. Burke managed to get hold of him before
he saw Fr. Mullooly, and persuaded him to enter into the joke.
After going through the other objects of interest with Fr. MuUooly,
they came to this bust, and the savant gravely pronounced it to be
Adonis, and then looking repeatedly from the bust to Fr. Mullooly,
he cried out, ' Mais, c'est vous ! ' After this Fr, Mullooly was more
than ever confirmed in his persuasion, and used to quote Monsieur
X.'s opinion as decisive.
Fr. Mullooly's spirit of archseologic enterprise had been
fanned by the example of another Dominican Prior— the
Pere Besson— who, in 1856, had unearthed beneath Santa
Sabina fragments of the wall of Servius Tullius, formed of
peperino, and a very ancient Roman house paved with fine
mosaic. On Besson's death most of his discoveries were
earthed up again ; but it was a pleasant sign of the times
that both England and Prussia gave Mullooly a helping h^nd.
Canon Brownlow has referred to Fr. Burke's indulgence
in cigars. For this Fr. Mullooly felt himself privileged to
remonstrate with him gravely. The Prior made his venerable
friend stare by pretending that the Pope had sent him a

THE PROTESTANT MONK. 26 1
share of a chest of Havannas worth a dollar each, which a
Mexican son had forwarded to the Vatican as an offering.
One day the Protestant monk, Fr. Ignatius, arrived in
Rome, and at once went in quest of Mr. Brownlow. The
latter brought him to San Clemente, but, Fr. Burke being
away, he never saw Fr. Ignatius.
The Italian lay brother at San Clemente told Fr. Burke that I had
been there, with two English monks, in a strange habit which he
could not quite make out. F'r. Burke explained that they were not
real monks at all, but were Protestants. ' Come ! portano 1' abito
religiose e non sono Cristiani ! ' ' exclaimed the lay brother, utterly
puzzled by so strange a phase of Protestantism.'^
Fr. Mullooly had sometimes very distinguished guests.
Fr. Burke described him conducting the Empress of Russia
through San Clemente and the larger catacombs. She at last
came to an old fresco of St. Clement depicted in the act of
giving his blessing with only two fingers raised. With an
expression of delight the Empress reminded Mullooly that
this was the formula of benediction in the Greek Church.'
The descent by the sickly light of a taper into this dark
crypt — dear to martyred men — presented a contrast so great
to the bright and busy world above that, if it were not for
Fr. Burke's lively sallies, visitors would often have found
themselves in solemn mood. Here, in listening to his deep
voice, a strange feeling would be produced on the minds of
historic thinkers when they remembered that within the same
walls, and beneath the same roof, had already resounded the
sonorous tones of St. Augustine and Gregory the Great.

' ' What ! They wear the dress of a monk and are not Christians ! '
2 Letter of the Very Rev. Canon Brownlow, M.A., Torquay, July 23, 1884.
= Later on she had the satisfaction of finding on the end wall of the nave of
San Clemente SS. Cyril and Methodius in episcopal robes of the Greek rite. But
in the subterranean basilica a more remarkable fresco presented itself — a votive
picture of our Saviour blessing according to the Greek form. Even Fr. Mullooly
was puzzled. ' Why this composition should be found here . . . who can say ? ' —
Vide St. Clement and his Basilica, by Joseph Mullooly, Rome 1873, p. 302,

2,62 LIFE OF FATHER THOMAS BURKE.
Fr. Burke mentioned that he had been asked to conduct
the Prince of Wales through the great catacombs, or, as
they are sometimes styled, ' the crypt of St. Sebastian.' The
Prince was mainly desirous to see the paintings with which
the early Christians decorated their cemeteries. These in
clude remarkable representations of our Saviour, of the
Madonna, and the saints, and of the miracles of the Old
and New Testament. Some English Catholic ladies, mostly
converts, were in Rome at this time. They seemed divided
in their devotion between the Prince and the pictures, and
that evening conjured Fr. Burke to tell them exactly what
His Royal Highness said of the frescoes. But he tantalised
them by merely saying, ' He said  ,' and then pausing.
This went on for some minutes, Burke taking pleasure in
exciting their curiosity. ' For mercy sake, what did he say ? '
exclaimed Lady A  in a perfect flutter. ' Yes, ye.s, I'm
coming to it,' replied Fr. Burke, and ended their suspense by,
' He said—" Aw I " '
In point of fact. His Royal Highness said much more ; but
Fr. Burke was not the man to boast. The Earl of Granard,
in a letter dated February 21, 1885, speaks of 'Fr. Burke's
intimacy with the Prince of Wales, who made his acquaintance
at Rome and had a great liking for him.'
Fr. Tom had been constantly asked to act as guide to the
Catacombs, and would afterwards give the comments of the
visitors who hung on his words. A military officer clenched
each new exposition with ' By Jove,' a phrase he never
varied ; a Ritualistic parson said ' Exactly so ' to everything,
and so on. It was a favourite piece of humour, when acting
as cicerone, for Fr. Tom to mimic the tones of the professional
guide, a doctor of some attainments.
On the Feast of the Purification I accompanied Fr. Burke to St
Peter's for the ceremony of the Blessing of the Candles (writes the
Very Rev. G. D. Power, formeriy of San Clemente). After the
function in the Basilica the parish priests, rectors, and heads of

FATHER TOM AND TPIE POPE. 263
the rchgious houses, proceeded to the Audience Chamber in the
Vatican Palace to present a handsome wax candle to His Holiness
Pope Pius IX.
The Pope humorously remarked to the Prior of San Clemente,
that such a large candle would be of some service in the subterranean
Basilica of San Clemente which was then being excavated, and
which the Pope had found badly lighted on the occasion of one ot
his visits. Fr. Burke asked His Holiness in his sly, humorous way,
' if he might convey that message to the venerable Fr. Mullooly,
whom the Pope as well as the bystanders knew lo be most touchy on
the subject of the perfection of the works going on in the excava
tions.' ' Oh, no,' replied the Pope, laughingly, and with the slightest
imaginable shrug. On our return through the suite of ante
chambers which led out of the audience room, one of the Noble
Guard muttered some expression of supercilious contempt as Fr.
Burke and his companion passed by.
The Prior of San Clemente overheard the remark, and suddenly
wheeled round and faced the Guard, and in the most vigorous strain
and impassioned Italian, gave him 'a piece of his mind.' The
Noble Guard, stung to the quick, and ashamed of himself, slunk
away utterly confounded by the scathing rebuke administered by the
Irish Friar. 'Si, signer,' he said, in a tone of indignant rebuke ; ' si,
signer, sono un povero frate. Son anche Irlandese; ma adesso
sono neUa casa di mio Padre.' ' He gave it to him. The only thing
he could never stand was a sneer. A big lusty Itahan ventured on
another occasion in the street to use some insulting remark as
Fr. Tom passed. He was obliged to make an ample apology on the
spot, and then sneaked away.
I was present at his Lenten conferences preached in the church
of Santa Maria del Monti, in Rome.
He would take me out for a walk outside the waUs some days
previous to his preaching, and go over the points of his coming
exposition. In the condensation and conciseness of his synopsis
he would display a strong analytical mind, put his discourse into
a simple syllogism, and develop it into one of his grandly eloquent
conferences. His discourse on ' Divorce and Modern Society ' was
one of the finest of that briUiant series. These conferences were
attended, among other personages, by the Duke of Norfolk, Cardinal
(then Mgr.) Howard, Anghcan clergymen, and neady the entire
' ' ^'es, sir . . . yes, sir, I am a poor monk ; I am also an Irishman, but now
I am in my Father's house. '

264 LIFE OF FATHER THOMAS BURKE.
community of Anglicans in Rome, the students and rectors of the
English colleges and religious communities in Rome.
They used to take their stations on the street outside the
church long before the doors were opened.
When that law of divorce was established in England (says Fr.
Burke himself) I happened to be in Rome, and a Protestant lady,
engaged to a Protestant EngHsh gendeman, was there too. She
heard a sermon of mine on these questions of marriage and divorce,
and she said, ' I am bound to become a Catholic out of self-respect
and in self-defence ; ' and she wrote that very day to release herself
from her engagement, saying, ' My dear friend, if you wiU become a
Catholic, and wUl share with me the belief of the inviolable tie of
marriage, I will marry you ; but if you remain in a religion which
makes divorce possible, I cannot marry you.' '
Before delivering these sermons he maintained his old
habit of soliciting the suggestions of his novices, who were
indeed but beardless boys ; and one of them, who is now
Coadjutor Bishop of Cork, has recognised in the discourses as
subsequently preached the thoughts which, for some subtle
discipline, he courted.
One day the Master of Novices opened a volume and
began to expound its teaching to the youths who surrounded
him. The author was Cuniliati, a Dominican, who wrote on
Moral Theology. One of the novices ventured lo remark
that Cuniliati was a theologian of extreme austerity. 'Al
ways take a high theory,' replied Fr. Burke, ' because your
practice is sure to fall under the mark.'
He would occasionally take up some great moral writer,
read a chapter, and then supplement it with new and wonder
ful points of his own. Faber (he said) was the only devo
tional author whose expositions he could not further develop.^
On another day he said, ' I never despair of a man if he
observes his daily meditation and examination of conscience.
He impressed upon his novices always to try and foresee
what they would be exposed to during the day.'
' 'Catholicity the Safety of America.' Lecture at Perth Amboy, N.J., U.S.
Nov. 7, 1872. -' Very Rev. P. V. Kenny, O.P., to tlie Author.

DR. MAGEE PUZZLED. 265
In Rome he bought the complete edition of Dickens, pub
lished by the Baron Tauchnitz, and refreshed his memory of
the characters. These he reproduced by personal perform
ance for the amusement of the novices and Fathers.
For Thackeray's novels he had not the same fondness.
He thought them too satiric, and often jaundiced in their
view. But he greatly liked the earlier efforts of M. Angelo
Titmarsh, especially ' Mrs. Perkins's Ball.' Often he enacted
the whole scene for his novices, and stalked among them as
' The Mulligan of Bally Mulligan.'
Dr. Magee, Professor of Theology at Carlow College, used
to tell us an incident of his first visit to Rome, that, requiring
some trivial information in one of his classic rambles, he
addressed himself to a monk who paced the Piazza del Popolo.
The monk seemed impenetrably stupid. He did not know
Italian ; when asked if he could speak French he replied
' Very little ; ' of Latin he seemed shamefully ignorant ;
Greek he declined with a shrug. At last the monk contrived
to convey that he hailed from Dublin, whereupon some
observations in English were eagerly addressed to him by
Dr. Magee. A fluent response in vernacular Irish served
only to puzzle the Professor the more, and made him feel
ashamed that he should be ignorant of the language of his
native land. Dumbfounded and crestfallen, he turned away,
and it was not until long after that he discovered that the
mysterious monk, all shrug and solemnity, was the great Fr.
Burke. But Magee's name, face, and failings were perfectly
well known to Fr. Tom. Magee was an irrepressible talker ;
' brilliant flashes of silence ' rarely marked his monologue.
He liked to boast of all the tongues he had mastered ; how
he could draw forth sparks of electricity from inert masses ;
read a man's soul, and diagnose ' sham ' with one glance of his
piercing eye. Noodles thought it a coincidence that M should
be the inirial letter of Mezzofanti and Magee. This was the
man whom Burke— on the impulse of the moment — decided

266 LIFE OF FATHER THOMAS BURKE.
to confound and silence. Fr. Tom had been familiar with
Magee's name through an ingenious Latin epitaph composed
by the Rev. Dr. Taylor, and which is now printed for the first
time : Hie jacet
Et tandem facet
Joannes Magee
S. T. P.
Vitam egit in loquendo
Semper nova proponendo
Nihil autem faciendo.
This epitaph was penned twenty years before Magee's death,
and its author pre-deceased its subject, who, however, seems
to have been unconscious of its existence. We are bound
to say that, socially, few men were more beloved than
Dr. Magee.
There was no language in Europe that Burke could not speak
fluently (observes Mgr. Sheehan). But there was one language in
the knowledge of which he took more pride than that of any other
tongue — the grand old Celtic of his native home. His Irish was
rich and full, and spoken with what Irish-speaking people call bloss,
meaning taste and finish.'
I saw a good deal of Fr. Burke in his different visits to Rome
(writes John Count Sherlock) ; he could make fun and wit out of
anything. There is a view which I heard more than once hazarded,
and which I looked on at the time as worthy of note, that much of his
jocularity was put on in order to disqualify him from being raised to
the post of Bishop, which he very much dreaded. No one would have
been more likely to urge his promotion than my late valued friend Car
dinal Cullen, and nowhere more than in his presence did F'r. Burke ex
pand. I scarcely remember an occasion of dining with his Eminence
with few or more guests, either in Dublin or in Rome, that Fr. Burke
' In one of his lectures Fr. Burke said that his knowledge of the Irish tonn-ue
enabled him to converse freely with natives of the Scottish Highlands. Spoken
before the deluge, Gaelic is venerable for its antiquiiy. O'Halloran went so far
as to assert that it was the language of Japhet and also of Paradise. Fr. Burke
was not much of a philologist, and expressed no opinion as to its origin. But
he held with Dr. Haughtcn that Irish was the only tongue which the Devil never
could learn, and that it was a puzzle how, thus ignorant, he succeeded in temptino-
Eve. "

COUNT SPIERLOCK'S NOTES. 267
was not a standing dish, and no one more enjoyed the scene of the
mountebank Italian dentist, or the concert of the itinerant musicians
composed of halt and blind, than his Eminence. There was one
subject, however, that never found him otherwise than serious.
He had from an eariy period become known to and greatly
cherished by the late Mrs. Ball, of Loietto Abbey, Rathfarnham, a
very gifted and remarkable woman, who saw the rare qualities of the
young religious and the career that was in store for him. He was
always ready to acknowledge that he owed very much to her advice,
and that he could never show too much gratitude to her memory.
His buoyancy of spirits would give way to periodical depression
consequent on his state of health.
No wonder that our great Dominican should have been in
dread of a mitre : for his predecessor, Fr. Mullooly, had been
nominated ' Dignissimus' for Ardagh, but shrank from the
post From the seventeenth century to the present hour the
Priors of San Clemente — including Dr. O'Fynan, whose mitre
proved a crown of thorns — have frequently been chosen for
episcopal duty.
Nowhere was Fr. Burke more himself than when the subterranean
church of San Clemente was thrown open to the public (continues
Count Sherlock). He would cicerone numbers of English, and when
showing and explaining the frescoes strongly defend their great
antiquity, whilst at the same moment, within a short distance in the
church, a rival ecclesiastic, leading a crowd of American hearers,
would throw out objections, and endeavour to shear them of some
centuries of antiquity. On these occasions good Fr. Burke on his
return would say, ' Did I not back Mullooly weU ? ' '
Fr. Burke's strong religious feeling in the same capacity
is shown by Canon Brownlow, who was making his studies in
Rome at this time and saw a great deal of him.
One day an English lady came to San Clemente, and asked to see
the subterranean church. After Ft Burke had explained the paint
ings, &c., the lady said in a patronising and somewhat supercilious
tone, ' I think you are Irish, are you not ? ' Fr. Burke immediately
went into a kind of rapture of gratitude. ' Ah, yes ! It was no merit
' Letter of John Count Sherlock to the Author, Oct. 2, 18S4.

268 LIFE OF FATHER THOMAS BURKE.
of mine, but the great goodness of God, who caused me to be born
in that glorious land of the faith. How can I ever be grateful
enough ! Why, I might have had the misfortune to have been born
in England and have been an utter stranger to the truth ! I suppose,
ma'am, you are a Protestant? ' The lady assented. ' Ah ! ' continued
the Father, ' and so might I have been, if it had not pleased the
merciful God that I should have the unspeakable blessing of being
born in Ireland.' The lady went away much abashed at having
evoked this unexpected reply to her condescending remark.'
No reader, we hope, will infer that Fr. Burke was a bigot.
Speaking at St. Paul's, Brooklyn, of ' Essays and Reviews,'
he said they were ' written entirely by Anglican clergymen,
learned men and honest men. God forbid that I should hurt
their feelings, for some of the dearest friends I have in the
world are Protestants and Englishmen.' And, in his lecture
on ' The Christian Man' (March 22, 1872), he says :
Call me no bigot if I say that the Catholic Church alone is the
great representative of Christianity. I do not deny that there is
goodness outside of it, nor that there are good and honest men who
are not of this Church. Whenever I meet an honest, truthful man, I
never stop to inquire if he is Catholic or Protestant ; I am always
ready to do him honour, as the noblest work of God.
One day a person who can hardly be called a lady waited
upon the- Prior of San Clemente and sought to draw him
into controversy. She used offensive language in regard to
the Blessed Virgin, and expressed utter incredulity that
clerical celibacy could exist. Fr. Burke stood up, rang the
bell, and to the lay brother said, ' Show this lady to the door,
and be cautious henceforth what class of person you admit.'
' Letter of Canon Brownlow, M.A., Torquay, June 25, 1884.
2 It so happened that at one time a large and well-ordered institute faced
the house in which Fr. Burke lived. The good Dominican, as he paced his
room, was more than once tormented by the vision of a female at early morn, who
probably from want of thought, would stand at the window, in the cuirass of a
well-steeled stays, and with outstretched arms bind the tresses of her hair. When
next the apparition came he shouted loudly an epithet which began with a
' B,' and was confined to a monosyllable. Henceforth his meditations were not
disturbed, nor his eyes offended. In this act he proved himself a true son of

CLERICAL CELIBACY. 269
In a subsequent lecture on 'the Wants of Society,' he
said :
The Catholic Church creates purity amongst the people because
she creates a perfect type of purity in her priesthood and in her
sanctuary. The Cathohc Church says to the people : Oh, you men !
oh, you husbands ! be faithful, be pure, be selfirestrained men !
Look at your fellow- men in the sanctuary ! Look at the men who
minister unto me at my altars ! Behold, I have taken them in the
bloom of their youth, in the strength of their manhood ; and I have
enabled them so to annihilate their passions and their bodies that
no thought or shadow of a thought to sin allied is ever allowed to
linger in its passage across their imagination ; that no act unworthy
an angel of God is ever committed by them ; that they are in the
flesh, indeed, but exalting the spirit over that flesh ; and, therefore,
it is that I admit them to my most holy altar, because they are com
plete victories, and the embodiments of victory, over their passions.
In the purity of her priesthood, in the virginal purity of her priest,
and monk, and nun, the Church of God proves to the world that
this high virtue is possible ; that it is easy and feasible to man ; and
that all that any man has to do is to look up to Jesus Christ in
prayer, and in sacrifice, and in humility, in order to obtain that gift
of innocence and purity which is the adornment of the Christian souk
The object attributed to Fr. Burke in assuming so much
exuberance — namely, that his tonsure might be kept free from
the weight of a mitre — seems to have been tolerably successful.
The inexhaustible flow of fun that bubbled out so naturally from
the witty Prior of San Clemente (writes Canon Brownlow) seemed
to certain grave divines somewhat lowering to his dignity, and it got
whispered among the Cardinals that their Eminences were at times
the objects of his jokes, and that he even presumed to mimic those
exalted personages. Some of them spoke seriously about it, and
asked the Dominican Cardinal Guidi to admonish him to behave
with greater gravity. Cardinal Guidi repaired to San Clemente,
and proceeded to deliver his message, and Fr. Burke received it
with becoming submission. But no sooner had the Cardinal finished
St. Thomas Aquinas, who, when his relatives sent a fair visitor to him in the hope
of weaning him from holy thoughts, put her to flight with a flaming brand. The
story of St. Kevin repulsing Kathleen from Glendalough rests on less sound
foundation.

270 LIFE OF FATHER TPIOMAS BURKE.
than Fr. Burke imitated his manner, accent, and language, with
such ludicrous exactness, that the Cardinal burst into a fit of
laughter, and declared that it was so amusing he could not tell him
to stop.' It is satisfactory to know, on the authority of Steevens, that
Democritus, the laughing phUosopher, lived one hundred and nine
years ; Herachtus, the crying one, only sixty. Laughing, then,
is best (he adds), and to laugh at one another is perfecdy justifiable,
since we are told that the gods themselves, though they made us as
they pleased, cannot help laughing at us.
Fr. Burke no doubt lengthened by his pleasantry the
useful lives of his mortified brethren ; meanwhile his inner life
was worthy of Lacordaire.
Mr. O'Hara, Q.C., in spending happy hours with Fr. Burke
at the house of Count Sherlock in Rome, had been asked to
bring his family to visit San Clemente. One day they left
home with that object, and, hearing that Father Burke was
somewhere about the church, entered in search of him. No
where did he appear. At last a solitary figure, motionless
before the tabernacle, and seemingly lost in an ecstasy of con
templation, arrested Mr. O'Hara's eye. Long and patiently
the party waited, hoping that the figure would at last rise ; but
the man, whose knees ought to have been stiff from kneeling,
tired out his patient visitors. They at last withdrew, not less
ainazed than edified, that piety so strong should animate one
' ' The Dominican Cardinal Guidi used often to visit San Clemente in my time,'
writes a friar preacher, ' and sometimes dine with the community or at our country
house without the city walls. Previously Cardinal Guidi had been himself prior
and professor of theology in San Clemente. He went from thence to the
University of Vienna, and it was whilst teaching St. Thomas's theology there that
he was made cardinal and archbishop of his native city, Bolon-na. He was after
wards made a suburban bishop — Cardinal Archbishop of Tusculum (Frascati) ' A
subsequent letter says : ' " Our country house " is situated at our vineyard about
two miles without the Porta Maggiore. The schools give a vacation of one
day each month in Rome, and we used to spend that day at the vineyard in com
pany of many friends, English and Itali m. Among other frequent visitors not
previously mentioned were the correspondent of the Times and Dr. Silas Chatard
rector of the North American College, and now Bishop of \'incennes US'

SPIRITUAL CONTEMPLATION. 27 1
whotn they had previously known only as an irrepressible
humourist.' What were the thoughts that filled his mind ? The Holy
Eucharist in the Tabernacle led to other reflections hardly
less absorbing. In cold clay, beneath the altar of San
Clemente, reposed St. Ignatius of Antioch, who had been
martyred in the Cohseum ; St. Cyril, St Servulus, and the
colleague of St. Paul— St. Clement himselfi Some fines of
Newman, written long before he became a Catholic, remind
us that The Fathers are in dust, yet live to God :
So says the Truth ; as if the motionless clay
Still held the seeds of life beneath the sod,
Smouldering and struggling till the Judgment day.
People used to go to confession to Fr. Burke, thinking that he
would prove an easy-going director. Never was expectation more
utteriy disappointed. They found themselves in a vice.^
His command and mastery of Italian were wonderful (says
Fr. Power). Both the facility and felicity in the use of idiomatic
Italian, his familiarity with popular phrases, and the delicacies of
the soft Tuscan tongue, astonished and delighted the Italians.
I remember a dinner party composed exclusively of Italians,
ecclesiastics, and gendemen of the literary and learned professions in
Rome in 1865. He kept the entire company in roars of laughter by
his recital of Irish stories, told with an idiomatic accuracy, rounded
off in his own inimitable way, invested in all the paradoxes of
Hibernian humour, in the musical Italian language.
' Fr. Burke, from the day he made his solemn profession, had diligently
studied, and as far as possible followed the inner life of Dominic. Ten years
after, at St. Saviour's, Dublin, he described an incident that had due in
fluence upon him: 'He (Dominic) took his station in front of the sanctuary,
and then through the long silent hours of the night, alone with God, he poured
forth his whole soul in prayer. Then God heard from the lips of this man such
words as He hears in Heaven from the highest and the holiest of his angels —
bursts of love and ardent aspirations to be permitted to suffer and to die for the
love of God. And when the grey dawn broke through the cathedral windows,
and the canons returned, they found him pale and exhausted, like one worn out
by some great physical emotion. '
2 Fr. Pius Cavanagh, O. P., to the Author.

272 LIFE OF FATHER THOMAS BURKE.
I observed that he could write Italian as correctly and with as
much facihty as he spoke it (continues Fr. Power), and more
naturally than if penning a letter in English. It was necessary
that the Constitutions of a great religious institute, founded in
Ireland by a distinguished lady, should come fully before the Pro
paganda ; and I remember how kindly he exerted himself on
behalf of the Institute. He translated their Constitutions currente
calamo for the authorities, and got them approved.
His memory was most retentive. He often told me that he
rarely forgot anything he ever read. He could recite the Psalter in
Latin, and rarely used a Breviary when reciting the Offices de coni-
mitni or the Office of the Dead.
Having an excellent ear for music, he would repeat with great
accuracy a song with words once sung in his presence. His readi
ness in extemporaneous versification would recall the quickness of
Hook by their apposite and descriptive touches.
In his leisure he would read from Thackeray or Dickens for the
recreation of his hearers in his own inimitable vein of dry humour
and elocutionary power. He could recite pages of a book after one
reading. During the tedious work of excavating under the modern church
of San Clemente, to lay bare the ancient basilica which the inde
fatigable Fr. Mullooly had discovered, his tedious operations and
untiring industry were partially rewarded by finding amidst the debris
pieces of old Roman coins, pavement, and other relics, which
perhaps Cyril the philosopher had already touched. We found
Fr. Mullooly in unusually good humour one morning. He had found
in the excavations a large fragment of what he styled a veritable
Tuscan vase. He held it up with the gratified pride of a virtuoso,
showed it with great delight, and dUated on the beauty and dura
bility of the specimen. Fr. Burke, as Prior, summoned the com
munity to see this interesting relic. He took the fragment deli
cately in his hands and turned it up and down, eyeing it in every
direction. ' What a lovely specimen ! This is die first and only
piece of the genuine Tuscan article you have found, Fr Mullooly !
You ought certainly to give it an honourable place in the collection
of your antiquities.' 'Certainly, sir, certainly. There's nothing like
it in all the museums of Rome.' And the precious fragment duly
got its niche of honour.
Something of the mystery of WUkie Cohins's ' Moonstone ' huno-
around this Tuscan pottery. One or two knew the mystery. It

FR. power's RECOLLECTIONS. 273
was an awful secret— and the divulging meant a terrible fuss and
btirsts of indignation in some quarters. It was kept— for some time.
Like aU secrets, it must out
An unknown hand had, I may say, sacrilegiously placed that
fragment one dark afternoon deep down in the excavations after the
workmen had retired. Where that ' Tuscan vase ' was originally
found, and to what uses it had been formerly applied, remain
a portion of the secret tiU this day. De Rossi and other an
tiquarians rejected it as ancient Tuscan manufacture, and deemed it
more modern, and Enghsh in its artistic workmanship and style of
ware. One day in August Fr. Burke brought the students out for the
usual ' Camerata.' During the walk we struck a river. It was the
classic Anio. ' Now for a swim ! ' cried out the students. It did
not take long to obtain Fr. Tom's permission, as he was one of those
most exhUarated by that prospect
It was a sultry afternoon, and the Anio invited us to bathe in its
cool waters. Fr. Burke reminded us that Virgil had found it re
freshing eighteen hundred years before.
' Quique altum Prseneste viri quique arva Gabina?
Junonis, gelidutnque Anienem et roscida rivis
Ilemica saxa colunt.' — Virg. Ain. vii.
In he went with a rush, and splashed and swam and dived in
the Anio, so loved of Horace and Virgil.
About a week after the Prior surprised us with the ' row ' we had
all got into with a community of monks whose monastery overlooked
the river where we had bathed.
A most formal complaint had been lodged at head-quarters
against the Prior of San Michaele, Tivoli, for the awful outrage of
swimming in the middle of the broad day in the Anio.
I must say that if there was a lonely, sequestered place, the
spot we had chosen was very emphatically such. There was no house
in view. The monastery lay away up in the grove, and we were
rejoicing that no observation could possibly mar the unspeakable
luxury to Irish boys of a swim on an August afternoon in Italy.
The Prior was brought over the coals by the General of the
Order — then Pfere Jandel — but who laughed a good deal when the
Prior convinced him of the absolute necessity of teaching Irish boys
how to dive and swim, who were to live in a country like Ireland,
fuU of beautiful lakes and entirely surrounded by water; and the art
VOL. L T

274 LIFE OF FATHER THOMAS BURKE.
of swimming was, he submitted, the only means of escape left open
to the Irish in case of being obliged to run out of the country.
Maybe we didn't think those Italians squeamish, and haters of
water. Fr. Burke was a familiar figure in the chambers of the
Vatican, where the long-buried statues of ancient Greece once
more see the light of day and challenge the admiration of
mankind : —
One afternoon (continues Ft Power) we were sauntering through
one of the marble halls which branch off the Sculpture Gallery,
stopping to examine and admire any piece of ancient or modern
sculpture that struck us as particularly worthy of closer observation.
I remarked the strong attraction which the ancient statues of
Fauns, Satyrs, and mythological monstrosities had for Fr. Burke. He
was ecstatic over the skill of the cunning hand, the faithfulness to
life, the realistic effects of the works of some one of the old Grecian
or Roman artists. But his humour and marvellous mimicry were
excited. He would pause, examine, attitudinise, pose, grin, smile,
cry — producing a facsimile of the statue which rivetted him to the
spot. He would laughingly ask, 'Am I like it?' 'Is that it?' 'I'll
do it better next time — now look.' And then he would throw him
self into the attitude, and invest himself in its peculiarities and classic
expression. Minus the habit, he might have been cast in the flesh in
the same mould which perhaps served Deedalus, Phidias, Pythagoras,
or Praxiteles, Zenodorus or Antinous for their classic models. His
imitations were transformations — the alter ego of the statue before
him — perfect transfigurations.
We paused for a long whUe opposite the Laocoon, and refreshed
our classics by recalling Virgil's description :
Post, ipsum, auxilio subeuntem ac tela ferentem,
Corripiunt, spirisque ligant ingentibus ; et jam
Bis medium amplexi, bis coUo squamea circum
Terga dati, superant capite et cervicibus altis. — yEu. ii.
The intense suffering, the writhing agony, the expression of one
superuhman effort to uncoU the huge encircling serpent ; the despair
and weakening efforts of the Laocoon wUl never be forgotten by
anyone who has visited the Vatican Museum and gazed upon one of
the grandest pieces of sculpture in the world.
We looked around. There was no one in sight. ' I'll try him ! '

POSES PLASTIQUES. 275
and in a twinkling there was the Laocoon : the marvellous power of
contortion, of personification, the agony, the strength of the terrible
struggle, the despair, were displayed in realistic effort by the won
derful Fr. Tom. ' Is that like him ? ' The effort took his breath
away. We had been watched ; a party of ladies and gentlemen
came upon us, stood opposite the Laocoon, looked at it, and then
turned their eyes full upon Fr. Burke. In his inimitable way, as if
by way of no harm, he remarked to one of the party, ' I was only
trying my hand at the Laocoon.'
' Oh, do try it again ; do, please.' An introduction and an ac
quaintance was made on the spot, and the English party, one of
whom was a clergyman of the Church of England, becatue fast and
admiring friends of Fr. Burke, and during their stay in Rome were
frequent visitors at San Clemente, and attended his sermons during
the following Lent in the church of Santa Maria del Angeli in the
Corso.' Fr. Power says that, minus the habit, Fr. Burke might
have been cast in the same mould which produced our most
famous classic statues. Even the habit he afterwards utilised
by drawing its white hood over his head when, in recumbent
posture, he personated the Sphynx. Revisiting Woodchester
before "his death, he made the long, narrow table of the
reception room a well-proportioned pedestal for this pose
plastique. One day a very interesting incident occurred. The Prince
of Wales called at San Clemente. ' The treasures of the
Church,' writes Canon Hegarty, ' were under the protection of
the British flag. They dared not keep them where they might
tempt the cupidity of the rapacious Italians.' The Canon adds
that ' His Royal Highness inquired after the safety of San
Clemente, in reply to which he was informed that they were
as yet undisturbed ; but who could tell how long that happy
state of things might continue ? '
The Very Rev. M. A. Costello, O.P., addressing the present
' MS. Recollections of Fr. Burke, supplied to the Author by the Rev.
G. D. Power, formerly of San Clemente, Oct. 17, 1884. T 2

276 LIFE OF FATHER THOMAS BURKE.
Writer, states that what is now added is within his personal
knowledge r
Before leaving Rome the Prince said that ' if anything sinister
should occur, Fr. Mullooly must write to him at once.'
' When we here, at San Clemente, were in a state of much anxiety, '
continues Fr. Costello, ' lest our house should be involved in the
general suppression ofecclesiastical corporations by the Italian Govern
ment, the Prince interested himself much in our favour, recommending
our case warmly and earnestly to the good offices of Sir A. Paget, the
then British Ambnssador to the Italian Court, who, as I know, worked
well and successfully in our cause.' '
The result is that the Dominicans now hold San Clemente
on a title independent of Pope or King.
San Clemente was an harmonious spot during the reign
of the ' Prince of Preachers.' Vocal and instrumental music
filled its venerable walls. For this he had good precedent
' The love St. Columbkille had for Ireland,' he says, ' was a
spirit common to all Irish saints. Whilst they were crowned
with high church dignities in foreign lands, still, as recorded
in the history of St. Aidan, first Archbishop of Northumbria,
whenever they wished to enjoy themselves they assembled
and celebrated in the Irish language, with sweetest verse, to
the sound of harp and timbrel, the praises of their native isle.'
' Ah I ' he sadly says on another occasion —
Italy has no such song. Great as the Italians are as masters,
they have no populady received tradition of music. I have lived
amongst them for years, and the Italian peasant, while working in
the vineyard, has no music except two or three high notes of a most
melancholy character, commencing upon a high dominant and endino-
in a semitone. The peasants of Tuscany and of Campagna, when
after their day's work, they meet in the summer evenings for a dance
have no music ; a giri takes a tambourine and beats upon it, marking
time, and they dance to that, but they have no music. So with other
countries. But go to Ireland ; hsten to the old woman as she rocks
herself in her chair, and puUs down the hank of flax for the spinnincr •
' Very Rev. M. A. Costello, O.P., to the Author, San Clemente Rome
April 5, 1885.

MADONNA OF VICOVARO. z^J
listen to the giri coming home from the field with the can of milk
on her head, and what do you hear ?— magnificent melody. Go to
the country merry-makings and you will be sure to find the old
fiddler or white-headed piper, an infinite source of brightest music.
'"Moore's Melodies" were his favourite songs,' writes Fr.
Murphy —
Their plaintive airs harmonised with the deep sympathy of his
nature, for, however genial he might appear to the external world,
there was always a vein of melancholy running through his inner life.
The deep pathos of the history, the sweet sentiment, which was the
very inspiration of the melody, caused him to pour out all the wealth
of feehng that slumbered in his soul.
Our Dominican considered that music lost its best inspira-
rion when it fell from the guidance of the Church. He fancied
— and the words are his own — that it was too often applied
to the magnifying of human pride, to the celebration of human
passion, to the illustration of all that is worst in man ; and that
the highest theme of modern composers was not the ' Stabat
Mater' — the wail of the Virgin's sorrow — not the 'Alleluia,' to
proclaim the glories of the risen God, but some story of sensual
love, set forth in all the charms and meretricious embellish
ments of art. He also regretted to see that the halo of divine
light surrounding Mary's face as it brightened beneath the
creative hand of the young Dominican painter of Urbino died
out in a subsequent school of art.
Look at the Magdalens — the Madonnas of Rubens (Fr. Burke said).
Rubens was a Catholic, yet his pictures display the very genius of
Lutheranism. If he wanted to paint the Blessed Virgin, he chose
some gross-looking woman in whom he found a ray of mere sensual
beauty, and he put her on the canvas, and held her up before men as
that Virgin whose prayer was to save, and whose power was above
the Angels. The artist who would truly represent her must have bis
pencils touched with the purity of heaven.
Simplicity of faith and great devotion to the Blessed Virgin struck
me as remarkable features of Fr. Burke's religious life (continues
Fr. Power's MS.). He surpassed himself in his sermons on the
life, dignity, and virtues of the mother of God. During the summer

278 LIFE OF FATHER THOMAS BURKE.
vacation of 1865 at San Michaele, Tivoli, he inaugurated a pilgrimage
to the famous shrine of Our Lady cf Vicovaro. This little mountain
village was about eighteen miles from Tivoli. The pilgrims started
about four o'clock in the morning, and along the route up the rugged
hiUs and mountain roads, led by the fervent Prior, recited the Litanies,
Psalms, and the Rosary, tiU the procession of the devout clients of
Mary reached the litde vUlage church, and attended the solemn
High Mass, sung by Fr. Burke.
One of the novices who accompanied Fr. Burke to Vico
varo was the late Prior of St. Saviour's, Limerick, and his
notes supply an interesting sequel :
We students were informed by him that whilst singing the High
Mass he was favoured by seeing the eyes of Our Lady in the picture
move. We could see that something must have appeared to him
during Mass, as his own appearance became so charged. He had
ever after a great veneration for ' Our Lady of Vicovaro.'
It is mentioned in the inner life of Lacordaire, who had
been a strong sceptic, that he believed in a similarly miracu
lous quality possessed by a picture also of the Madonna. But
we are bound to add that such views are quite exceptional
with Catholic priests. The emotions which visibly affected Fr.
Burke's face during High Mass may not have been induced
entirely by changes real or fancied in the wonderful picture
at Vicovaro.' Fr. Burke, whenever he celebrated Mass — espe
cially High Mass, which being of great length and solemnity
affords abundant time for thought — realised the powers of
his office to an extent not always found with officiating
ministers. Once, when referring to the words of Chrysostom
describing the virgin purity of the priesthood, Burke ex
claimed :
' At the same time, it would be hard for any man who pinned his faith, as
Fr. Burke did, to so high an authority as Thomas Aquinas, to exclude a belief in
the supernatural. ' St. Thomas thinks,' writes the Rev. W. E. Addis, ' that God
has communicated to the saints a permanent power of appearing on earth when
they please.' In the ' Summa' (Supp. qu. 69, n. 3) will be found a theological
disquisition showing that God, for wise reasons, may permit departed souls to
appear on earth.

HIS SCRUPLES. 279
This life is a God-like hfe ; this profession is an angelic pro
fession. How can I find words to express the full sanctity of
that state ? Oh ! great God ! a man speaks a few words standing
at an altar, holding a piece of bread in his h.inds, and all heaven
is in commotion. Every angel prostrates himself in adoration, for
the Almighty God rises on His throne, and places Himself, by
a wonderful incarnation, in the hands of him whose voice calls
forth a response from heaven. How can I speak of the dignity
?nd holiness of that state which brings a man into such awful contact
with the Almighty — to hold God in his hands, and speak to God as a
man speaks to his friend ? Such is the brightness of the glory of the
priesthood ; such was the sight shown to Moses on the mountain,
which ever after enrayed his head with glory ; and as Moses came
from the mountain, having seen God, so the priest comes down from
the altar with the awful sanctity of having seen Jesus Christ.'
Fathers who lived with our friar say that for several
years after ordination he was much troubled by scrupu
losity. The obligations of the sacred ministry were com
pletely realised by him. He felt, and felt correctly, that
he had received not only supernatural powers, but a grace
beyond any merits of his own. The responsibilities of his
position pressed heavily on him, and when he placed in the
balance his own weakness, and the weight of the trust reposed
in the priest, it struck him as forcibly as though a contrast
had been instituted between man and God. The exhortation
in Timothy to remember the grace he received rung in the ear
of Thomas Burke. At Tallaght he u.sually went to confes
sion two or three times a week ; but if he said Mass daily he
went still oftener ; and with his sacred vestments on him
he would suddenly drop on his knees in the sacristy, to any
priest who happened to be there, and at once disburthen his
mind of some scruple which otherwise might have tended to
distract him during the Holy Sacrifice.
1 Sermon at consecration of Bishop Hendricken, Providence, April 28, 1872.

28o LIFE OF FATHER THOMAS BURKE.

CHAPTER IX.
DOINGS IN THE ETERNAL CITY.
Much that was purely professional in the life of the good
Prior must remain unrecorded. It is not necessary to cite
proofs of the highly spiritualised character of the man, or to
show the rich harvest of conversions which he reaped in the
confessional. All this time, the course of his inner life con
tinued to flow ; but the cell wherein he prays is almost too
sacred for intrusion ; and our task concerns itself more with
the man in lighter hours.
During his priorship of San Clemente, Fr. Burke invited on
a visit a youth then in delicate health, whose family had been
kind to him in Ireland. For three months he was the daily
companion of Fr. Tom. Part of the time he acted as amanu
ensis in taking down notes for a course of Lenten sermons.
But it was his ' mems ' for a great discourse on Church
music, which, for their comic eccentricity, left most impression
on his guest. These notes seemed to the uninitiated wildly
irrelevant, but Fr. Burke explained that they seived their
purpose by prompting a particular course of thought. ' I
can compare it to nothing but a chapter of Mark Twain,'
the amanuensis said ; ' never shall I forget after an extract
from Polydorus being called upon to write down :
With that an arch wag
Stuck a pin in his bag.
When the music flew up to the moon too soon.'
This, it afterwards appeared, belonged to an old ballad
which his father used to sing about ' a piper who played before

TIVOLI. 281
Moses ! ' When on completing his job his friend read aloud
the notes, Fr. Burke laughed heartily, and fervently prayed
that in an unguarded moment he might not make the awk
ward mistake of giving out the ' mem ' meant for other uses.
The lay guest looks back with special pleasure to some
trips to Tivoli, ' under the patronage of St. Martin of Tours',
on which Fr. Burke brought him from Rome, accompanied
by his novices. They drove there and back, a distance
of thirty-six miles. Fr. Burke generally walked over the
olive-crowned hills, which spread away for miles — visiting
Corinthian temples of the Augustan age, and viewing the
steep falls of the Teverone. Sometimes he would hire a
donkey, and, getting astride, lead the van with dignified
humour. Wit and wisdom and classic lore flashed and made
the day a joy. ' Our evenings at San Clemente were equally
pleasant. With a majesty of intellect he was yet a child
among children.' '
Shakspere he considered a good educator. Fr. Burke
seemed to have his best plays by heart ' He would delight us,
by not merely repeating, but acting them. His face assumed
new features for every character.'
One day Fr. Mullooly, during his excavations, unearthed
a valuable pillar known as ' Rosso antiquo.' The Pope called
at San Clemente to see it. 'This would look well in
the Vatican,' said his Holiness. Fr. Mullooly conveyed
vi'ithout saying it that it looked better where it was. Fr.
Burke afterwards gravely sought to persuade Fr. Mullooly
that he would be obliged by a sense of holy obedience to
-surrender the pillar 1 This would indeed have been a cross.
If cut up into mosaics for the ornamentation of altars, the
pillar, he said, would be worth 4,000/. British.^
1 When viewing the ruins of Horace's villa overhanging the Anio, jokes were
freely made even at the expense of sacerdotal friends, including Fr. Horris, then
residing at Tivoli Terrace, Kingstown, and whose residence gave rise to obvious
punning. Fr. Burke felt with Horace, ' Dulce est desipere in loco.'
2 Fr. Burke's persiflage veiled deeper thoughts. Speaking of the infinite

282 LIFE OF FATHER THOMAS BURKE,
A modern fresco at San Clemente depicts a visit of Pope
Pius to that basilica, and prominent in the picture is a likeness
of Fr. Burke.
The good Prior not only gave shelter and hospitality to
the young Irish layman, but did his best to compensate for
the monastic gloom which at times prevailed by exerting
himself like a true ho.st in trying to amuse him. The Car
nival was now on, and the Prior undertook to provide his
guest, at short notice, with an Oriental fancy dress. A capa
cious night-shirt was hastily donned, then a large railway
rug was artistically draped round his person, and secured at the
waist by the coils of Fr. Burke's plaid muffler. Already the
transformation was striking; but when the Prior produced a tas-
selled fez, or, as it is called by the natives, a tarboosh, and put
on a beard, the youth became so changed that his own mother
would not have known him. ' The Turk,' as he called him
self, proceeded towards the Corso, but had not got far when
a volley of pellets made him duck his head. Next day he
found that his pursuer, mysteriously muffled, was no other
than the Prior of San Clemente, who had followed him a
short distance, and then returned to his cell. The young
Irishman looked the character of an Oriental so completely
that on a subsequent day he again donned the dress and sat
for the very effective photograph which is now before us. The
costume seems to be that of an Algerian Arab.
Among graver incidents of Fr. Burke's experience he told
Br. Paul O'Connor that he was one day reading the Divine
Oflice at San Clemente when a knock came to the door of his
cell. On opening it he found a man who said he wanted to make
his confession. Fr. Burke replied that when he had finished
sanctity of the sacrifice offered on the altar, he said, when preaching at Fermoy,
Aug. i8, 1878 : ' What wonder that the Church of God from the very beginning
sought out the costliest materials, opened the very hearts of the mountains, that
she might bring out the brightest and the most glistening marbles, and ransacked
the depths of the sea for "many a gem of purest ray serene " to place upon the
altar.'

A REMARKABLE PENITENT. 283
his Office he would hear him. Ten minutes later he opened
the door and said, ' Kneel down.' The man obeyed, but after
a moment asked what was he kneeling for. It turned out
that the first applicant had gone home, while the second
visitor had come upon utterly different business. The man
admitted that he had not been at confession for twenty years,
and resisted Fr. Burke's exhortations to repentance. But he
reasoned wdth him patiently, and on looking down at the sleeve
of his habit he found it, to his amazement, sparkling with
tears. Never was conversion more complete. The penitent
often returned to the same room;, and became as familiar a
face as the fresco of St. Alexius.'
The twin Orders of St. Dominic and St. Francis main
tained in Italy, as at home, the same fraternal intercourse.
Amid all his Italian surroundings Fr. Burke did not forget the
old land ; and on the Feast of St. Patrick 1865 he preached
at St. Isidore's the eloge of the Apostle of Ireland. Taking
his text from Eccles. xliv. i, ' Let us now praise men of re
nown,' he said that one of the duties of God's Church to which
she had ever been most faithful is the celebration of her saints.
' They are her heroes, and therefore she honours them ; just
as the world celebrates its own heroes, records their great
deeds, and builds up monuments to perpetuate their names
and their glory.' In describing the zeal and humility of
Patrick he seems to have been influenced by the example
of the saint. Do not the following words foreshadow the
suffering through which for years he triumphantly laboured ?
— ' Therefore did he make himself the slave and the servant
of all, that he might gain all to God, And in his mission
of salvation no difliculties retarded him, no labour or sacrifice

' One of the old frescoes is of St. Alexius as a mendicant— ' the father does
not recognise his son, who asks his alms.' Fr. Burke used to say that he also
performed a similar feat on his father. The case, however, is wholly different.
St. Alexius ran away from his bride the day he had been married, and stalked the
world disguised as a pilgrim.

284 LIFE OF FATHER THOMAS BURKE.
deterred him, no sickness, no infirmity of body or mind
overcame him.'
Fr. Burke also preached at Rome the panegyric of St.
Agatha, the Patron of the Irish College.
One day when hurrying to attend some great function at
the Minerva, his eyes buried in a book as he walked, Burke
came into collision on the Piazza Sancte Apostole with a pillar,
and, tripped by his habit, he fell heavily to the ground. A
report reached Galway about this time that Fr. Tom was
dead. Mr. Lynch, an old friend, called at Mrs. Burke's
house. Business was suspended and the shutters closed.
His sisters were sobbing piteously; the old mother stood
apart. Mr. Lynch advanced to console her, but she seemed
quite resigned. She had not dropt one tear. ' Long since I
gave my boy to God,' she said, ' His holy will be done ' — and
Mrs. Burke proceeded to discharge her ordinary occupations.
Of late years, though she had become very feeble, she con
tinued to walk to church every morning and hear Mass.
What Fr. Burke wrote to Sister Aloysius in 1876, that 'it
was a day up and a day down with him,' applied lung before,
and at no time more than the present. The Vice-Rector of
the Irish College hearing how ill he was, called at San Cle
mente and found him in his cell confined to bed, visibly suf
fering, and extremely low. The Vice-Rector during the
interview happening to take up a volume of Shakspere, the
Prior asked if he knew anything of that great master, and
received for reply that in the Levitical family from which he
sprang he had little opportunity of hearing much of him.
The sufferer, raising himself from his pillow, then proceeded
to recite for his visitor, with grand elocutionary effect, some
of the finest Shaksperian scenes, gracefully prefacing each
with a few explanatory words. The good priest was greatly
interested by the unlooked-for treat, and came away much
the better for his visit
How completely Fr. Burke's mind was saturated in

PAPAL HUMOUR. 285
Shakspere is shown by phrases which occur in his dis
courses. Hamlet asks ' why thy canonized bones have burst
their cerements ? ' Apostrophising St. Laurence O'Toole,
Burke asks, ' "Why didst thou not burst the cerements of the,
tomb ? ' &c. And in a sermon on the Catholic Church, 'At the
sound of his voice the cerements of sin burst.'
The late Rev. P. J. Nolan will be remembered for the
energy with which he put down Donnybrook Fair, and for
his activity in raising funds to build the handsome church
that now marks the site of former orgies. How marvellously
au courant Pius IX. was with such Dublin doings as tended
to God's honour has often surprised Irish visitors to Rome, and
his relish for a joke was no less proverbial. ' Fr. Nolan had
made a pilgrimage to Rome,' said Burke, ' to try and persuade
the Holy Father to unlock from the treasury of the Church
some special favours for those who materially aided his new
church. One day the good priest was announced. His
Holiness exclaimed, with that pleasant twinkle in his eye so
familiar through the portraits, " What, Fr. Nolan, who put
down Donnybrook Fair ! Our Carnival had better look sharp." '
Fiddling, feasting, carnivalling, masking,
conveys also some idea of the more vulgar Donnybrook.
Notwithstanding the cordial praise of Pio Nono so hand
somely bestowed by Fr. Burke in his Lectures, it must be
confessed that an expression which fell from his Holiness
at this time wounded him. He got leave to introduce his
novices to the Holy Father, and he had no sooner pre
sented them than the Pope was heard to mutter ' Feniani'
The Fenian rising had just taken place, and the word had
become very familiar. Those who knew the temperament
of Pio Nono will hardly doubt that he meant the remark for a
flash of humour ; but had it been a flash of Jove's lightning
it could not have seared its way more fatally to the sensibili
ties of his visitors. The fact that the novices and their master

286 LIFE OF FATHER THOMAS BURKE.
had come from Tallaght — the scene of the Fenian camp — gave
point to the joke. One of the most gifted of the novices
had a red face. The Pope, with an arch- smile, muttered
1 Red Republican.'
At the same audience, the Commissary-General of Buenos
Ayres tried to kiss the Papal slipper, but was so obese that
he failed ; and, without waiting for the Pope to put out his
hand, he seized and kissed it. The Holy Father, on hearing
that he was a Spaniard, said, 'He is a Spaniard and a halfi'
The Pope was a reader of newspapers, and, in conversation
with Bishop Conroy, asked what was ' Ho-me Ru'-le.'
There was one great personage in Rome wielding un
bounded power, in whose presence Fr. Burke never felt re
straint — Cardinal Barnabo, Prefect of the Propaganda. Fr.
Burke had frequent interviews with him, partly in getting
approved the Constitutions of a new order of religious, but
also, as he told a friend, in giving a helping hand — though
unofficially — in the conduct of correspondence.
The man who is called to preside over this vast tribunal (says Fr.
Burke) is, next to the supreme head of the Church, the most im
portant personage in the world. He must be full of wisdom ; he
must have the most varied knowledge for the conditions of each
different country, with an energy superhuman. He has four thou
sand bishops under him. They come to him with all their difficulties,
doubts, and dangers. He is the centre of that mighty organisation
by which the Church goes on, destined, until the end of time,
to conquer. And to this position of unexampled labour and respon-
sibUity was Barnabo called ; and, whether as secretary or cardinal of
the Propaganda, he has been, for a quarter of a century, the very
centre of that mighty system; and forth from his mind, from the
zeal of his heart, from the superhuman natural energy of his
character, intensified by his devotion, came that wonderful power
which has made the Propaganda the real consolation of the
Church for the last twenty years. A strange sight it was, indeed
that it has been my privilege more than once to witness, to stand
there in the Cardinal's chamber, where he receives the various
missionaries, to see them— the grave Oriental Bishop, in his

CARDINAL BARNABO, 287
gorgeous robes, grand-looking and kingly — speaking of the sor
rows and cares of a people who had never been heard of in this
Western land — to see this man, who had journeyed for months from
the cradle land of the world 1 Outside the door is a Jesuit, waiting
to be heard, who has come from the Polar Regions of North
America, and whose eyes have for many years scarcely seen anything
but snow and frozen rivers. Perhaps standing side by side with him
is the bronzed and embrowned foreign missionary from the Cape
of Good Hope, or the strange-looking Chinese missionary, who,
perhaps, only escaped from prison to recount his trials, and on his
return bear the tortures of those who were languishing in their cells.
In a word, a motley group, representing the universal aposto-
licity, were there ; and he, with a patience that nothing could
overcome, and with an energy that nothing could break down,
was answering all. For God had prepared him, by his exile
and contact with the outer world, for this mighty work. He
acquired the widest knowledge and experience of the locality of each
diocese, and the wants of each people. And so he laboured from
the morning watch even until night, working, toihng as a slave in the
vineyard of God. For him there was no rest His work was holy.
And what was his recreation ? The moment that he could snatch au
hour from the labours of the day, that hour was spent with Jesus
Christ in the Blessed Sacrament ; or he went, with hurried steps, to
some convent or place where a mission was going on, to instruct
little children ; or he passed into the confessional to become the
victim of his zeal. Everyone cared for his mind and heart except
one, and that one was his own great self
One object of Barnabo's solicitude and labour had
been the restoration to England of that ancient Episcopacy
which in the sixteenth century had been shattered ; and no
doubt the reconstruction of the Dominican province had a
share in his projects. Barnabo liked Burke so much that
both were often asked to meet each other at the hospitable
board of the Iri.sh College.
Fr. Burke described an incident which occurred at this
time, when lecturing at New Orleans on 'the Church in
America : '
Any one who wishes to mark attentively the course of events of this

288 LIFE OF FATHER THOMAS BURKE.
world must recognise in aU that he sees around him the hand of God
and the hand of the devU — God influencing aU things for good, and the
DevU coming in on all sides and trying to spoil God's work. Now,
amongst the works of God is the Christian religion and the Catholic
Church, and amongst the many means the devil employs to gain his
end — viz. to inspire nations ' and peoples with a kind of dread of the
Church,' he says to the nations, ' Don't listen to her ; don't have
anything to say to hen She will corrupt, she will bewitch you.' He
gives them no reason for this. He has no reason for it. Nothing
must strike a man more at first sight than the strange repugnance
and unreasoning fear with which so many sectarians regard the
Catholic Church. I remember a very enlightened, highly cultivated
English lady came to Rome with her daughter. The daughter be
came a Catholic and I received her into the Church. Her mother
came to me the same day, wild with grief, the tears streaming from
her eyes — a heart-broken woman. She says, ' What have you done
to my child? Oh! you wicked man, what have you done to my
child? You have ruined my child and broken my heart' I said,
' How is that ? ' ' WeU,' she said, ' you have made a Catholic of my
daughter.' ' Yes, that is true. Under God, I have been the means
of making a Catholic of her. But is that a sufficient reason for
breaking your heart ? ' ' Yes, it is,' said she. ' You are a well-edu
cated lady,' I said to her, ' I sitnply ask you one question. What point
is there in the teachings or practice of the Church to which you ob
ject ?' She paused for a moment 'WeU,' she said, ' I don't know ¦
but I know that you have bewitched my child and broken my
heart' ' Can you find fault,' I said, ' with any one doctrine that
your chUd has embraced ? ' She said she could not. And yet
the woman acknowledged to me, ' If my child had declared herself
an Atheist I woiUd not be so grieved as I am for her to become a
Catholic,' and that without any reason under heaven. WeU as it
happened, within twelve months I had the happiness of receiving
this same mother into the Church.
Denis Florence MacCarthy, who, like Longfellow, happened
to be in Rome at this time, urged him to hear a sermon from
Burke. The American poet was so much struck by his eloquence
that he asked MacCarthy to introduce him to the Dominican.
The result was that both bards met at the hospitable board of
the Prior of San Clemente. MacCarthy celebrated the event in

LONGFELLOW. 289
some lines which he sent to the Rev. B, Russell, then Pro
vincial of the Order.
LongfeUow used to delight in listening to him portray the
eccentricities of Italian hfe (writes an eye-witness, who proceeds to
describe the itinerant Roman dentist already noticed at page 237).
The great preacher played die part of the clever cavadenti, while the
author of ' Evangehne ' would take the part of the unfortunate vittima
— of the quack. The pleasantries and associations of the Irish Prior of
San Clemente and the author of the ' Golden Legend 'are unique, as
they are suggestive and interesting in the hves of two great nien in the
nineteenth century — great in two spheres, apparently so wide of
each other — a pleasant reminiscence of the laureate orator of Ire
land and poet laureate of America. '
Meanwhile it may be mentioned that Fr. Burke, at this
time, preached during the month of Mary. May has been
always a favourite month with poets, and it is not surprising
that Longfellow joined in the devotions as well as the author
of ' Waiting for the May.' Longfellow seemed so liberal that
Fr. Burke had great hopes of his adhesion to the Church.
The following passage occurs in one of Burke's American
homilies :
Everything in the Church's teaching harmonises with the works
of the human intelligence ; everything in her moral law harmonises
with the wants of man's soul ; everything in her liturgy or devotions
harmonises with man's imagination and sense, in so far as both help
him to a union with God. And so everything in the Church's devotion
accords with the nature around us and within us, and with that reflection
of nature in its highest and most beautiful form which is in the spirit
and in the genius of the Blessed Virgin Mary. I remember once
speaking with a very distinguished poet — one of a worldwide reputation
and a name which is a household word wherever the English language
is spoken— and he said to me, ' Father, I am not a Cathohc, yet I have
no keener pleasure or greater enjoyment than to witness Catholic
ceremonial, to study Cathohc devotion, to investigate Cathohc doc
trines ; nor do I find,' he said, ' in aU that nature or the resources
of intellect open before me greater food for poetic and enthusiastic
thought than that which is suggested to me by the Catholic Church.'
' Letter of Very Rev. J. D. Power, formerly of San Clemente, Aug. 7, 1884.
VOL. L U

290 LIFE OF FATITER TPIOMAS BURKE.
And so it is not without reason that the Church is able to account
for every iota of her liturgy and devotions.
Bishop Whelan was fond of securing Fr. Burke for those
little dinners which friends pleasantly remember, and to meet
a bishop is one of the few occasions on which a friar is pre
sumed to dine out. The last evening Fr. Burke passed at Dr.
Whelan's he sang ' Barney O'Hea,' with pianoforte accom
paniment, adding that he had not done so since he sang it
for Longfellow at Rome, who assured him that of all Irish
ballads he liked that the best.
The thoroughly Irish hospitality of the Prior of San
Clemente gave a new attraction to the Eternal City. In
1866, during the visit of an old Galway man to Rome, Fr.
Burke summoned him to his table, and on the guest arriving
he was surprised to find forty others, including several bishops.
The ' old Galway man ' was Alderman Tarpy ; and the prox
imity of the Tarpeian Rock gave rise to much obvious joking.
Mr. (now Sir Charles) Gavan Duffy, who had already held
high oflice in Australia, and was destined to become Prime
Minister there, and afterwards Speaker, wintered in Rome at
this time. Old memories became awakened. We remember
how fascinated the Galway youth had been by the tone and
brilliancy of a national journal which owed both to Gavan
Duffy. Both men met for the first time, and the impressions
of the ex-Minister will be found in the following document
which he has placed at our disposal :
It was in the winter of 1866 at Rome that I saw Fr. Burke for the
first time. I went there with my family to avoid the rigour of De
cember in the north, and the morning after our arrival he was good
enough to call on us. I had been ten years away, more than ten
thousand miles from Ireland, and when his name was announced I
barely recognised it as that of a Dominican Father who had become
a popular preacher in the interval. To be a popular preacher is a
reputation I had known various persons attain without finding myself
prodigiously moved when I came to listen to them; and no one
could possibly assume less on the strength of his success than the

SIR C. G. DUFFY'S NOTES. 29 1
frank, genial priest who fell into cordial talk on the spot, and who
demeaned himself like an old friend. He was preaching at the time
in one of the churches in the Piazza del Popolo, where sermons are
delivered weekly for the English, Irish, and. American visitors of
various creeds who winter at Rome. I took an early opportunity of
hearing him, and his sermon was one of the most profound surprises
of my life. I had learned in the interval, through constant inter
course, what keenness of insight, natural humour, and knowledge of
character Fr. Burke possessed. It was impossible to know him at
all without recognising that he was a man of many gifts and a wide
range of information, but I was not prepared for the power and grasp
of his pulpit oratory. I had heard all the contemporary preachers of
note, in the Catholic Church at least, and all the Parliamentary
orators of the day, but I was moved and impressed by that ser
mon beyond any human utterance to which I had ever listened.
I despair of conveying the sort of impression it made upon me ; but
I think persuasiveness was its most striking characteristic. You were
gradually drawn to adopt the preacher's views as the only ones com
patible with truth and good sense. He marched straight to a fixed
end, and all the road he passed seemed like a track of intellectual
light His accent was Irish, but his discourse bore no other resem
blance to any Irish utterance with which I was familiar. We have the
school of Grattan and the school of O'Connell, the artificial and the
spontaneous, into which most Irish oratory may be distributed ; but
it belonged as little to one as to the other. The lucid narrative which,
without arguing, was the best of arguments ; the apt illustration, which
summed up his case in a happy phrase, might have recaUed Plunket ;
but in truth, like most original men, he resembled no one but himselfi
After that winter in Rome it was more than a dozen years
before I heard him preach again, and in the interval he had been in
feeble health and sometimes prostrate with suffering. It was in the
Jesuits' Church, Farm Street, London, where he made the annual
eloge of St Ignatius. The subject had been exhausted by a hundred
predecessors in that pulpit ; it had perhaps special difficulties for a
Dominican, and his health was known to be failing fast But it
stands out in my memory as one of the three or four greatest orations
I have heard. It was a fresh character- portrait, drawn in bold
striking lines, and set in a narrative lucid as the waters of the Medi
terranean. Again the master charm was persuasiveness. I could
not help thinking, if he had not already found his life task, here was
a man who 'could plead the cause of his native country with more

292 LIFE OF FATHER TPIOMAS BURKE.
winning force than anyone to whom I have listened in later years —
perhaps than anyone to whom I ever listened. He did not wield
the Thor's hammer of O'Connell, crushing and crashing whatever
impeded its stroke, and he could not thrill with the passionate en
thusiasm sometimes evoked by Thomas Meagher ; but to win the
assent of the conscience, and convince the judgment, no one excelled
him. Much of this force was mesmeric, the outcome of the whole
moral and intellectual nature of the man. The orator is not always
made ; sometimes, like the poet, his gifts are born with him. Fr.
Burke was a born orator ; the charm of voice and eye and action
combined to produce his wonderful effects. When his words were
printed, much of the subtle spell vanished. One rejoiced to hear
him over and over again, but re-read him rarely, I think. Other
generations who can know him only as a writer will find it hard to
understand how he came to be regarded not merely as the greatest
preacher, but in later years the foremost orator of his race.
That winter of 1866 in Rome holds a pleasant place in my
memory. It was a rare enjoyment to visit the monuments and
historic sites of such a city with such a guide. If a holiday-maker
has seen the birthplace or the grave of the local artist or preacher,
poet or patriot, where chance conducts his steps, he counts his day
well spent. But where the painter is Raphael or Claude, the poet
Tasso, the patriot Rienzi, and the preacher Saul of Tarsus or St
Matthew the Evangelist, written words are but a pale shadow of the
feelings they evoke. To visit for the first time the noble halls and
galleries, cabinets and courts of the Vatican, which vie in beauty with
the treasures they contain, and make aU other museums mean and
dingy, is an education in art ; and what an historical study is the
CoUegio Romano, where one might see the identical rooms occupied
by eminent missionaries and saints of the Society of Jesus two cen
turies ago, StiU containing the books and furniture they used when
they were students or professors, and its noble library, where it was
a pleasant surprise to find the works of Savonarola on its shelves,
and the portrait of Galileo in its observatory ? And where can the
eariy history of Christendom be better studied than in the Catacombs,
the hiding place of early popes and saints, and richer than the Colos
seum itseff in the blood of Christian martyrs ? Of the early history
of Ireland there is San Pietro in Montorio, where our martyrs lie
buried. But nothing in the capital of the Christian worid, not St.
Peter's or the Sovereign Pontiff, was a sight fit to match in interest to
Irishmen the exhibition of the Accademia Polyglotta, where students

'WISE AND WITTY.' 293
from Asia, Africa, Australasia, and Europe spoke, each of them, the
language or chanted the music of his birthplace, and from three con
tinents and their outlying islands the students bore names that
marked them of our own indestructible people. The remote history
of Europe, when the children of Conn gave missionaries to half the
known world, seemed revived again in that spectacle. What a volume
steeped in tears, but illuminated too with glorious incidents, might
be written on the Irish monuments and institutions in Rome ! His
own San Clemente furnished my friend with a constant text, for its
Irish friars were the hosts and often the trusted counsellors of princes,
from Charles and James Stuart and Charles Edward in a later genera
tion down to Albert Edward of Wales in our own day ; and, what is
nobler and better, the constant guardian of Irish interests, when Ire
land had a foreign policy and a diplomatic corps hid under the black
or brown robes of monks and professors. And he did not forget that
other Irish house founded by the great Franciscan who was ambas
sador from the Confederation of Kilkenny to the Holy See, or the
more modern college in whose humble church the heart of O'Connell
is preserved. Mangan and Fr. Meehan have made the graves of
the Earls famihar to Irish readers ; but when the time comes there
wiU be work for other pious hands in honouring the memory of later
exUes. There is a granite obelisk in the Piazza del Popolo which
Juhus Caesar set up in that place before the Redeemer descended on
the earth, and which is covered with hieroglyphics sculptured by
Egyptian artists before Moses received the tables of the law on Mount
Suiai; it has seen cities grow and perish, generations and cycles
come and go, the Goth and the Gaul in turn masters of Rome, the
piratical soldier of fortune and the crowned emperor hold the cradle
of Christianity to pillage, but it still lifts its eternal face to the sun as
fresh in the days of Bismarck as in the days of Caesar. The eloquent
Dominican saw in this Eastern monument a type of the Celtic race,
destined to oudive chance and change and remain fresh and imperish
able in the old age of the world.
Fr. Burke's flow of pleasant talk was wise and witty by turns.
I wiU not, after so many years, attempt to recal any fragments of it.
One weighty saying, indeed, I remember, because I have often quoted
it since. Speaking of Frederick Lucas's memorable mission to Rome
in 1855 on behalf of the second order of the Irish clergy, he said Lucas
failed because the case of Ireland against England was necessarily
iU understood at Rome. The Holy Father and the Propaganda saw
every day men who bore names which they had read in English history.

294 LIFE OF FATHER THOMAS BURKE.
and who were oflfiicials of the Roman Court, Talbots, Howards, and
Cliffords. The only Irishman they saw was probably some priest
with an unpronounceable name, and whose Latin or Italian jarred
upon Southern ears. They received habitually touring English nobles
and ecclesiastics ; and national prejuifice, which is strong enough in
an ordinary Englishman, is stronger in a noble, and strongest of all
in a priest. And this class prejudice (he remarked) was not local
but general; one of the bitterest enemies of Poland he had ever
' encountered was a Russian nun, probably of noble birth. The
Poles being a Catholic nation did not counterbalance the fact that
they were bad subjects to his Majesty the Czan
To the question why he did not himself undertake this neglected
duty, of representing Ireland truly to the Holy See, he replied that
Rome was the head-quarters of the Church militant, where its states
men and rulers were assembled, and he, for his part, was simply
a private soldier in the ranks.
It was part of his Irish nature, part perhaps of the predisposition
of a man of genius, that hs loved to refieve a mind burdened with
thought by constant badinage. He overflowed with comic stories, of
which he was himself oftentimes the butt I have heard him teU a
room fuU of his guests at San Clemente anecdotes of this kind which
only a person of unusual naivete would accept, or was expected to
accept, au pied de la lettre. One was the prank he professed to have
played on an American bishop of Irish descent with whom he travelled
from Cork to Dublin. The tourist was eager to see the historic places
of which he had heard so often, and Fr. Burke declared that he
thought it a pity not to gratify him on the spot Out of the window
of the railway carriage he showed him in turn the field of the
Boyne, the church of Dungannon, the Pariiament House of the Irish
Confederation, the city sacked for three days by Cromwell's fanatics
the river from which Sarsfield sailed away to France, and the sites of
the monster meetings at Tara and MuUaghmast'
Fr. Kenny, O.P., to whom we owe many interestino- facts
tells us that the subsequent Prime Minister addressed a letter
' Critics will notice that this repeats, with a slight variation of detail an in
cident already described ; but we did not feel warranted in mutilating the paper
which Sir Gavan Duffy entrusted to us. He is mistaken in supposing the trick
on the American Bishop fabulous. It is well known to Dominicans that thou-^h
Fr. Burke embellished it in recital, the trick was really played. "

INVITED TO AUSTRALIA. 295
to Fr. Burke, in which he strongly urged him to come to
Australia. I cannot fix with any certainty the date at which the correspond
ence you inquire about took place (writes Sir C. G. Duffy), but I
remember very well the feelings from which it sprang. Fr. Burke
possessed missionary gifts in an eminent degree, and there was no
place on the globe where, to my thinking, they could have been used
with such prodigious results as in Australia and Australasia. On that
continent and those islands are springing up a new France, Italy,
Germany, Spain, and England, and by the labours of half-a-dozen
men of his calibre, all the Catholic Church lost at the Reformation
might be regained in the newest new world. I did not want to see
him a Bishop or Archbishop, however fit he was for these dignities,
but a preacher, a missionary, a new St. Francis. The adventurous
and laborious population who are occupying and civilising these
countries are very accessible to generous and humane influences,
and such a man, who would live the life of an apostle among them
and whose tongue was touched with the fire of conviction, would, I
felt persuaded, have an apostle's career.
Nowhere would Fr. Burke have been a greater success
than in Australia. The Archbishop of Sydney but expressed
the sense of a vast portion of that great colony when, in his
recent lecture on ' Self-Culture,' delivered before the Literary
and Debating Society of Sydney, his Grace pronounced a
grand eulogium on Fr. Burke.'
The celebration, in June 1867, of the eighteenth centenary
of the martyrdom of SS. Peter and Paul, was an event second
only in magnitude to the CEcumenical Council, with which
it opened connection. The Sovereign Ponriff called every
bishop in the world to assemble round the shrines of the
Apostles, and to assist at the canonisarion of twenty-five
saints. Thereupon mitres rose up in the vales of the Hima
layas, glittered on the Alleghany Mountains, emerged from
tropical climes and Arctic regions, and even the Antipodes
> Reported in the Tablet, Jan. 31, 1885. Previously, at a literary and debating
society in Sydney, Mr. P. Farrell delivered an able essay on ' The Life and
Labours of Father Tom Burke.'

296 LIFE OF FATHER THOMAS BURKE.
sent their contingent. From the jungles of India to the
Curragh of Kildare, ecclesiastical life was astir. Five hun
dred and ten prelates, 2,500 priests, and 100,000 laics, of
whom many were red men and negroes, traversed smiling
prairies and sandy deserts. Some of the bishops we learn
were ' mounted on camels for fourteen hours for forty days.
Mostly aged men, what wonder if a few faltered and fell ?
The Bishop of Vancouver's Island was summoned to another
Eternal City ; the same remark applies to Dr. Kilduff, Bishop
of Ardagh. The prelates of Spain walked in procession
through the streets of Barcelona to the port of embarkation.
An interesting spectacle was presented in the Chinese Bishop
of Nankin, who, on seeing the Pope for the first time, pros
trated himself in tears, exclaiming, ' Tu es Petrus ! ' Fr.
Daniel, who accompanied the Irish contingent, tells us that
the Syrian bishop, according to Eastern custom, took the
Pope's hands in both of his, raised them to his head in token
of submission, then to his lips, then to his heart, signifying
that in all he could do, speak, or think, he was of his Holi
ness the most docile son.
The disciphne and devotion with which these dispersed
soldiers of Christ marched to the centre of unity, not in
obedience to a command, as at the Vatican Council, but to the
whispered desire of the Pope, carried a high moral signifi
cance which delighted Fr. Burke. The advance of such
enormous columns preached with eloquence the faith and
unity of Catholicism, and showed that its vitality had not
been impaired by time. But, while edified by the grandeur
of the ceremonial, Burke was not the man to shut his eyes to
the eccentriciries presented in some individual members of the
Church militant. Amongst them were Oriental patriarchs
and prelates of every rite in communion with Rome. The
Armenian and the Chaldean, the Greek and the Copt, the
Maronite and Slavonic, the Roumanian and the Melchite
mustered. They were men of the holiest nature, but some-

DIABOLIC POSSESSION. 297
times of the most fantastic contour. One, accompanied by
an interpreter, was especially desirous of procuring well-
authenticated cases of diabolic possession and obsession.
To those who may not have explored the somewhat occult
volumes which treat on this subject, it may be explained
that, though any person in mortal sin is regarded as
' possessed,' it is distinctly taught that there are times when
the devil inhabits the body of his unhappy victim. In obses
sion he assails his prey from without, and presents strange
phantoms to his senses, but does not enter his body. Even
in possession he cannot inhabit the soul, much less master the
free will, but he may fearfully increase the power of tempta
tion, overpower the body, and produce madness, in which
state the person possessed may commit actions outwardly
sinful. Fr. Burke told his friend, the Rev. T. Mulkerrin, that
he had been asked by an African prelate who was compiling
data on these points if he had ever known any instances
of possession. ' Oh ! such cases are quite common in my
native town,' he replied ; ' a shoemaker went out, and, after
drinking freely, bought twelve balls of hemp, six lasts, ten
awls, two pounds of cobbler's wax, fifty whangs of leather,
with pegs and sprigs ad libitum, all of which he swallowed ! '
' The devil must clearly have entered into that man,' replied
the African prelate, as he noted in detail the articles swal
lowed. ' I differ from you,' responded Fr. Burke ; •* after bolting
so big a meal I should just like to know what room remained
for the devil ? That you should have swallowed so much is
quite as wonderful as the feat of the Galway shoemaker.'
Not the least imposing part of the prolonged ceremonial
of that year was the gorgeous procession on Corpus Christi.
Those who witnessed it will retain a vivid impression of
the solemn dignity with which Fr. Burke, represenring San
Clemente, as some said, walked in the grand cortkge. The
Dominicans take precedence of the Franciscans, for although
the order of Assisi had the start of the Dominicans, yet the

298 LIFE OF FATHER THOMAS BURKE.
Franciscan Rule had not been approved by Rome until some
days subsequent to that of St. Dominic.
Fr. Burke had now completed the full three years of his
tenure as Prior of San Clemente, and was looking forward to
the resumption of his work in Ireland, when Archbishop
Joachim Gonin wistfully fixed his eyes on him in the hope of
persuading him to become Coadjutor Archbishop of the Port
of Spain. Fr. Burke's title would be, until succeeding to the
See, ' Bishop of Alabanda in partibus infidelium,' with juris
diction over Trinidad, Grenada, St. Vincent, St. Lucia, and
Tobago. The archiepiscopal province also includes Jamaica,
Honduras, Demerara, and Oura5oa. He did not give the
idea much encouragement, and on Fr. Ford, Canon of Trini
dad, requesting him to consider it, replied, ' I would prefer
Irish stew to a Turkish bath.' Fr. Burke informed Mr.
Haverty that, if he had not happened to be in Rome, the
bulls would have been issued for his consecration. Later
on another Dominican, Fr. William O'Carroll, accepted the
post, but his exertions in the vineyard beneath a tropical sun
abridged a career full of usefulness, and within the present
year a third Dominican Bishop^Dr. Hyland — has succumbed.
It will be seen that in 1874 Sir Patrick Keenan was charged,
on behalf of Archbishop Gonin, to renew these overtures to
Fr. Burke.
All this rime his humility was such that he went out of
his way to make his appearance the reverse of attractive.
Some Irish ladies having arrived in Rome, who claimed his
help as a guide, they observed him during successive days
keeping his engagements with a neglected growth of bristly
beard and his person wrapped in a cloak which displayed an
accumulation of mud splashes — some of Irish origin. They
reminded him that even in this he resembled St. Dominic,
whose biographer describes ' his black cloak showing marks
of long journeys through wind and rain.' ' Ah,' replied Fr.
Burke, dryly, ' Rome is a grand place for people who don't

LIKING FOR ENGLISPIMEN. 299
care to be clean.' And yet these ladies had seen the King
and Queen of Naples stop their carriage in the street to con
verse for ten minutes with the poor Dominican.
He had such a grave way of saying queer things that
many persons felt it a heresy to doubt him. He told that an
Italian artist begged him to give sittings for a great picture
he was painting of ' The Temptation in the Desert.' ' For
our Lord, of course,' said the ladies. ' No, for the devil.'
And to this hour they believe the assurance with steadfast
faith. Fr. Burke's humility was learned in the best of schools — •
the school of suffering (writes Fr. Clarke, S.J.) But, indeed,
from his start as a missionary preacher, his humility was
conspicuous. He seemed naturally so humble that few ever
suspected the poignant pain it gave him to cultivate habits
calculated to earn the contempt of worldlings. In order to
realise the full extent of his sacrifice we must peer into his
thoughts, and there read the book of his soul. Addressing
the Young Men's Society at Cork, in June 1874, he inci
dentally remarked :
You may despise a man without injuring or insulting him —
you may simply hold him in utter contempt ; and I believe that
is worse than either insult or injury. I myself would rather be
injured and insulted than despised. Anything but that. I re
member once speaking with an Englishman of the treatment Ireland
received from the English. I said that she had been injured and
insulted by them in every way. I was angered when I spoke.
' Oh ! ' said the Englishman, ' don't get angry. We don't insult you,
we really don't. We don't intend to injure you. We only despise
you.' And that made me ten times more angry. Anything but
contempt Fr. Burke's prejudices softened eventually. In his plea
sant lecture on Music at Liverpool, in April 1883, he said
he had lived amongst them for years, and he could say that
a little alcohol never took more kindly to a piece of sugar
than did an Englishman on meeting a genial Irishman.

300 LIFE OF FATPIER THOMAS BURKE.
Father Burke (observes Mt Lane) was of all things an Irishman,
and in nothing was he more so than in his voice and accent. Sheri
dan said that an Irishman should carry his honour and his brogue
unsullied to the grave. Burke did both. It is the fashion to deride
our brogue. I have heard two who had it meted out to them in full
measure— O'Connell and Burke. In no other form of the language
could I find a medium more perfectly adapted to sustain and reflect
the full freight of thought that it bore upon its brimming tide. It
seemed capable of all forms of expression, and, for my part, I would
not barter it for the most accomphshed drawl of a West- End drawing-
room or the cold primness of Oxford or Cambridge.
Rome was now specially full of Anglican converts, but a
number of English visitors who held aloof from the fold
of Peter ' wintered ' there too. Fn Burke, on accepting an
invitation from an English Countess to attend her soire'e,
found himself almost the only Catholic in the room. The
great preacher of Santa Maria del Popolo was asked to sing.
' I only sing polemic songs,' he replied. ' Oh, pray sing
them,' was ejaculated on every side. ' I began " The Devil
among the Soupers," ' said Fr. Burke, and I soon found that
the company, headed by Lady S  herself, enjoyed it as
thoroughly as though my audience hailed from Stoney
Batter.' There can be no doubt that Fr. Tom's pleasant ways
often attracted Protestants who finally became converts.
Had he been an austere ecclesiastic these adhesions would
have been much fewer. The Bishop of Clogher writes,
April 8, 1884:—
I was once present at a sort of operatic burlesque given in
Rome by Fr. Burke and a young English gentleman, a Protestant,
but a convert in expectation. It was ineffably funny to hear Burke
and him imitating the altissimo notes, and the quavers, shakes, &c.,
of the great vocal performers. The whole business was bewitchingly
entertaining. This served as a good rehearsal for a much more elaborate
performance between the P^re Monsabre and Fr. Burke.
Dr. Lilly, O.P., observes :

MONSABRfi. 301
I doubt if any living member of our Order can compare with Burke
as an orator. Pfere Monsabr^, the Lent preacher at Notre Dame, is
the only living Dominican who can sway the masses with a power
equal to his. Monsabr^ and Burke were trained in the same school,
and resemble each other in many particulars. Both are endowed
with the same fervid temperament and the same unfailing command
of language. The Bishop of Kilmore met the rival Dominicans at this
time. His Lordship has been kind enough to give us his
recollections of Fr. Burke, and the following is the portion
which belongs to this stage of our story :
I was in Rome in 1867; Monsabre, the celebrated French Domi
nican preacher, was also at San Clemente. On one occasion Ft
Burke gave a very large party, to which many high ecclesiastics were
invited, mcluding the late Cardinal Cullen. It was an occasion not
to be easily forgotten. The black spectre of cholera had just then
entered Rome, but the flow of wit from Burke and Monsabre made
us forget the gloom it brought To say the truth, we were all proud of
the two distinguished sons of St Dominic. It was hard to decide
which was the greater genius. Burke gave out his witty things first
in English for the accommodation of the English-speaking guests.
The French and Italians thought we had lost aU our ecclesiastical
gravity, we laughed so at Burke's sayings ; but we soon had our
revenge when he told them the same stories in French and Italian.
Their sides ached with laughter. Monsabrd was a ventriloquist as
well as a wit He would make you believe he had captured a bee
at one time ; at another that he was sawing timber with an old, rusty
saw. Burke was inimitable at the bagpipes — that is, imitating
them.' It may be explained that Monsabre, while seeming to
catch on a window a blue-bottle fly or bee, imitated its
buzz, from the bass abandon indicative of freedom to the
falsetto of closing capture. Monsabr6 had succeeded Lacor
daire, and had now become Honorary Canon of Notre Dame,
' Letter of the Bishop of Kilmore to the Author, May 6, 1884. It may be
added that Fr. Burke ' was not only a master of pure Italian, but to his stories and
dialogues he added great effect by the use of slang Italian.' — Rev. B. Russell,
O.P., to the Author.

302 LIFE OF FATHER TPIOMAS BURKE.
and also of the Cathedral of Metz. He evinced from his
childhood marked powers of mimicry, and began even on
the steps of the altat The priest whose Mass he served
gabbled over the Latin with such haste that little Monsabre,
in giving the responses, imported to them a jerkiness which
the priest recognised as a travestie, and sternly reprehended.
When Burke and Monsabr6 met it was diamond cut diamond
between them. Both felt that
A little nonsense now and then
Is useful to the wisest men.
Bishop Delany was present, as he tells us, when the pair
produced an Italian burletta full of richest harmony and
humour. Indeed, had they cared to go more in earnest to
work, Gilbert and Sullivan might look to their laurels. The
amateur opera was performed in San Clemente on a large
table, in presence of Cardinal Cullen, Bishop Butler, and
many other prelates. Nothing could be more piquant than
' the business ' between Monsabre and Burke. The latter,
however, was stage manager, orchestra, prompter, and pro
perty man as well as prima donna. Denis Florence MacCarthy
was among the visitors, and he said that if the Bishops
could have been photographed as they laughed the picture
would have been one of priceless piquancy.
Fr. Burke's command of Italian eloquence led Fr.
Doussott,then Master of the Itahan Novices at Santa Sabina,
to invite him to address them in a series of discourses
couched in the language of the country. The native Fathers
and novices preferred his Italian to that of the more legiti
mate instructors.
With the object of interesting and amusing his friends
Fr. Burke was fond of putting the Pope in a position of
friendly familiarity with him. The following is not an
article of faith, but, as characteristic of the man, must not be
excluded. Describing a grand levcc at the Vatican, where all the

TPIE POPE AND TPIE DUCITESS. 303
great English converts assembled in their strength, the Pope,
he said, turned to him for information as to the antecedents
of several persons who were seen advancing. ' Thomas, my
son, who may this be ? ' ' The Duchess of Leeds, most Holy
Father.' ' What a colossal figure ! ' ' Yes, Holy Father,
faith moves mountains ! ' We will not say ' with that his
Holiness laughed like for to split,' but perhaps it may be
assumed that he appreciated the readiness of this scriptural
citation.' He said that the Pope on another day made a reply
in Italian, and which translated was, ' You're a Janiiis!
That day Burke asked all sorts of ecclesiastics, ' Am I a
janius ? Deny it at your peril, for the Holy Father says I am.'
Fr. Burke, different from a great sacerdotal wit still
living, did not shine at repartee. The points in which his
strength lay are already familiar. His smart replies are
easily gathered.
The Capuchin Church and Catacombs at Rome present
in several respects a remarkable spectacle. The light which
burns before the altar is enclosed in a monk's skull ; the chains
whereby it is suspended are formed by a multiplicity of joints
gathered from fleshless fingers. In the mortuary chapel
skeletons, fully draped in cowl and cassock, take their stand ;
when viewed from behind the resemblance to living monks is
so great that visitors often receive a start by the ghastly
results of a fuller acquaintance. Fr. Ashe, a Dublin Capu
chin, remarked of the head house of his Order that he would
end his course in joy if his own remains should be consigned
to its Catacombs. ' They will never make an Ash-pit of it,'
responded Fr. Burke. To see the full point of the reply it is
well to tell what manner of man Ashe was. He was very
1 Sir Samuel Ferguson contributed to Blaciwood an amusing sketch, since
reprinted, called 'Father Tom and the Pope.' But his padre was Fr. Tom
Maguire, and the remark said to have made Gregory XVI. laugh was ' Your
Holiness is not the first Pope that I floored.' The Rev. T. P. Pope had been
Maguire's opponent in controversy.

304 LIFE OF FATHER THOMAS BURKE.
sarcastic, and fond of tripping up talkers with execrable puns.
He could never agree with Cardinal Cullen, under whose
jurisdiction he lived, or even with his own Order, from which
he at last withdrew.
In 1867, just before Fr. Burke's tenure of office expired, a
third discovery was made beneath San Clemente. As relic
after relic came to light, Frs. Mullooly and Burke fairly
divided the excitement between them. One declared that it
was the original cell of St. Clement, the other pronounced it
to be the cavern near San Clemente to which, A.D. 999, the
Emperor Otho retired with his confessor and abandoned him
self to holy exercises.
Shortly after the termination of his priorship in Rome,
Fr. Burke returned to Ireland and was assigned to the convent,
30 Rutland Square,' in connection with St. Saviour's, Dominick
Street, Dublin.
On September 9, 1867, we find him lecturing on Ecclesi
astical Architecture. The lecture proved so successful as an
aid to the charity for which it was given, that he repeated it at
Wicklow and other places. On the 22nd he preached at St.
Mary's, Rathmines, to liquidate the debt incurred in the decora
tion of that fine temple. The Rev. P. J. Ryan, now Archbishop
of Philadelphia, was then in Dublin, and followed Fr. Burke's
lecture with another, ' On the Use of the Beautiful in Catholic
Worship.' That evening our Dominican called on a friend
and rapturously expressed the pleasure with which he had
listened to it ; and we believe that the great intimacy which
afterwards subsisted between Dr. Ryan and Fr. Burke dated
from this incident Fr. Burke's elation was not a little
stimulated by the opening, a day or two before, after three
centuries of proscription from London, of the handsome
Dominican Church at Haverstock Hill.
Among his speeches at this time was one commendatory
of St, Bridget's Orphanage, ' Though Ireland lost her posi-
' The Rev. J, T, Towers, Provincial 0,P,, to the Author.

TENEBR.-E. 3^5
tion as a nation, and lost her wealth, and once or twice lost
her temper, yet she had never lost her faith.'
An eminent Protestant preacher and elocutionist, the Rev.
Chancellor Tisdall, D.D., wishing to hear Fr. Burke, repaired
to Dominick Street one evening in Holy Week, when a
Tenebrae service ' was being sung.
I have seldom listened (he writes) to a more admirable discourse.
The preacher's mode of treating his subject — God's hatred of sin — ¦
was original and argumentative, and the application and peroration
were among the most powerful specimens of pulpit oratory I ever
heard. Occasionally, his bursts of eloquence somewhat reminded
me of Lacordaire, whom I once heard preach a Lenten sermon at
the Church of St Roch, in Paris, many years before. I was brought
to hear Fr. Burke by a friend who was anxious to have my opinion
of him as a preacher. The only seats we could get in the densely
crowded building were in the gaUery at the west end. I was, there
fore, at a considerable distance from the speaker, but so distinct was
his utterance, and so skilfully managed his voice, that I did not miss
a word of his fine sermon, which occupied fully an hour in delivery.
The most effective voices and the most agreeable to listen to that
I ever heard were those of O'ConneU, Isaac Butt, Chief Justice
Whiteside, Mr. Spurgeon, and Fr. Burke.
Dr. Cullen was the first Irish bishop who wore a cardinal's
hat, and on his arrival from Rome he held a levee at Clonliffe
College to receive he congratulations of his friends. This
levee was marked by great pomp and circumstance. But we
are reminded by Dr. J. B. Kavanagh, a most observant
ecclesiastic, that it was the lowly friar, Fn Burke, and not
the new Cardinal, who seemed to engross all the attention and
homage. Within the next few days a subscription list was
opened for the purpose of purchasing a coach for the Cardinal.
' A deputation is about to wait upon the faithful," said a pious
collector to Sir Percy Nugent, a prominent but not wealthy
Catholic baronet 'Then I shall be one of the faithful
' This service is mainly taken from the Lamentations of Jeremias, and is most
touching. The lights are extinguished as each Psalm ends, until at last only one
is left burning. Then it was that Fr, Buke ascended the pulpit.
VOL. I. ^

3o6 LIFE OF FATHER THOMAS BURKE.
departed', he replied, ' for on this evening I leave Dublin for
my quiet retreat in Westmeath.' ' But even there you will
not be suffered to rest in peace,' was the reply.
Assisted by Frs. Rooke, Prendergast, Buckler, and Cava
nagh, Fr. Burke proceeded in 1868 to open a mission in
Lincoln's-inn Fields Church, London.
The crowds (writes Fr. Prendergast) made it necessary for us
to divide, and Ft Albert Buckler and I went to St John's,' Great
Ormond Street, so as to have the overflow congregations from
Lincoln's-inn Fields.
The latter had been known for nearly a century as the Sar
dinian Ambassador's chapel ; but when the attitude of Victor
Emmanuel became so menacing. Cardinal Wiseman declined
to sanction the subsidy of 150/. a year which it had long
received from Sardinia, and decided that henceforth it should
be known as the Church of St. Anselm. That in Warwick
Street, Golden Square, had previously been the chapel of the
Bavarian Embassy, and during the penal times some Domini
cans had liberty to enter these chapels unchallenged and to
pass as the servants of the Ambassadors.
It was not very long before the opening of this mission
that the Hon. and Rev. George Spencer, in his Redemptorist
dress, had been mobbed through the streets. Our Dominicans
lodged in Bloomsbury Square, and as, after each hard day's
work, they walked home in their habits, sneers were made
which hurt Fr. Burke more than if struck by stones. Happily
they escaped, however, without a renewal of ' the O.P. riots ' in
a new sense. A passing glance through the railings of St.
Giles's churchyard awakened old memories. There by the
pale moonlight rose the tombstones of the three Dominicans —
Fathers Atwood, Munson, and Bradley — who in perilous times
' It should perhaps be added that the church of St. John of Jerusalem is small,
and, with an hospital, had been founded and endowed recently by a convert
baronet, Sir George Bowyer. On July i8, 1867, a grand Requiem Mass for the
Emperor Maximilian took place here, the Royal Families of England and of Italy
being represented on the occasion.

MISSION IN LONDON. 307
had served the mission of Lincoln's-inn Fields. Fr. Peter
Atwood and Fr. Albert Munson had both been condemned to
the gibbet at Tyburn. Their successor, Fr. Patrick Bradley,
got on better. In 1750 he was consecrated Bishop of Derry
in Lincoln's-inn Fields chapel, but, resigning the mitre, he
returned to that mission and served it until his death. There
was thus a special fitness in Fr. Burke and his colleagues
conducting the mission of 1868 on a spot memorable in the
annals of their Order.
The Catholic journals of the day furnish wonderful ac
counts of it. The confessionals of Fr. Burke and his com^
panions were crowded ; countless conversions were made.
Fr. Rooke looks back upon the mission as the hardest work
in which he had ever been engaged. Fr. Burke, with his
wonted humour, declared that it had the effect of wearing
threadbare two pairs of the finest Blarney cloth garments
which he had just bought How he recuperated his ex
hausted energies and cheered his fellow-labourer is very
characteristic. Some rare intervals of leisure were spent
by him in the Zoological Gardens, watching with intent
gaze and kindly interest the various animals. On his return
he amused Fr. Rooke by a most perfect portrayal of thg
animated nature he had studied. In these mimicries he
seemed to lose his own identity completely. Anon he would
shift the scene and the subject ; now he would treat his friend
to views of classic statuary. One minute he was the dying
gladiator ; the next he was a Sphinx, drawing over his head
the white hood of the habit ; and sometimes he was a Burmese
idol, erect and impassive, with legs crossed in a way which it
would have puzzled an athlete to manage.
Fr. Paul Stapleton's recollections of his Novice Master
conclude with some account of Burke's subsequent visit to
the old ground near Woodchester. This was made during
Fr. Stapleton's incumbency as parish priest of Stroud, and
afterwards as prior of the monastery.

308 LIFE OF FATITER THOMAS BURKE.
One day, while in solitude at my infant mission, I was startied by a
ring, and the accents of a well-known voice. Who could it be?
Nothing could delight me more — it was actually the great Fr. Tom
Burke, for such he had become, come to see me and take me by
surprise. My dear old mentor would put up, if I could only accom
modate him anyhow, and so at once we were ' at home ' as in the
olden days.
Time had evidently knocked off some of the corners of our good
and now illustrious fathet The strong vein of humour was there,
the ringing laugh, the queer and racy touch of brogue and blarney.
It was surely Burke, as self-forgetful and wholly abandoned to God's
gracious providence -as ever, but yet toned down and gentler, and
less ' brusque ' — the saintly religious, and yet the ever natural, true,
and warm-hearted Irishman — the best fellow-well-met in the world.
So, even before bit or bite, he plunged into the middle of half-a-
dozen stories, until I could scarcely contain myself with mixed
pleasure and surprise. All at once a ring at the door strikes
Father Thomas quite dumb, and he coUapses. The stranger walks
in, and, knowing the person myself, I simply entreated Burke to
finish his story. It was his famous Mrs. Lynch and the Relief
Board of Galway story, which he simply acted. By degrees the
stranger began to laugh, and I too got merry ; but so loud and
almost hysterical became my latest visitor, that I feared he would
tumble off his seat, and I strove to assist him. Still the story went
on, but a pause allowed us to recover our senses; suddenly the
mysterious visitor pulls out his watch, finds that he is very neatly
missing his train, and hurries off. I accompany him to the door,
leaving Fr. Tom Burke to puzzle over the apparition, and to
wonder if perchance he had done wrong in doing what I told
him. At the door, and away from Fr. Burke's hearing, Bishop
C  , for it was he, seized me, and cried out, almost breathless,
* Who's that ? ' ' Why,' 1 reply, ' don't you know him ? It's Fr.
Burke.' ' Well,' he said, ' I thought so. I must come and meet him
again ; I have no time now.' Back to the pariour I returned and
ditto occurred. Father Thomas rushes at me : ' \^^ho's that ? ' I
calmly reply, repressing a laugh, ' ^Vhy, don't you know ? It's the
bishop of the diocese.' Looking unutterable things, and thumping
his breast, Fr. Tom at once exclaims, ' You don't mean it ?— no,
surely— that a bishop ! How different from our solemn-looking
prelates— no— come ! That the celebrated Bishop of C  too ;
no -surely.' 'Certainly, I am really not joking,' was m.y answer.

FR. TOM AND THE BISHOP. 309
' Lord have mercy, then,' said Fr. Tom. ' Oh, forgive me ! I never
would have gone on like that if I had known. Oh why, my dear
Paul, did you not tell me ? The Lord be merciful to me ! ' (and
another thump). ' I almost kUled him outright I I had him on the
floor I ' Such is a pen-and-ink sketch of a scene simple and mirthful.
But I have reason to know that it was the beginning of a most
intimate and constant friendship between the prelate and the friar,
that was often renewed and cultivated in aftertime in diverse parts
and in the Eternal City.
While on his way via Bristol to Cork, on another occasion, Fr.
Burke caUed at his favourite old monastery, and right glad I was
again to receive my old novice master, who now found me in the
responsible post of presiding over another generation of the youthful
charges which in earlier days he so loved. At once he must, at
my request, entertain them suo modo, and soon we formed a circle
around the great man, and a series of characters, including the
foreign preachers in English, were all paraded, and the old Lynch
story was called for, and others ; but a call for the monkey and
Egyptian God being given, I refused to allow the first, as he said
it was the most perfect take-off, and he did it to the life. '
Fr. Burke, in previously doing the monkey, had strengthened
the resemblance by pulling down upon his forehead the small
skull-cap of his Order. This, of course, the graver Fathers
could not sanction. He once said that if the Darwinian
theory were true, ' We are all apes, minus the tail, and
nothing remains but for each one to mount his own particular
branch of the gum-tree, and there crack his own nut.'
Very cordial relations subsisted between Fr. Burke and
the Capuchin Friars. In June, 1868, he preached on the
occasion of laying the foundation-stone of their new chapel
in Church Street, Dublin, not far from the spot where Emmet
sleeps. At home or abroad Fr. Burke loved to speak of his
mother's virtues and his father's genial ways. Of course he
made a special visit to the old homestead at Galway.
1 MS. Recollections of Very Rev. Paul Stapleton, O. P. , Dominican Priory,
Haverstock Hill, London, August 29, 1884.

3IO LIFE OF FATHER THOMAS BURKE.
A dinner was given at the CoUege house here (observes its good
Parochus) to celebrate Fr. Burke's return from Rome, where he had
been assisting at the canonisation of the Japanese martyrs. Fr.
Burke's stories began with the soup. More than once he stood up
to imitate the salaams of the Eastern bishops. Endless anecdotes
followed amid roars of laughter, while he himself remained imper
turbable. During these parodies he would be eating, but some of the
company were at last dismayed to find dessert come in before they
themselves had begun to think seriously of dinner.
Fr. Burke brought home with him a pleasant story. Prince
Napoleon visited Galway in his yacht ; and a local swell,
rejoicing in an historic Christian name, who plumed himself
on his scholastic attainments, undertook to compose and to
read, in the name of the town commissioners, an address in
French to the Prince, He had pompously proceeded through
the introductory sentence only, when his Highness, inter
posing, said, in excellent Saxon, ' Perhaps you would not
mind addressing me in English, for, alas I gentlemen, I do not
understand Irish.'
Fr. Burke having preached at an ecclesiastical function in
Meath, a dinner wound up the doings of the day. Previous
to entering the room he asked a lay friend ' what was the P.P.'s
hobby.' ' I only know that / sold him a horse for 50/.,' was
the reply. That evening the preacher rose to propose the
health of the pastor, and all were astonished to find the
speech full of horsey slang and turf phrases which seemed to
show that he had studied Bell's Life as well as belles lettres.
The pastor, at first puzzled, finally reahsed the joke.
He met at dinner another Meath priest, who was rather
proud of his white horse. After a few preliminary canters
the Dominican asked where he had bought his famous white
charger. The other, suspecting that Burke was chaffing him,
and in what he called ' a peppery way,' replied, ' My white
horse was bought in Galway, where all the high-fliers and
high-steppers come from.' ' I didn't mean to tread on the
corns of the "white horse of the Peppers,'" responded Fr.
Tom — alluding, of course, to Samuel Lover's play.

THE REMAINS OF O'CONNELL. 31 1
On May 14, 1869, when the remains of O'Connell were
removed from their original resting-place to the crypt be
neath the tower at Glasnevin, Fr. Burke pronounced the
funeral panegyric. At his side stood ' Speranza,' Denis F.
MacCarthy, and various Bishops ; before him clustered the
survivors of the old Catholic and Repeal Associations, the
Municipalities of Ireland, and high officials who attained their
positions by the Act of Emancipation. A sea of heads surged
round him. The scene was striking and picturesque. Beneath
a vast awning were all the preparations for the solemn rite of
a Pontifical Requiem Mass. Sublime Gregorian music rose
from four hundred voices ; a grand procession formed and
moved slowly through the cemetery ; the robes of the clergy
and the corporators intermingled their hues with the rich
foliage of trees and flowers. Fifty thousand persons were
there to honour the memory of O'Connell. Among them
stood Lord Chancellor O'Hagan, Chief Justice Monahan,
Lord Bellew, several baronets, and Chief Baron Pigot, who
soon after passed from judging to be judged. O'Con
nell's youngest son Dan remarked, ' Poor father had many
monster meetings, but this is the greatest of all.' Fr. Burke's
oration occupied two hours. Here is an extract :
His glorious victory did honour even to those whom he van
quished. He honoured them by appealing to their sense of justice
and of right ; and in the Act of Cathohc Emancipation England
acknowledged the power of a people, not asking for mercy, but
clamouring for the liberty of the soul — the blessing which was born
with Christ, and which is the inheritance of the nations that em
brace the Cross. Catholic emancipation was but the herald and the
begmning of victories. He who was the Church's liberator and
most true son was also the first of Ireland's statesmen and patriots.
Our people remember weU, as their future historian wiU faithfuUy
record, the many trials borne for them, the many victories gained in
their cause, the great life devoted to them by O'ConneU. Lying,
however, at the foot of the altar, as he is to-day, whilst the Church
hahows his grave with prayer and sacrifice, it is more especially as
the Catholic Emancipator that we place a gariand on his tomb. It

312 LIFE OF FATHER THOMAS BURKE.
is as a child of the Church that we honour him and recall with tears
our recollections of the aged man, revered, beloved, whom aU the
glory of the world's admiration and the natron's love had never lifted
up in soul out of the holy atmosphere of Christian humihty and
simplicity. Obedience to the Church's laws, quick zeal for her
honour and the dignity of her worship ; a spirit of penance refining
whilst it expiated, chastening whilst it ennobled, all that was natural
in the man ; constant and frequent use of the Church's holy sacra
ments, which shed the halo of grace round his venerated head,^
these were the last grand lessons which he left to his people, and
thus did the sun of his life set in the glory of Christian holiness.
Fr. Burke touchingly referred to the famine, which broke
O'Connell's heart and led to his pilgrimage to Rome.
For Ireland he lived, for Ireland did he die.
On the shores of the Mediterranean the weary traveller lay down.
At that last moment his profound knowledge of his country's history
may have given him that prophetic glimpse of the future sometimes
vouchsafed to great minds. He had led a mighty nation to the
opening of ' the right way,' and directed her first and doubtful steps
in the path of concfliation and justice to Ireland. Time, which ever
works out the designs of God, has carried that nation forward in the
glorious way. With firmer step, with undaunted soul, with high re
solve of justice, peace, and conciliation, the work which was begun by
Ireland's Liberator progresses in our day. Chains are being forged
for our country, but they are chains of gold to bind up all discordant
elements in the empire, so that all men shall live together as brothers
in the land. If we cannot have the blessings of religious unity, so
as ' to be all of one mind,' we shall have ' the next dearest blessing
that heaven can give,' the peace that springs from perfect religious
liberty and equality. All this do we owe to the man whose memory
we recall to-day, to the principles he taught us which Ulustrate his life,
and which, in the triumph of Catholic emancipation, pointed out to
Irish people the true secret of their strength, the true way of pro
gress, and the sure road to victory. The seed which his hand had
sown it was not given to him to reap in its fulness. Catholic emanci
pation was but the first instalment of liberty. The edifice of reli
gious freedom was to be crowned when the wise architect who had
laid its foundations and built up the walls was in his grave. Let us
hope that his dying eyes were cheered and the burden of his last

ORATION ON O'CONNELL. 313
hour lightened by the sight of the perfect grandeur of his work ;
that hke the prophet-lawgiver he beheld ' aU the land ' — that he saw
it with his eyes, though he did not ' pass over to it ; ' and that it was
given to him to ' salute from afar off' the brightness of the day which
he was never to enjoy. The dream of his life is being realised to
day. He had ever sighed to be able to extend to his Protestant
fellow-countrymen the hand of perfect friendship, which only exists
where there is perfect equality, and to enter with them into the com
pact of the true peace which is founded in justice. Time, which
buries in oblivion so many names and so many memories, will exalt
him in his work. The day has already dawned and is ripening to its
perfect noon when Irishmen of every creed wUl remember O'ConneU,
and celebrate him as the common friend and the greatest benefactor
of their country. What man is there, even of those our age has
called great, whose name, so long after his death, could summon so
many loving hearts around his tomb ? We to-day are the represen
tatives not only of a nation but of a race. ' Quse regio in terris
nostri non plena laboris ? ' Where is the land that has not seen the
face of our people and heard their voice ? and wherever, even to the
ends of the earth, an Irishman is found to-day, his spirit and his
sympathy are here. The mUlions of America are with us ; the Irish
Catholic soldier on India's plains is present amongst us by the magic
of his love ; the Irish sailor, standing by the wheel this moment in
far-off silent seas, where it is night, and the southern stars are
shining, joins his prayer with ours, and recalls the glorious image
and venerated name of O'ConneU. He is gone, but his fame shall
live for ever on the earth as a lover of God and his people. Adver
saries, political and religious, he had many, and, like a tower of
strength, 'which stood full square to all the winds that blew,' the
Hercules of justice and of liberty stood up against them. Time,
which touches all things with mellowing hand, has softened the re-
coUection of past contests, and they who once looked upon him as a
foe now only remember the glory of the fight and the mighty genius
of him who stood forth the representative man of his race and the
champion of his people. They acknowledge his greatness, and they
join hands with us to weave the garland of his fame. But far other,
higher, and holier are the feelings of Irish Catholics all the world
over to-day. They recognise in the dust which we are assembled to
honour the powerful arm which promoted them, the eloquent tongue
which proclaimed their rights, the strong hand which, like that of the
Maccabee of old, first struck off their chains and built up their holy

314 LIFE OF FATHER THOMAS BURKE.
altars. Mingling the supplication of prayer and the gratitude of
suffrage with their tears, they recall with love the memory of him
who was a Joseph to Israel, their tower of strength, their buckler and
their shield, who shed around their homes, altars, and graves the
sacred light of religious liberty and the glory of unfettered worship.
' His praise is in the Church ; ' and this is the surest pledge of the
immortality of his glory. ' A people's voice ' may be ' the proof and
echo of all human fame,' but the voice of the undying Church is the
echo of ' everlasting glory ; ' and when those who surround his grave
to-day shall have passed away, all future generations of Irishmen to
the end of time will be reminded of his name and of his glory.
Fr. Burke's sister states that he arrived from another
country only in time to deliver this great oration ; and the
moment it was over, instead of waiting to hear the elaborated
thanks which were being prepared for him, he hurried off to
the Mater Misericordiae Hospital, in order to obey a letter
which had been sent to Italy by a poor widow, expressing
anxiety to see him before she died. He walked the wards of
the hospital, eagerly scanning each bed as he passed, and was
about to enter another room when he heard a feeble voice
mutter his name. So emaciated was the poor sufferer that
he had failed to recognise her face. ' Father,' she said, ' I
waited for you.' He bent over her with touching fervour, and
administered the consolations of religion. This good work
he had barely finished when she sank to rest, wearing the
sweetest expression of happiness.
Mr. Sherlock, who had been nearly made a monk by hear
ing Fr. Burke preach, continued like a true disciple to follow
him. Night after night (he writes) vast crowds came to St. Saviour's,
bearing oppressive heat and weU-nigh intolerable crushing, to
listen to Fr. Burke's most masteriy series of Lenten sermons. The
lessons he taught sank deeply into many a heart, and abide there
still. Lent after Lent, Advent after Advent, he continued to give
powerful and instructive discourses, often preaching three times in
the course of one day. How he bore up through this overpowering
labour, and sustained the fatigues of constant travel while stiU ad-

HATRED OF LETTER-WRITING. 315
hering to the rigid rule of his Order, can only be explained by
his possession of a vitality given rarely to men.
One great feature in Ft Tom (writes the Rev. Paul Stapleton,
O.P.) was his fast friendships so singularly kept up and strangely cul
tivated ; never by letter, for a more careless correspondent there did
not live. Heaps of letters unread and unseen were waiting for him
nearly everywhere. He would not and could not keep pace with that
sort of thing, and so he tried to allow it to lapse. The ubiquitous friar
was universally known and adored, and letters were bound to come.
Now, some could not understand this, while others laughed it off.
' What ! no answer from Fr. Tom, and it's two months since I wrote !
I hear that So-and-So has had a fine. I'll write again.' And so up
went the pile, but no answer. And this was the experience of hun
dreds. But Fr. Tom was not obfivious. Seldom would he pass a
friend by. In London I remember him taking me to Lady Reding-
ton's. There was quite a flutter of delight when he was announced.
The young ladies especially seemed etre aux anges, but to a chorus
of 'Why did you not answer?' all round, came the meekest and
sweetest of responses — ' Why, my dears, would you have me so poorly
express my affections, when 'tis only by seeing you I can do justice
to them ? '
It has been said that a letter timely written is a rivet to
the chain of friendship, but a letter untimely delayed is as
rust to the solder. Fr. Tom was a wonderful man to preserve
— despite his epistolatory shortcomings — the troops of friends
who, all over the world, cherished for him their love.
Many instances will be found, ere this narrative ends, to
confirm Fr. Stapleton's account of his friend. There is, how
ever, no rule without an exception. If letters did, at wide
intervals, drop from Fr. Burke, they were as rare as the stars
which fall from heaven. In 1869 a highly-gifted woman.
Miss O'Connor Morris, now Mrs. Bishop, asked him a question
touching the threatened disestablishment of the Irish Church.
He thus replied, but it is remarkable that this letter, which
she has preserved as a sacred relic, displays no signature,
not even his initials :
My dear Miss Morris,— I was glad to hear from you, and I regret
that I cannot give you much information on the subject to which you

3X6 LIF'E OF FATHER THOMAS BURKE.
allude. St. Thomas does not treat it expressly, for in his day the
Catholic Church was established in all the civilised countries of
Europe. But when the rights of Mendicant Orders were questioned,
he in his answer to Gulielmus de Sancto Amore vindicates the rights
of Dominicans, Franciscans, &c., to subsist upon the voluntary offer
ings of the faithful, and so far he indirectly touches on the great
question of to-day. His arguments, however, do not help us much
in our present difficulties, for he deals principally with poverty as a
feature of evangelical perfection, and as a higher state requiring a
special vocation as distinct from the vocation to the priesthood. He
throughout takes for granted the endowments of the Church and the
profession and protection of her on the part of the State. Now the
dangers arising out of the voluntary system are twofold, and both of
the gravest kind. The first affects doctrine, the second the sacra
ments. There is always danger that where the people have the
support of their pastor in their own hands they may be inclined to
dictate to him and impose their own views and opinions on him,
whUst he, knowing that he depends on them for his bread, is tempted,
nay, even forced, to adopt these religious views and opinions. This
great evil is rife amongst Dissenters, whose preachers complain bitterly
from time to time of their slavery. This, I imagine, will be the utter
disruption of Protestantism in Ireland now that the Church is disen
dowed. The Catholic Church is saved from this danger of the
voluntary system by her dogma. The objective reality (pardon the
terms), truth, and consequent oneness of her dogmatic teaching saves
the people from the tyranny of the priest, who cannot force his
personal views or opinions on them, and saves the priest from all
dictation or pressure of opinion on the part of the people, who must
accept his preaching (it being the doctrine of the Church), and look
upon him as their teacher and superior even whilst they furnish him
his daily bread.
The disestablishment of the Irish Church had been lone
an object dear to the heart of the Rev. Sydney Smith,
Macaulay, and many other Protestant thinkers. Cardinal
Cullen attended at Mariborough Street on the occasion of
a Triduum in thanksgiving for this great boon. Fr. Burke
preached. The same absence of vulgar triumph which marked
Fr. Burke's sermon is traceable in his lecture on Faith at
Kingstown delivered in the subsequent July.

TI-IE CHURCPI DISESTABLISHED. 317
It was no more a victory for Catholics than for Protestants,
rightly viewed. While they rejoiced in the strength of their holy
religion, they should not forget that Protestants had given them the
change, acknowledged the power of principle, and yielded the
triumph to purity and faith. Catholics were now satisfied to stretch
out the hand of frank fellowship to all their countrymen, so that good
might be worked for Ireland. They wanted no ascendency. The
word was hateful to Catholic ears. It stood not in their vocabulary ;
it lived not in their yearnings. They had, indeed, two words which
they loved — Unity and Equality,
Lecturing on ' Ireland's Faith the Triumph of the Age,'
on October 15, 1827, he told a trivial incident of this time :
Four years ago I met a poor fellow in Galway going along the
road ; he had his pipe in his mouth, and when he came up and saw
the priest he took it out, and with a guUty expression of countenance
put it behind his back. ' What's the best news, your reverence ? '
he said. ' Only this,' I replied, ' that they are making an Act of
Parliament in England declaring that the Protestant Church is no
longer to be the established religion in Ireland.' ' Do you mean to
tell me,' said he, ' that the English Parliament made that law ? '
' Yes, there's no doubt of it,' said I. ' WeU,' said he, ' by the piper
that played before Moses I never heard of them making any law
for the Catholics of Ireland before, except coercion bills, pains and
penalty bills, fines upon this and taxation upon that ; and I don't know
whether it was God or the divil taught them how to change.' And
then the poor illiterate man made use of a remark which suggested
to me the subject of this evening's lecture : 'WeU, sir,' said he, 'it
is a strange thing that they should have disestablished the Protestant
Church. We are not making any row about it O'Connell is dead ;
there is no arming now going on, no fighting in the country, and the
boys are everywhere so quiet'
Archbishop Cullen, now raised to the purple, continued to
manifest towards Fr. Burke the same affection as of old, and
during his few intervals from toil took pleasure in hearing
him unfold his pranks and oddities. In their deep humility
both were thoroughly akin.
Guileless as a child (said Ft Burke) and thinking no evil, free
and joyous in his intercourse with the humblest of his clergy, tender
and merciful to the poor and penitent, hoping all good things even

3l8 LIFE OF FATHER THOMAS BURKE.
for the fallen, nor breaking the bruised reed, nor extinguishing the
smoking flax, preaching with the strength and pathos of learning,
authority, and the unction of sanctity combined; with unadorned
eloquence, yet with great clearness and power instructing his people
' in season and out of season,' wearing the purple not so much with
stateliness as with a wonderful dignity of repose ; the head of his
nation, the guardian of the flock, the delight of his clergy — O Father,
what have we not lost in thee whose face we shall see no more !
This was part of the funeral sermon delivered in 1878.
The only time I ever saw the Cardinal laugh heartily (observes
Dr. Brady) was at the dinner in celebration of St Dominic's Day,
when Fr. Burke mimicked his Eminence to the life ; but I thought
he spoiled the effect by foUowing it up with his personation of the
Italian lazzaroni.
One evening at the palace, after Fr. Burke had sung ' The
Lower Castle Yard,' Cardinal Cullen asked what sort of a
place was Cook Street, where lived the hero of the song. This
led to a story, and it may be observed parenthetically that Fr.
Tom's power in this line was shown in producing comicality
out of the most solemn and depressing subjects. The success
of this story led to its repetition on subsequent occasions. It
is said that every Bishop laughed at it except Dr. CofiSn.
One morning, going into Tallaght, I was met by a poor woman
named Crosbie, swaying herself from side to side apparently in great
grief. She burst out at once. ' Oh, Father Tom ! he's gone at
last ! he's gone, oh dear ! '
' Well," well, Molly,' I rephed ; ' you know he has been given over
for some time past by the doctors, and you said you would be con
tent if he was well prepared to go ; he was well prepared, and you
ought to be more resigned.'
' Oh,' said she, petulantly, ' that is not what's troubling me ; but
he's been so long sick that every penny is gone, and now he'll have
to be buried by the parish.'
Recognising the universal desire of the poorer classes to give, at
any cost of suffering to themselves, a good funeral to their dead,
I said, ' Well, now, Molly, I will get you a pound out of the poor-
box ; you can go up to Dublin and buy a coflin, and I wUl see that
he is not buried by the parish.'
She dropped on her knees, and, with upraised hands, said, ' Oh,

TITE COFFIN-MAKER. 319
Father Tom, jewel, may every hair on your head turn to a mowld
candle to fight you to glory ! '
The poor woman walked to Dubfin, and at once proceeded to
Cook Street This is a narrow street, devoted almost solely to
the manufacture of coffins. Big hulks of coffins are to be seen
leaning their shoulders against door-sUls, others stick their heads
into the street as if looking out for customers, and inside are piles
of every size. Little coffin-lids may be seen holding up windows,
and a continued rat-tat-tat resounds all day from the different shops,
where men are engaged in putting on the tin ornaments that adorn
the coffins of the poor.
When Molly came to the head of the street, and saw all the pre
parations for burial, her tears welled up, but before she had time to
cry, the owner of one of the establishments, always on the look-out
for such cases, came up and said, ' So your poor man is gone at last.
Ah, God be with him ; he was the dacent fellow.'
' Oh, then you knew my poor husband ? '
' Yes, indeed — (a lie, by the way) — many's the time we went
to Bully's Acre ' together, and he would stand his pint as weU as any
man.' By degrees he drew over towards his shop, and when at it,
said, ' I suppose it's a coffin you'll be wantin', ma'am.' She nodded
sadly. ' No doubt you'd like plenty of ornaments. How would this
one do ? ' pointing to a big coffin standing inside the door. ' You
know it was some time since I saw him, and he may have grown stout'
Mrs. Crosbie thought it would about do, and put her hand over
to feel its thickness. He immediately launched out into praise of
his work. ' That's a fine article, ma'am ; it's made out of the best
boards we get from Archangel.'
' From the Archangel ? Oh, the Lord be good to us ; do they
supply you with boards ? '
'Oh yes; we keep nothing but the very best Do you know
Mr. Fox that lives in Francis Street ? Well, he's a very snug ould
bachelor ; only last week he got sick, and the doctors gave him up.
He sent for his housekeeper. " Mrs. Mooney," said he, " they tell me
I'm going to die." " Oh, don't talk that way, sir," said she. " You'll
dance at aU their wakes yet." " Oh, don't interrupt me," said he,
cross-fike. "I want you to make me a promise," said he. "Any-
' Bully's Acre— formerly the site of the Monastery of the Knights of St.
John  had become a pauper burial-ground near Dublin, but is remarkable for
possessing the historic tomb of Donagh, son of King Brian Boroihme, who fell
at Clontarf A.D. 014.

320

LIFE OF FATHER THOMAS BURKE.

thing in raison, sir," said she. " WeU, then," said he, " whenever I
am taken I want you to go over to Mick Nowlan's in Cook Street and
order my coffin." " I will, sir," said she. " Then I'll die aisy," said
he, " for I know I'U get the dacent article." '
Just then Molly pointed out a knot-hole. ' Oh,' says Nowlan,
' I'U fix that at once.' Then calling up the litde crooked stairs, he
roared out, ' Jim, bring me down a handful of angels.' These are
block tin ornaments with which the coffins of the poor are adorned.
When the angels were brought he took a hammer and tacked one
over the knot-hole, and one on the opposite side for uniformity.
' Now,' he exclaimed, bestowing on it a benign smUe of admiration ;
' but in any case, maybe Crosbie wouldn't object to have a little hole
to escape to heaven at the sound of the last trumpet— mine is ever
lasting work and screwed down as tight as tuppence.' The widow
expressed herself satisfied, and then put the cracial question as to
price. Nowlan, in his most insinuating tones, replied, ' The price of
the article is a pound, but on account of the man that's gone, and
your desolate condition, I'll give it to you for seventeen and six.'
' Seventeen and six for that ! I'U give you ten and sixpence and not a
farden more.' Here Nowlan's late suavity of manner left him, and with
a cynical scowl he said, ' Go on out of that, you ould strap ; ten and
six for a coffin like that? It's a coffin made of orange boxes or of
cholera-boords you want, and not the best article in the street. Go
over there to Foley's, and get something to suit your pocket The
last corpse he coffined was shivering with the cowld before it left the
street. He"i\. give you one made of cholera-boords, so he will, with
your ten and six, and before your man is twenty-four hours under
the sod, the sack-em-ups ' will have him, so they wiU, with your ten and
six. Yes, and they'll take out his liver and lights, and preserve them
in spirits in Steeven's Hospital — thanks to your ten and six. Aye, and
they'U sell his shin-bones to Arnott to make handles for parasols — so
they will— with your ten and six. Worse nor that, they'll take out
his teeth and sell them to Hudson, the dentist, and he'll put them
in the mouth of some vfle ould renegade to assist him in aitin'
meat on Friday, and where, at last, they'll be gnashing for all
eternity — so much for your ten and six.' Mrs. Crosbie, who was
writhing in agony during the first part of the phihppic, could not
withstand the last fearful threat ; she paid the sum demanded, and
went off with her dead bargain.
1 Men who effected premature resurrections for anatomical purposes were
called 'sack-em-ups.'

321

CHAPTER X.
THE VATICAN COUNCIL.
Fr. Burke was now selected by the Bishop of Dromore to
accompany him to the Vatican Council as his theologian. It
was the first General Council held for three hundred years,
and great interest grew round its solemn sittings. After the
new dogma had been defined, Fr. Burke expressed some views
which merit preservation.
How completely the great assembly of Trent had done its work
is matter of history (observes our Dominican). But every age brings
its own dangers and difliculties in the Church of God. A spirit of
blank infidelity had sprung up, resulting in the hideous atheism
which has left its awful mark on our own days. The rage is now
turned from the invisible to the visible head of the Church. Who
is this man who dares to thrust dogmatic definitions upon us and
speak the language of despised faith to the nineteenth century? Is
it for this that the human intellect shook off the yoke of authority
three hundred years ago ? — for this that science has attained to the
white light of an almost perfect knowledge ? Are we to become as
little chUdren again, and sit down to be taught by an old man, the
head of a worn-out Church, and the vicar of an exploded God? Let
us pull this aged pretender from his throne, let us cast him forth,
unknown as Peter was of old amongst the ignoble crowd of the fol
lowers of Christ Thus the pride and passion of the world arose
against the head of the Church, and heresy, infidelity, and revolution
joined hands to abolish him. They taught, and righdy, that if they
could but destroy the head, the mystical body of Christ would soon be
a corpse at their feet ; if they could but strike the shepherd, the sheep
would be dispersed. Then the great crime of the nineteenth century
was pubhcly perpetrated. Truth, justice, honour, phghted oath,
necessity, history, were alike trampled upon ; and in the spoliation
VOL. I. Y

322 LIFE OF FATHER THOMAS BURKE.
of the Sovereign Pontiff a new principle of government, public action,
and law was announced and accepted.
But was the Church to stand idly by whilst her head — Peter's
successor and Christ's vicar — was thus dishonoured ? — the Church,
which from the beginning acknowledged him as the centre and
source of her authority, the one wholly infallible witness and exponent
of her faith and guardian of her law — which never called a council
nor promulgated a decree, nor expressed a dogma of her faith but at
his calling and with his sanction. The hour predestined in the
Divine decrees is come, when the Catholic Church must proclaim
authoritatively to the world all that she had ever taught and believed
of Peter and his successors. Before sacrilegious hands can touch
his temporal crown — -the only thing within their reach — whilst the
lingering glories of Rome, Catholic and Papal, yet surround him ;
the Church hastens to assemble and, with united voice and faith,
proclaims Peter's successor the Pope of Rome to be, in virtue of
Christ's special prayer, and by the interposition of the Holy Ghost,
preserved from all possibifity of error in his teaching as Head of the
Church. This great declaration of faith was made in the form of a
dogmatic utterance, that expressed clearly and distinctly the mind of
the Church — the mind of God the Holy Ghost, her guide. Such an
expression of the Church's faith is as true, as solemn, as binding, as
the revealed word itself, for it is as much the expression of the mind
of God.' People were fond of comparing the grandeur and import
ance of the Vatican Council with that of Trent ; but Trent
was an obscure town in the Tyrol, and merely presided over
by legates, while the CEcumenical Council of 1869 was held
under the personal auspices of the Pope, and in the centre of
unity, Rome. Eight hundred and three Fathers took their
seats, being one hundred and thirty-five more than the united
attendance at the three councils of Nice, Constantinople, and
Ephesus. This solemn senate of the Vatican opened on
December 8, 1869, with a pomp of ceremonial not likely to be
soon forgotten by those whose privilege it was to witness it
The prelates, vested in white copes and mitres, assembled (Canon
' In Marlborough Street Cathedral, Dublin, Nov. 27, 187S.

THE BISHOPS AT SAN CLEMENTE. 323
Pope writes), and two and two moved in solemn procession down
the Scala Regia, through the vestibule, into the nave of St Peter's,
The entire route was fringed by a triple line of secular priests and
members of the religious orders in their various costumes, and by the
Palatine Guard, the Zouaves, the Antibes Legion, and other regiments
in brilliant uniforms, which seemed like a great border of flowers
dyed in every variety of tint. After the procession had occupied an
hour in its transit, his Holiness passed into the basUica, amidst the
hum of thousands and the sheen of naked swords flickering as they
moved over the officers' heads and were lowered to the pavement ;
amid the crash of musket-butts as the military knelt and presented
arms ; amidst the thrilling strains of martial music, booming bells,
and thundering volleys of artUlery discharged from the Aventine
mount and the Castle of St Angelo.
Bishops bronzed and black sat vis a vis to the pallid
Archbishop of Westminster and to the polished prelates of
La Belle France. Bishops bent with age, others erect as
the Cross, entered into the work before them. Prominent
among the former was the venerable Bishop of Dromore,
by whom it was correctly judged that Fr. Burke, though
acting nominally as his theologian, would, from his know
ledge of all things Roman, prove an invaluable cicerone
and soeius. His Lordship occupied apartments at San
Clemente, as also Fr. Burke's great friend. Dr. Moriarty,
Bishop of Kerry ; Archbishop Errington, coadjutor to the
late Cardinal Wiseman in Westminster ; and Dr. O'Connell,
Bishop of Grass Valley, San Francisco, California. These
prelates were of opinion that to define the Pope's in
fallibility would prove inexpedient. They were familiarly
known as ' Inopportunists,' and San Clemente was facetiously
styled by Cardinal Cullen's adherents as Port Royal — the
stronghold of the Jansenists in days of yore. But there were
some ecclesiastics at San Clemente not persistently Inoppor
tunists, amongst whom may be specially mentioned Dean
Neville, the theologian of Dr. Moriarty. Here a fast friend
ship was fostered between Dr. Neville and Fr. Burke, which

324 LIFE OF FATHER THOMAS BURKE.
continued uninterrupted to the end. We may add that Fr.
Burke was an Inopportunist ; so was Archbishop MacHale,
who spoke twice against the proposed definition. Both were
opposed to it, not on doctrinal but on political grounds,
and lest it should imperil Catholic unity. But by far the
most strongly-developed Inopportunist was David Moriarty,
Bishop of Kerry. Part of their hostility was due to the fact
that until the Council met, no intimation was made of any
intention to define the infallibility.
The procession of near eight hundred bishops, mitred and
coped, as they emerged from St. Peter's two by two, gracefully
bowing to each other while they conversed, was a spectacle to
be remembered. Some of the Eastern prelates wore crowns.
Even physically they presented a fine specimen of manhood.
A Protestant who watched them asked, ' Have these men
been selected for their appearance ? '
The Rev. James Daniel contributed to the Freeman's
Journal at this period some gossiping letters from Rome.
Under date December 13, 1869, he writes : —
Your distinguished feUow- countryman. Father Thomas Burke, is
delivering on the Sundays of Advent a series of sermons for the in
struction of the English-speaking portion of the residents and strangers
at Rome. The attendance to-day was particularly large, and com
prised several foreign bishops and priests, who, I suspect, understood
very litde of what the eloquent Divine was saying. He had, however,
the happiness of seeing amongst his audience several prelates of his
own old country, amongst them being the Archbishop of Tuam, who,
after his five-and-forty years of unceasing toil in the Episcopacy,
looks the very perfection of health and vigour ; Dt Nulty, Bishop of
Meath ; Dr. Donnelly, Bishop of Clogher; Dt Derry, Bishop of Clon-
fert ; Dt McEvilly, Bishop of Galway ; Dr. Leahy, Bishop of Dro
more, &c. Dr. Kenrick, Archbishop of St. Louis; Dt Grimley (Cape
of Good Hope) ; Dr. Feehan, Bishop of Nashville, U.S., and the
Rev. Maziere Brady, the well-known Protestant ecclesiastical historian,
formed a part of the congregation.
A subsequent despatch announces ' to those who take an

DIVAN OF THE EASTERN BISPIOPS. 325
interest in Fr. Burke, and their name is legion,' that, owing to
illness, these attractive sermons had been temporarily inter
rupted. Fr. Daniel notes as remarkable that foreign divines,
who could ill understand what he said, thronged to hear Fr.
Burke. But so expressive was his action, that deaf mutes
were as much charmed as though they heard his words ; and
it will be seen that, for clerical critics, he once successfully
preached in pantomime. Ft Burke's sermons were delivered
in the Church of Santa Maria del Popolo, famous for its works
of art, including the windows of Peter and Claude, two great
Dominicans of Limoges, whom Leo X. summoned to paint the
glass of the Vatican. Fr. Burke found a formidable rival in
Dr. Manning this year. His Grace preached the St. Patrick's
Day sermon at St, Isidore's, and the ' Freeman ' does not fail
to announce that an edified listener appeared in the person
of Fr. Burke.
As time advanced, the discussion in the Vatican Council had
become more animated. But on the whole progress was so
slow that, if it had not been for Father Thomas, time would
have dragged. The Right Rev. Mgn Sheehan has been kind
enough to commit to writing for our use some reminiscences
of a highly laughable incident:
One would imagine that the gathering together of the prelates of
the Universal Church to debate and decide questions of the highest
importance could hardly have given an opportunity to the most
enthusiastic promoter of fun to ply his calling ; and yet so keen was
Father Tom's perception of the ridiculous, and so insatiable his
thirst for drollery, that even in the solemn time of an CEcumenical
Council it would manifest itselfi A good deal of hospitality was
shown to the prelates by the upper classes resident in Rome.
Amongst the English Catholics, Mr. Bodenham was distinguished
for the frequency and brilliancy of his entertainments. Amongst
his guests were naturally found the English-speaking bishops, but he
did not by any means limit his invitations to those who spoke his
mother tongue.
He had frequently at his house the Oriental prelates as well.

326 LIFE OF FATHER THOMAS BURKE.
With a kindness worthy of all praise, he had an apartment arranged
for their reception, as far as possible, after die fashion of their
Eastern clime. There was a divan well-cushioned, and an abundant
supply of coffee, and it may be of sherbet, and no end of the most
delicately flavoured tobacco. The prelates sat cross-legged on the
luxurious cushions, and sipped their coffee in solemn silence, as
clouds of smoke went up towards the gilded ceiling.
Towards the end of one evening, Mr. Bodenham proposed to
his English, Irish, and American friends that they should pay a visit
to the Orientals, who were so tranquilly enjoying themselves. As
they moved along and bowed their respectftfl greetings, the eyes of a
Munster Bishop, from an historic Irish city, became at once rivetted
upon a figure, not clothed in the full Oriental costume of his fellows,
but smoking and sipping coffee as well as the best of them, and, like
all his companions, sitting crosslegged and holding his tongue most
industriously. ' Why, Father Tom,' exclaimed Dt Butler, ' is that
you ? What in the world brought you here ? ' ' Well ! my Lord,' said
the Dominican, I heard there was plenty of coffee and tobacco to be
had here, and I saw no reason why a Western should leave all those
good things to the Orientals ; and I wanted to prove, moreover, that
there were wise men in the West as well as in the East.' '
Fr. Burke, when preaching on St. Patrick, said : ' The
Chinese are perhaps the oldest civilised people in the world —
Apostles have preached to them, and at their hands some
of the greatest saints have won the martyr's crown. The
Chinese nation up to this has persistently refused to accept
the faith.' Be this as it may, two Chinese bishops attended
' Fr. Burke told this story himself with some extra details. A door covered
with baize attracted his notice on various occasions, and an exquisite aroma of
tobacco escaped whenever it opened. Anxious to penetrate the arcana within he
put on a bold face. Seeing some Oriental garments hanging near the door, he
was tempted by old dramatic instincts to throw one carelessly over his shoulder.
Entering the symposium, he found himself in presence of men who seemed a cross
between the Grand Cham ofTartary and the Nizam of Plyderabad, and allot whom
puffed from hookahs heavenly Havannah. Grand salaams were made. Finding
that the place had been allotted to Eastern patriarchs and prelates, he at first felt
somewhat shy, but his love of a good joke carried him through. Hailed as one
of themselves, he passed a day or two within that privileged circle. He told Dr.
Power, V.G., that one Irish prelate with whom he conversed did not recognise
him, though the acuteness of the Bishop of Limerick at last detected the im
personation.

PERSONATES A CHINESE. 327
the Vatican Council, and their names will be recognised in
the list of those who swelled the grand procession to St. Peter's.
In one of his lectures he said: 'The Chinaman has no
bridge to his nose, and his eyes turn inwards as if both were
occupied watching where the bridge ought to be.' This
shows how diligently Fr. Burke had studied the genus, and in
casually accosting the Chinese bishops he suitably arranged
his face. He heard the Bishop of Nankin say to the other
in Chinese, ' It- certainly sounds like our language, but we
cannot discuss here the question he raises.'
There was no ' part' in his repertoire that Fr. Burke practised
more than that of the Chinaman. On another occasion he asked
a French missioner from China if he spoke its tongue ; and on
receiving a prompt afifirmative, proceeded to overpower him
with a torrent of celestial eloquence. The missioner, with some
warmth, said that he did not understand such Chinese. ' Oh,
probably because mine is Court Chinese,' replied Fr. Tom.
Cavillers might say that this sort of thing tended to break
down respect, and solemn men may shake their heads. The
venerable Bishop of Cork but expresses the view held of Fr.
Burke by all the English-speaking prelates whom he knew in
Rome.
None (writes his Lordship) could more ardently desire to have
the highest tribute of respect paid to one whose varied and brilliant
talents commanded the admiration of all who had any opportunity of
estimating his rare gifts. It was reserved to those only who had the
happiness of close intimacy to discover fully the hidden virtues of the
man, his piety, humUity, charity, and holiness as a true religious
Mgr. Sheehan, Vicar- General of Cork, declares that
Father Burke was the readiest wit, and his charming power
of song was most remarkable. His was the largest repertory
of wondrous anecdotes, which he told with the utmost point and
humoun The fact of his being a brilliant social companion would
subtract nothing from our estimate of him as a priest It was
not because a man was a great theologian and preacher that he

328 LIFE OF FATHER THOMAS BURKE.
should hang down his head and say nothing to enliven his time
and amuse his companions. That was not Ft Burke's way. His
whole object was to make himself agreeable, and he invariably
succeeded. The social circle was Burke's playground, and no boy
could enjoy himself more when once he entered it.
' When we spoke together on serious topics ' (writes Mr.
Lane), 'nothing struck me more than the breadth of his
intellect.' And then his conversation with Bishop Moriarty. How
often he referred to that great privilege afterwards. Their
acquaintance, dating from 1857, when the young Dominican
personated an Italian preacher, had now ripened into a
generous friendship. Let us hear from Fr. Burke those
points in the bishop which so favourably impressed him.
These he described on October 7, 1877 :
Nature had invested him with great strength and dignity of
character, a courage that never knew fear, gentleness, and natural
amiability, which education and intercourse with the refined had
matured to the charm of a perfect urbanity, and with a heart most
generous and loving. Intellectual and spiritual graces followed.
Every faculty was trained and enlarged with varied learning. The
instincts of a student were his to the last Priest and bishop,
he was still a hard reading man. History, especially that of the
Church, was an open volume in his memory. The lighter forms of
literature were not neglected, and his pure eloquence proved not
only the light of his mind, but also that he had copiously dmnk of
' the well of English ' undefiled. The classical knowledge of ancient
languages, acquired in boyhood, was dear to him as a man, and often
he returned to them, renewing his youth and refreshing his wearied
spirit But the gifts of nature, though largely bestowed, the endow
ments of intellect, though carefully cultivated, were as nothing com
pared with the higher spiritual graces which made him beloved of
God and man. He was a man of prayet Rising before the sun, he
gave the first four hours of the day to immediate and undisturbed
intercourse with God.
A distinguished prelate who lived under the same roof

BISHOP O'CONNELL'S RECOLLECTIONS. 329
with Fr. Burke at this time writes from the far fields of
California :
He was a many-sided man, and we may truly say of Fr. Burke what
Brougham, I think, said of Caesar, ' One might be truly great without
being as great as Csesar.' I saw only the sunny, that is the funny,
side of Fr. Burke during my sojourn in San Clemente. His pious
practices and exercises he studiously concealed from me. It was only
during his hour of relaxation, for the bow can't be always bent, that I
was favoured with his conversation. He struck me from first to last as
another St. Philip Neri, the Apostle of Rome, especially when preach
ing to admiring thousands in the Eternal City ! With what fruit it is
not for me to tell. But numerous converts live to attest the value of
his sermons. Gifted as he was, there wasn't a streak or fibre of
pride in him. So small was he in his own estimation, that I heard
him when proceeding to the pulpit request a few ' Hail Marys '
from the crowd that lined his way, ' that I may not make a fool of
myself ! ' He realised the maxim inciUcated by the author of the
' Imitation of Christ ' — viz. ' If you wish to make true progress in
Christian perfection, love to be reputed as nothing in this world.'
It was vrith this view he indulged in such innocent jokes — most
generally at his own expense. But never did he wound the feelings
of another. Lady Clanricarde — whose family name is Burke —
approached him when surrounded by an admiring throng, and
claimed kindred with him. But he assured her Ladyship with an
emphasised brogue that the son of Wat Burke the baker couldn't
aspire to such a privilege. So little did Fr. Burke think of worldly
honours. I have seen him writhing in pain, and when condoling
with him he said, ' I deserve to suffer the torments of hell.' His
schoolmates assured me that in his wildest salhes they never saw
anything which could possibly disedify.'
Such replies as those made to Lady Clanricarde were,
no doubt, the fruit of previous thought and formed part of
his discipline in creating a thorough humbleness of spirit.
In a sermon preached in Kilconnell in November, 1878, he
said :
We aU know that St. Joseph was the keeper of his Lord, but
' Letter of the Right Rev. Dr. Eugene O'Connell, Bishop of Grass Valley,
California, to the Author, October 18, 1883.

330 LIFE OF FATHER THOMAS BURKE.
before men he was the father, for the Son did him honour. If any
one would have asked the carpenter's son, Jesus Christ, who was
his father ? He would have answered, ' My father is Joseph, the
poor carpenter at Nazareth.'
From the time of Henry II. the Burkes were regarded as
Lords of Connaught, but Fn Tom did not encourage any
attempt to engraft him on the great family tree. At a
formal dinner party the stereotyped question was put to him
across the table by a lady who hked blue blood. ' I do not
know much of the Burkes of Glinsk, myself,' he said, ' but I
remember my mother served them with bread.' It was in
the same spirit that he replied to a lady, who, speaking rap
turously of his voice, asked him what means he had used
to bring it to such beauty, tone, and power. ' Ah, 'tis easy
to account for it My father was an oysterman, and oysters
are the best things in the world for the voice.' Another
lady, on being presented to him after one of his sermons,
said, ' I am charmed with your discourse more than I can
express, and I am a wee bit anxious to know if you are
equally au fait in any other accomplishment ? ' ' Well, I'm
not a bad hand at making pancakes, ma'am,' was his reply.
The Bishop of Clogher is loud in his praise of the ser
mons he heard Fr. Burke preach in the church of Santa
Maria during the Vatican Council Perfectly original, these
often became more like historic lectures. His audience fre
quently embraced nearly every Catholic bishop in the world.
Archbishop MacHale and Bishop Moriarty declared after
having heard one of these sermons that their hearts were too
full to express all they felt.
A great prince of the Church who saw him in more
thoughtful and ascetic mood than some other prelates speaks
of Burke's voice as one of the ' most eloquent that I have ever
heard — a priest whom I truly loved.' Cardinal Manning
adds :
I had known Fr. Burke long and well. Our friendship began at

CARDINAL MANNING ON BURKE. 33 1
Rome, and through its streets we walked together, and there was a
bond of affection between us — mutual knowledge and confidence —
which was never relaxed, but grew more close and intimate even
to the end. And now we shall no more hear that eloquent voice,
eloquent because so simple, for in all he spoke for God ; he remem
bered God and forgot himself ; it was the eloquence not of study
nor self-manifestation, but of the great soul filled with God and
speaking for God. The whole man spoke, and yet in the pathos,
and beauty, and light of what he spoke we never remembered the
speaker. He concealed himselfi as it were, and therefore he
touched and moved and swayed the hearts of those who heard him.
That eloquent voice is silent to us, but it is not silent in the eternal
world, for it is always to be going up in the midst of that multitude
which no man can number before the eternal throne.
Theologians of every clime were unanimous in their
verdict. Mgr. Seton, of New York, declared that he had
never listened to a speaker who so completely captivated his
audience ; and when it was announced that the great Do
minican was coming to the States, Dr. Seton expressed a fear
that the people would hardly realise the treat in store for them.
Soon after Fr. Burke's retirement from Rome the Lenten
sermons which had been so long an attraction, thanks to Car
dinals Wiseman and Manning and himself, came to an end.
Speaking of the dangers attendant on the adulation that
pursued Fr. Burke, Fr. Clarke writes :
He had a most profound sense of the vanity and emptiness of
all worldly esteem and honour. God and the Church were his one
thought. He had praise and adulation enough to ruin any man,
but it never seemed to make any impression upon Fr. Burke. It
somehow slipped past him unnoticed. It was the work God had
given him to do which absorbed his thoughts. He had attained that
high level of the religious life where self-consciousness, or rather a
consciousness of self, disappears altogethet It was only when
some attempt more obvious than usual to glorify him at the expense
of truth attracted his notice and roused his ire, that he paid any
attention to such things.
But touch his sense of the ludicrous and at once his eyes
sparkled.

332 LIFE OF FATHER THOMAS BURKE.
Aubrey de Vere beheld him at a greater distance than
most of the men whose impressions we have given.
I saw him frequently at Rome (he writes). I was much strack
by him, though unfortunately I did not hear him preach. He
seemed to me a noble specimen of the priest, and of the Irish
priest — abounding in genius and in geniality; strong, simple,
manly, at once one of ' Nature's gentlemen,' and a true son of
the Church ; empty of selfi and full of the apostolic spirit. He
and my dear friend Dr. Moriarty, Bishop of Kerry, were doubdess
among the highest and purest of that vast assemblage of Christian
priests gathered that year around the throne of Peter.
The fact is incidentally mentioned by Fr. Ralph, a Do
minican officiating in America, that an effort was made
during the Vatican Council to persuade Fr. Burke to accept
the Coadjutor Archbishopric of San Francisco, but nothing
could tempt him to relinquish the habit of a poor preaching
friar — not even the gold of California. The Archbishop, Dr.
J. Sadoc Alemany, had worn the mitre since 1850, and as the
priests of the diocese were nearly all Irishmen, the proposal
seemed pleasanter than transplantation to Trinidad.' This is
not the only case in which Fr. Burke preferred a cell to a
palace. Quoting from a Kempis (Book I. c. xvii.) he said,
' Thou camest hither to serve, not to rule.'
In order to put a quietus upon such efforts, Fr. Burke
continued to make his deportment somewhat unepiscopal. The
following comes from a late Vice- Rector of the Irish College
at Rome : — Fr. Tom having visited a zoological collection, a
very amusing scene took place at the monkey house. The
opportunity of mimicking those caricatures of humanity was
too tempting to lose. Fr. Burke posed before the animals,
and made the most hideous faces and gestures. The monkeys
got angry, screamed, pulled at the bars of their cage, and
finally clawed each other. At last the keeper begged Fr.
Burke to bring the sensational scene to a close, which of
' Full details will be found in vol. ii. (page 118), of the attempt made to
induce Fr. Tom to accept Episcopal dignity in Trinidad.

A FELINE SERENADE. 333
course he at once did, much to the disappointment of a school
who were enjoying a holiday.
' Sleep,' says St. Ambrose, ' is to be less indulged in
than Nature demands. Disturb if with groans.' (Paraen. ad
Penit, p. 272.)' It was some time previous that Ft Burke
for less ascetic reasons serenaded, ci la Don Pasquale, and
seeming to accompany himself on the guitar. Father Joseph
Mullooly after he had retired for the night. He began —
' Oh, Ft Mullooly,
Tum, tum, &c.'
and went on seeking the most unlooked-for rhymes. The
incident would hardly be noticed here but to correct a
frequently told story that the performance took place at Sligo
under the windows of Bishop Gillooly. Fr. Tom varied the
programme by the mewing of a cat, which he pursued through
every variation of key from the feline serenade to its note
of defiance in battle. Next day he learned with remorse
that he had kept awake an Irish bishop for whom he bore
the most affectionate consideration. And this was the man
of whom Fr. Kane, S.J., has said that ' so great was the
power of his words on the human heart that strong men as
they listened would weep aloud.'
On another occasion he produced an operatic study by
mewing, and showed that after all there was little difference
between cat and Catalani. He was amused by a joke that a
cat was- a great prima donna, and that if boot-jacks were
bouquets her nine lives would be strewn with roses. It will
be seen that when almost on his deathbed he compared him
self to a dying cat still able to mew.
The Franciscans of St. Isidore's make St. Patrick's Day
rather than that of St. Francis their feast day, because Rome
' This is a passage to which Fr. Mullooly gave prominence in his book on the
subterranean treasures of San Clemente. In many of Fr. Tom's jokes a deeper
meaning is found to lurk than might at first sight appear.

334 LIFE OF FATHER THOMAS BURKE.
is crowded with English visitors in March and would be
deserted in October. Ft Burke was always the grand
attraction put forward on those occasions He told among
other stories how, after he had arrived as Prior of San
Clemente, he ordered a kid to be roasted for dinner. A
little Italian lay-brother felt himself privileged to urge the
cook to boil it instead. The Prior, chancing to hear of this
countermand, entered the kitchen, and, armed with all the
weight of his great authority, solemnly ordered the Italian to
be put into the oven. The simple man, thinking that his
Prior was serious, is said to have cried for mercy.
Ft Burke also mentioned that one day at San Clemente,
observing Fr. Mullooly slowly approaching along a corridor,
he made some unearthly vocal noises outside the door of a
certain grave Bishop, and then rapidly withdrew. The
Bishop opened his door wide just as Mullooly reached it, and
with a puzzled expression peered over his spectacles at the
man whom he unjustly regarded as the source from whence
the disturbance came.
Amongst the brightest sallies of fun in the midst of laughter in
extinguishable (writes a Jesuit Father) he was serious in an instant
if he were consulted by those who needed his advice in matters
spiritual or temporal. Every trace of the boisterous merriment was
gone, and the quiet earnest tone of heartfelt sympathy was always
ready to bind up the broken heart and pour balm into the wounded
soul Those who saw him in his fighter moods could scarcely believe
how grave and wise was his spiritual counsel ; how he spoke as one
whom God had commissioned to convey His Divine message to the
troubled soul.
Mass he celebrated daily. To quote the words of Ft Burke
himself: You wiU say, perhaps, ' Was not the sacrifice of Calvary sufficient ?'
Perfectly suflicient, a perfect atonement, a complete sacrifice ; so that
if any man deemed other sacrifice necessary besides that of Calvary
the thought would be blasphemy and the expression of it heresy
involving the censures of the Church. But yet a sacrifice may be all-

'TPIE LAST ROSE OF SUMMER.' 335
sufficient and yet it may be continued through the love of Him who
first made it. The same sacrifice which took place in a revolting
manner on Calvary takes place mystically on this altar ; the same
body is here and the same blood. Who therefore will dare to say
that the Catholic Church had set up any other sacrifice, or has
denied the all-sufficiency of the sacrifice of our divine Lord on
Calvary?" But he held that the altar of the Church was even greater
than Calvary. On the former He sheds His blood and passes
not away as he did on Golgotha.
When the bishops returned to San Clemente jaded after
the discussions and deliberations of the day, it was impossible
to foresee what fun Ft Burke might not have in store to rouse
them. The burlesque opera between him and Monsabre was
now reproduced with improved effects. Bishop Moriarty,
who had not attended the Centenary in 1 867, was specially de
lighted by its comic business. But other prelates were present,
including a very solemn one, Dt Leahy, Bishop of Dromore.
The genial Bishop of Cork, who saw much of Burke at other
times, tells us that he would not only sing the most comic of
songs, but seem to give an accompaniment of various instru
ments in chorus, and perform next minute the still more difficult
feat of presenting one of Moore's best-known melodies without
singing a word of it. This was the ' Last Rose of Summer,'
when by facial expression and general pantomime he told its
tale with touching fidehty. He also translated the same
lyric into fine Italian. But it was when portraying an old
maid as the last rose of summer left blooming alone that he
rose to highest dramatic strength, and there is now before us
a veritable photograph of Ft Burke taken in the character of
the forsaken spinstet Previous to sitting he placed upon
his head that appendage known to aged ladies as a front.
Where he picked it up no one could tell. Limp corkscrew
' 'The Altar and the Sacrifice,' Fermoy, August 17, 1878.

336 LIFE OF FATHER THOMAS BURKE.
ringlets hung on either side of his strangely disguised face ;
and a copy of the photograph is enclosed in the following note
addressed to his niece in Galway :
My dear Katty, — You are blessed with a scatter-brain uncle. I
forgot to inclose you the photograph. Take care of it : ' a thing of
beauty is a joy for ever.' Glad to hear that papa and mamma are
bettet Love to them and Margaret. Ever thine, T. Burke, O.P.
One evening the solemn Bishop of Dromore deprecated
his exuberance of spirits as unworthy of the priestly dignity.
' If it were not for this blemish,' he said, 'there is no distinc
tion to which your talents would not entitle you.' He replied,
' I often heard you express regret that you had ever been made
a bishop. If your Lordship had followed my example and
had a little more fun in you, that burthen would never have
been laid upon you.' In point of fact his love of fun failed
to harm him in the estimation of wise heads. They felt
with Addison, ' One should take care not to grow too wise
for so great a pleasure of life as laughter.'
To Fr. Burke's genial energy is due various pleasant
picnics to Tivoli and Ostia, which the Irish and ..American
bishops keenly enjoyed. Associated in the enterprise was
Miss Wyse, the niece and future biographer of the late
British Minister at Athens. Fr. Burke's friendship for this
lady began under circumstances which may as well be
mentioned. Years previously she had been inquiring for
some able priest, capable of affording wise counsel, not on
any case of conscience, but in relation to matters requiring
tlfe guidance of that most uncommon of gifts — common
sense. People urged her to consult Fr. Burke ; but the
suggestion made little impression. Miss Wyse spoke to
various ecclesiastics, but their replies were weak and wordy.
At last, happening to hear Fr. Tom preach in Dominick
Street Church, Dublin, she became so much struck by the

PICNICS FOR PRELATES. 337
logical tone of his sermon, that after he had left the pulpit
she entered the vestr}', and ventured as an utter stranger to
lay her case before him. Ft Burke gave his opinion with
.such conciseness and strength, that in a moinent all difficulties
were smoothed, and she felt herself for life the debtor of the
great Dominican. It was not until long afterwards that he
heard who she was ; but Ft Burke was the most accessible of
men, and ready, at all times, to pour balm into every bruised
heart. Their acquaintance gradually strengthened into friendship
until Miss Wyse, finding at last her letters unanswered, some
danger of it coming to an abrupt end seemed to loom. The
lady was hurt, and let the Dominican know it. He soon
appeared in person, threw himself upon her indulgence, and
confessed — what he had never told another — that he had
offered up three retreats in the fervent hope of being able to
cure himself of a habit, doubtless indefensible, but which,
though it gave him no end of trouble, he found it hopeless to
mend. If Miss Wyse when at Rome helped Fr. Tom to organise
picnics for the bishops, he greatly enhanced their enjoyment
by throwing around the fruit of his local lore. Well re
membered was their trip to Ostia, a see founded in the time
of the Apostles, and of which St. Cyriacus was first bishop.
This once great seaport — the boldest triumph of Roman
magnificence — fell before the Saracens ; and that which once
numbered near 8,000 inhabitants found in 1870 not quite a
dozen ; enough, however, to form the bishopric of a Cardinal
deacon. Excavations were then in progress, disclosing every
day fresh ' finds ' of classic statuary. Ft Burke seemed one
moment like Marius moaning over the ruins of Carthage,
the next found him full of fun and song. The party, after
dining under the pines, strolled to the lovely beach. Who
can forget the thrilling eftect of the glee with which at
eventide the Archbishop of Halifax and he sang —
VOL. I. 2

338 LIFE OF FATHER THOMAS BURKE.
I saw from the beach, when the morning was shining,
A bark o'er the waters move gloriously on,
I came when the sun o'er that beach was dechning, —
The bark was still there but the waters were gone ?
The singers then went on to show, in the words of the
poet, that ' such was the fate of life's early promise.' The
waters, however, were not entirely gone. The habits of boy
hood clung to Burke to the end, and some of the bishops
were surprised to see him later on wading about in the blue
Tyrrhenian sea.
Incidental to such trips a good deal of walking became
necessary ; and the portly physique of the Bishop of Kerry
might be seen leading the van. He whose jurisdiction covered
Mangerton, Aghadoe and MacGillicuddy's Reeks was not
easily daunted. Bareheaded, and ever and anon passing a
handkerchief across his beaded brow, Dr. Moriarty pursued
the tenor of his way, tramping over Roman pavement — the
site of early Christian marytrdom, and later of Cardinal
Roviere's bloody rout of the French. Ostia grew in interest
under Fr. Burke's rapid allusion to its history. So prosperous
had it at one time become, that its suburbs touched Rome ;
but the one grand street that had erst united the two is
now described as a road through a desert. Next day he
waited upon Miss Wyse, and with a long face declared that
her conscience was not clear. The crime of having killed a
bishop rested upon it. Dt Moriarty lay prostrate for a week
after, sore in every joint, but aglow with plea.sant thoughts.
Another trip to Ostia discovered new points of interest, and
Dt Moriarty paid a compliment to the first by eagerly
joining the party. Fr. Burke showed Mrs. Bishop the house
where Monica, the mother of St. Augustine, died, and he
is described as singing Moore's melodies the whole way back
to Rome. Mt Arthur Moore, then Chamberlain to the Pope,
belonged to a family with whom Fr. Burke was very intimate.

LOVE OF SONG. 339
Crossing the Piazza di S. Pietro, one night, both sang with
all the strength of their Irish lungs 'Tell me, ye shepherds,'
Mozart was his favourite (Miss Wyse writes in the notes she
has been kind enough to make for our use), and it was quite a study
to watch him listening with eager interest to one of his sonatas. I
seldom heard a more sympathetic voice than Fr. Burke's. He gave
us the ' Pilgrim of Love,' by Bishop, when asked to sing ; and he
put more soul into it than any one else I ever heard.
But the most touching thing I know was his singing of the
Passion on Good Friday. He never missed it for years, and said it
could not be Good Friday to him without it. Also the Prophecies,
&c., on Holy Saturday ; they sounded quite different when sung
by him — he seemed to charge them so completely with the grandeur
of their meaning.
Fr. Burke asked himself how it was that his race evinced
such irrepressible love of song.
How are we to account for this? We must seek the cause of it
in the remotest history. It is a historical fact that the maritime or
sea-coast people of the north and west of Europe were, from time
immemorial, addicted to song. In remote ages, the kings of our
sea-girt island, when they went forth upon their warlike forays, were
always accompanied by their minstrel, who animated them to deeds
of bravery. Even when the Danes came sweeping down in their
galleys upon the Irish coast, high on the prow of every war-boat sat
the Skald, or poet — white-haired, heroic, wrinkled— the historian of
all their national wisdom and their national prowess. And when
sweeping with their long oars through the waves, they approached
their foe, he rose in the hour of battle, and poured forth his soul in
song, and fired every warrior to the highest deeds. Thus it was in
Ireland, when Nial of the Nine Hostages bore down upon the coast
of France and took St. Patrick, then a youth, prisoner ; the first
sounds that greeted the captive's ear were the strains of our old
Irish harper celebrating in a language he knew not the glories and
victories of heroes long departed.
Fr. Tom had jokes to suit every rank and walk in life.
A Dublin Alderman happened to sit next him at dinner,
and asked, after the singing had begun, if he knew anything

340 LIFE OF FATHER THOMAS BURKE.
of the Messrs. Waters, who had been largely engaged in
tanning. Difficulties had threatened their house ; an ac
countant was sent down to examine their books and stock,
consisting chiefly of bark, and he reported that there would
be 20S. in the pound to pay every creditor, but he regretted
to add that the principals had left the country. ' The bark
was still there, but the Waters were gone,' commented Fr.
Burke, as he quietly passed on to another topic.
As in the history of governments and parties there was
always some salon, like that of the Duchess of Devonshire in
1789, where the Opposition found a social spot for reunion,
one great rendezvous for the Inopportunists during the pro
gress of the Vatican Council was the house of Mrs. Augustus
Craven, authoress of ' Recit d'une Sceut' '
The receptions held by Mgt Dupanloup, Bishop of
Orleans, every Sunday after breakfast were also important in
their character. These took place at his elegant villa resi
dence, and lasted from two to four o'clock. Mgr. Dupanloup
greatly admired Burke's qualities of head and heart.
At the house of Mt Macpherson charades with tableaux
vivants were performed for the amusement of mainly clerical
guests. Needless to say, there was no more enjoyable co-opera
tor than Ft Tom. Mrs. Macpherson was intellectual, and had
written a Life of Mrs. Jameson. In the salon of Mrs. Charles
Moore, the sister of the present writer, Ft Burke was a pro
minent figure. Here he made some English visitors stare by
attending her soirees in his habit, but they partook of the
character of conversazioni. This lady belonged to the Ultra
montane side, and after Pio Nono had been despoiled of his
temporal power presented him with 1,000/. But it was neces
sary to meet Ft Burke dining here on a quiet day to see him
in the full openness of his boyish nature. One minute he
' Mrs. Craven states that she never received a letter from Fr. Burke ; modestly
adding, ' and although I admired and revered him so much, it was only like the
many who heard him preach and were lost in the crowd that listened to him.'

FACIAL FANTASTICS. 34I
would be a nun, with the dinner napkin on his head, gently
whispering seraphic words ; later on— especially when some
younger persons joined the party — he was the greatest child
of them all. ' He could make himself the ugliest man that
ever lived,' observes Mr. J. W. O'Donnell, Chief Police Magis
trate ; but this recollection applies to an evening at Lord
O'Hagan's. Ft Burke admitted to Miss Moore that, after a
full course of these facial fantastics, his face would be sore for
days. Anon he would give samples of a retreat in broken
English after the manner of Ft Dominic, famous for having
made a monk of the Hon. George Spencer, and of one far
more illustrious, who is now an English Cardinal. In the
following persiflage. Ft Dominic is supposed to be addressing
a community of nuns : —
You tink, my dear Shisters, dat de devil is only outside in de
world. Nay, he is inside de convent too ; but you never see much
of him, only a bit of de tail. One nun says, ' I am of good familee,
unlike So-and-so.' Ah ! dere is a bit of de tail. Anoder says to
herselfi ' I have de good judgment, and am made de referee.' Here
again de tail peeps out. Sometimes de temptation whispers, ' I am
comely to view.' [Here Fr. Dominic would distort his face into
a hideous expression of contempt as his eye swept the line of nuns.]
But though de devil is the fader of lies, he would not go de length
of saying dat
It was the same good Father who, when announcing to a
school a day of recreation, promised the children, ' Sheep
tripes, and bones ' — meaning cheap trips and buns.
Fr. Burke (observes our correspondent Mrs. Grehan) certainly
realised the truth of what Faber has said of the advantage of a sense
of humour, even in the spiritual life. All barriers of stiffness, human
respect, self-consciousness, and conceit, broke down at once before
the tide of his exuberant and overflowing spirits. P"he perfect confi
dence he inspired as if by magic brought many to higher things,
who were at first only attracted by the charm of his wit and humout
'A man,' says Newman, 'who divests himself of his own greatness,
and puts himself on the level of his brethren, and throws himself

342 LIFE OF FATHER THOMAS BURKE.
on the sympathies of human nature, and speaks with such sim
plicity and such spontaneous outpouring of heart, is forthwith in
a condition both to conceive great love of them, and to inspire
great love towards himself.'
An anecdote occurs to my mind (writes the Archbishop of
Philadelphia). Several members of an old and wealthy American
family had been received into the Cathohc Church, and were tem
porarily residing in Rome, and became great friends of Father Tom.
A very bigoted Presbyterian daughter-in-law of the lady at the head
of the family arrived in Rome, and was told that Father Burke had
been invited to spend the evening. ' I shall not call him Fatlur
Burke,' she said, ' because I acknowledge no spiritual paternity in
a Cathohc priest. I must call him Mr. Burke or Doctor Burke.'
After the arrival of Father Tom in his monk's habit, he entered into
conversation with this lady, of whose bigotry he had heard. She
addressed him as Doctor Burke. ' Faith, madam,' said he, ' sure I'm
not a doctor at all — I'm not even an apothecary ! ' The lady laughed
heartily, and I believe Father Tom had the gratification of receiving
her into the Church. Certain it is that she is now a most fervent
Catholic' Fr. Burke, during the progress of the Vatican Council,
had been one of the strongest of the Inopportunists who
mustered at Rome. Unlike many other divines who have
since received marked promotion, Fr. Burke made no dis
guise of his sentiments. These views were strengthened by
constant association with Bishop Moriarty, whose deep theo-
' Letter of the Archbishop of Philadelphia to the Author, July 19, 18S4. This
eminent prelate is justly regarded as the greatest Catholic preacher now living.
Referring to the saints of Ireland, his Grace, in a recent sermon, said : ' This
subject formed a theme, many a time, for that great man and great patriot whose
brain and heart rest for the last time and for the first — for he never rested until he
went to the lowly grave at Tallaght, — the Dominican preacher and patriot whom I
felt proud to call my friend, and whom you ought to love — who, when we are
all forgotten, will be remembered for the divinity of genius, and that purity of
intention, consecrated by supernatural motives, wherewith he proclaimed the
truths of God, and for which he shall live in story and in the history of our
people.' How completely Fr. Burke commanded the respect of the ecclesiastics
who knew him best is further shown in the fact that the archbishop made a
special pilgrimage to Tallaght, where, during rain and the piteous moan of the
winter's wind, he knelt down bareheaded upon the grass-grown grave, and prayed
for Fr. Burke's eternal repose.

MRS. BISHOP'S RECOLLECTIONS. 343
logic lore, uncompromising attitude, and conclusive way of
putting points left him more than once master of the situa
tion. When at last the definition of the Infallibility had
become inevitable, Fr. Burke waited upon his gifted friend,
Mrs. Bishop, to say that he had received orders from his
General, the P^re Jandel, to be more guarded in his words
and that she must try and forget all he had previously said.
How intimate he was with this accomplished convert one
anecdote will show. Among other recollections she gives us
as an instance of his readiness as a preacher that one day,
when she happened to go into the sanctuary of Santa Maria
during his course of sermons, and just before his appearance
in the pulpit, he said : ' I've only this minute come, and I'm
debating in my mind what the theme shall be.' He always
addressed this lady by her Christian name, and he now
asked her to decide for him. She said, ' Let it be the
Blessed Eucharist.' He passed straight to the pulpit, and
spoke, she says, like one inspired. He dwelt on the
Eucharist as the fulfilment of the designs of God, and like
wise of all the wants of man.
Mrs. Bishop knows more of his inner life, and possessed
more of his confidence than many ecclesiastics who were his
frequent associates. One day he told her that the rock
against which he was on his guard was vainglory, and hence
his efforts to crush it by fostering an opposite feeling. The
reader, in following his continued ovation in America through
out the next two years, would do well to bear these words
in mind. Mrs. Bishop of course knew him during his hours of
relaxarion also, and describes him as singing the best part of
' Don Giovanni,' accompanying himself on a guitat He had
a great admiration for Mozart's Masses, and said that after all
there was nothing like them.'
During several successive sittings the question of the
' To Rev. F. A. Hickey, O.P.

344 LIFE OF FATHER THOMAS BURKE.
Infallibility was discussed with great eloquence and power.
On July 13, being the eighty-fifth General Congregation, the
voting was— ' Placet,' 451, and 'Placet juxta modum,' 62,
while 88 declared themselves ' Non Placet.'
The Bishop of Kerry read aloud a passage from the Acts
of the Apostles. ' It hath seemed good to the Holy Ghost
and to us, to lay no farther burden upon you than these neces
sary things,' and, said the Bishop, ' a warning follows not to
multiply, without great necessity, laws and definitions.' He
pronounced the Councils of Ephesus and Rimini ' infamous
in the history of the Church,' because the bishops, under
threats of exile, basely betrayed their trust Dt Moriarty
recognised with joy that peace reigned around while the
Vatican Council sat, and that no secular threat could possibly
influence it.
Dr. Moriarty's attitude was in some respects exceptional.
Fr. Burke, three years later, thus looks back on the time :
But when do we find the unity of the Church so strongly deve
loped and shown as in the last General Council of the Vatican?
Eight hundred Bishops from all ends of the earth were there. Never
did the Catholic Church behold, assembled together, so great an array
of mitred Prelates. Around these eight hundred Bishops were
hundreds of learned men, philosophers, and theologians, filled vpith
the stores of theological knowledge which the experience of eighteen
hundred years had supplied. There they were, the Bishops of the
Universal Church, no longer confined to this country or to that, but
spread out over the whole world, speaking the language of every
clime under the sun, arrayed in different costumes, with different
habits, thoughts, and prejudices ; and there in the midst of them
stands the sceptred monarch of the Church of God, ' the grandeur
of Pope Pius IX.'
Before the final vote was taken, forty-five of the dissen
tients had retired, including Archbishop Kenrick ; twenty
had received formal leave of absence ; the Bishops of Dro
more, Marianapolis, and Northampton were invalided ; three
died. Doctors Derry, Maccabe, and Grant, and at the last

THE DOGMA DEFINED. 345
division two prelates only voted 'Non Placet.' These were
Dt FitzGerald, Bishop of Little Rock, and Mgt Riccio,
Bishop of Cajazzo, Naples. The Vicar of Christ arose and
uttered the magic words, ' Consummatum est.' The scene
that followed was eminently striking. Acclamation ascended
on every side. Old bishops — tears coursing down their
cheeks with emotion — embraced each other, and gave thanks
to God that they had lived to see that day. But to the
dismay of the assembled Fathers, the Bishop of Little Rock,
the youngest prelate in the world, stood up and enunciated
two words which were supposed to repeat the refractory
' Non Placet.' Even during so solemn a scene some jokes
were whispered, and one was ' See Little Rock opposing the
Great Rock.' His Lordship's observation — seemingly indica
tive of opposition to a dogma already defined — caused pain
ful perplexity, which was only allayed by the assurance that
what he really did say was ' Nunc Placet' ' To correct the
misapprehension he clasped his pectoral cross, and in a sten
torian voice cried, ' Nunc credo et ego, nunc et ego firmiter
credo ! '
Riccio made his submission on his knees, and both
prelates were at once received by the Pope with expressions
of parental affection. The roar of ordnance without shook
the Basilica and ten thousand cheers rent the air, while
the joy bells of St. Peter's pealed their gladdest chime. On
the same day Napoleon III, declared war against Prussia.
Within a week every absent prelate reverently sent in his
adhesion to the dogma.
We have seen that the Bishop of Dromore and his
theologian Ft Burke had been, in common with other able
Dominicans, Inopportunists. They were of opinion that
' it was for the good of the Church to leave untouched the
question of Infallibility.' One of the most powerful speeches
made in sustainment of this view was by Cardinal Guidi, O.P.
' Oral statement of the late Cardinal Cullen.

346 LIFE OF FATHER THOMAS BURKE.
Once, however, that the definition was made, the Cardinal,
together with the Thomist Bishops and the Dominican
General, Pere Jandel, laid before the Pope, in the name of
the entire Order, an address declaratory of the fervent faith
with which they accepted the dogma. Ft Jandel held the
same rank as a bishop at the Council, in so far as he could
vote, define, and subscribe.
The Bishop of Dromore and his theologian, after an
absence of nearly seven months, had returned to Ireland before
the conclusion of the Council. Ft Burke's devotion to the
Centre of Unity was not diminished by breathing once more
an Irish atmosphere :
The world now beholds the Church as Christ established her (he
exclaimed), in all spiritual loveliness, in majesty, unity, and power.
When it sees eight hundred of her bishops meeting in council, and
all hearing the word of one man, and before that one bowing down
as before the voice of God, they bear willing testimony to that
wonderful unity of faith which is in the Church.
As to Bishop Moriarty, we learn from Fr. Burke when
preaching his panegyric, that ' the last public act of his life
was to forward to Rome the loving and generous tribute of
himself and his ancient diocese,' and we learn both from his
lips and his life that devotion to the Holy See is one of the
strongest signs of the holy priest and the true Catholic.
This great bishop, in addressing his flock, declared that,
humanly speaking, he believed even with more reason in the
decrees of the Vatican Council than he did in Trent, because
the Church was more largely represented, and embraced
bishops not only from the oldest churches in Christendom,
but from Churches which did not exist, and from countries
unknown, when the Council sat at Trent.
The name of Dt Kenrick, Archbishop of St. Louis, has
been mentioned on a previous page, and before leaving Rome
an anecdote may here come in which he has told more
than once. Shortly after the Infallibility of the Pope became

OLD BLACKFRIARS. 347
a dogma, the Archbishop found some difficulty in reconciling
it to the mind of a convert lady in his diocese, and a visit to
the Eternal City was suggested as a good mode of clenching
her faith. She made her pilgrimage and had an interview
with the Pope. Hearing that she was from St. Louis, he
asked after the health of Dr. Rosati. This prelate — the
first bishop of that See — had been in his grave for thirty-two
years, and the lady returned to St. Louis with her faith in
Papal Infallibility far from strengthened by the audience. Dr.
Kenrick became coadjutor to Dr. Rosati in 1841, and two
years later succeeded him. It may be added that the
Vatican Council merely requires Catholics to believe that
God protects the Pope from error in definitions on faith and
morals, when, ex cathedra, he imposes a belief upon the
Universal Church.
When Fr. Burke reached London he took an opportunity
to visit the purlieus of Blackfriars, so called from the black
cloak which Dominicans wear. Their grand old convent
here, built in 1286, became the scene of some very interesting
spectacles. Its erection was encouraged by the gift of two
whole streets near St. Paul's, which the Corporation of London
presented to the Black Friars. Successive Parliaments met
in this house. Charles V. of Germany lodged here in 1522.
It was here, too, that Cardinal Wolsey sat as judge in the
case of Henry VIII., when Catherine of Aragon eloquently
repudiated the jurisdiction of that Court. Fr. Burke found
the exact site in Playhouse Yard where Shakspere's theatre
was built with the debris of the Dominican Friary. The
Bard of Avon had stood upon the very spot where Burke now
stood. The same thoughts doubtless occurred to both, and
probably suggested passages in ' Henry VIII.' worthy of
Dominic himselfi Amongst others :
I charge thee, fling away ambition :
By that sin fell the angels ; 
Love thyself last : cherish those hearts that hate thee.

348 LIFE OF FATHER THOMAS BURKE.
On June 3, 1870, Ft Burke was appointed Sub-Prior of
St. Saviour's, Dublin. This year he preached the panegyrics
of St. Dominic, St. Francis Assisi, and St. Laurence O'Toole,
in Dublin. Other occasions which brought out his powers as a
preacher were the dedication, on August 7, of the new Do
minican Church at Newbridge, on the 14th of St. Anne's,
Bohernabreena, and on the 24th the blessing of the bell en
the relinquishment of the wooden chapel of St. Kevin. On
September 4 he preached from the altar at Drogheda when
the corner-stone of its new Dominican Church was laid by
the Primate. But the grand incident of the year was the
Triduum in celebration of the dogma of the Infallibility.
Twelve prelates who had spoken at the CEcumenical Council
attended in Marlborough Street to hear Fr. Burke preach an
exhaustive discourse in explanation and defence of the decree.
Cardinal Cullen's restoration of certain grand functions
and ceremonials of the Church in which it was our Domini
can's lot to take a leading part is thus noticed by Fr. Burke
in a sermon preached on the death of that Prelate :
The order and magnificence of public worship in the old law,
which was but the shadow of future blessings, was amply provided
for by the Almighty, as we read in Leviticus. How much more
must we consult for the worship in the new law, where God Him
self is immediately present, where every movement prescribed to the
ministers of the altar is an act of faith in that Awful Presence,
derives its meaning from it, and is intended as a powerful aid to the
faithful to realise the presence in a feeling spirit of adoration and
love. Such scenes as these, with the Cardinal Archbishop as their
centre, have we witnessed often in this great church, and our memory
recalls them as amongst the happiest moments of our lives.
The Dublin people, like the Athenians of old, are fond of
music and eloquence ; and wherever Fr. Burke ministered
they were sure to have both. At St. Saviour's his confessional
was always crowded. The penitents were largely composed
of artisans, but all classes met at that centre of attraction.

STRICTNESS AS A CONFESSOR. 349
'When Luther arranged that henceforth men might live
without confession, it was a terrible denial ' (says Fr. Burke)
' of the greatest of earth's comforts.' After some lengthy
remarks on its advantages, Fr. Burke added :
Thus it is that the voice in the confessional acts on society. If
the whole world were Catholic, and all men consented to approach
regularly the tribunal of penance, this alone would put an end to sin.
There would be no more heart-breaking, no more tears, no more dark
records of robberies and murders, no more women hardening their
hearts and making them more ferocious than the tigress when she
devours her young ; no more of that cautious, cold, calculating
dishonesty, men casting their wiles about each other like a web, to
entrap each other ; no misery in this world — all would be happiness
if men would only open their festering souls and let in the salt of the
power and the grace of Jesus Christ.'
The Dominicans have got the name of being very strict
directors ; but even by them Fr. Burke was deemed too
rigorous in the confessional. A propos to this point the
reader should see under the year 1879 Canon Brownlow's
recollections of Fr. Burke as a confessor.
He sought, indeed, no popularity in the tribunal of
penance by maintaining impassiveness, no matter what tale
of sin transpired. Like an upright judge, he boldly interpreted
the law that was outraged. His uncompromising theology
worked great good. We catch a glimpse of it in words which
deserve to be recorded.
Thus it is that from the confessional spring those virtues by
which man acts upon his feUow-man. The index virtue is purity ;
and the next virtue in relation to our fellow-man is honesty. The
third is charity ; and behold how the confessional acts here. If a
man speaks badly of his neighbour, if he ruins that neighbour's cha
racter or reputation, if he gets that neighbour thrown out of some
lucrative employment by his whisperings or his tales, he goes to con
fession, and says, ' I am sorry for my sin ; ' but he finds, perhaps, to
his astonishment that the priest will say to him, ' There is another
difficulty.' Until you make good that man's character there is no
' The Coitfessional : its Effect on Society. Printed in America only.

350 LIFE OF FATHER THOMAS BURKE.
absolution for you ; untU you have retracted there is no pardon for
you ; untU you have restored to your neighbour the fair name and
fame of which, by your whispering and enmity and injustice, you
have robbed him, there is no heaven for you. What greater, what
stronger motive could there be to make a man guard his words, to
preserve him from detraction, to make him measure well his words
before he inflicts an injury on his neighbour, when he knows if he
gives way to this mean envy or enmity, if he says these things or
publishes them, even though men may forget, God will not forget it
in the interest of his neighbour ! ' To Communion,' this man must
say, ' I cannot go, nor can I enter heaven until I have gone out and
eaten the lie that I have told.'
He often said that all courts of law could do was to send
the robber to prison. The Church alone so lays hold of the
thief that it enables those who were plundered to get their
own again. Later on, addressing an American audience, he
said : ' I say it is within my own knowledge, as indeed of
every priest actively engaged on the mission, that sums
amounting in the aggregate to something enormous are con
stantly being restored through the confessional.'
As a spiritual director of men of the world Fr. Burke had
no easy time of it. Men who would bend the knee to no
other priest made special pilgrimages to his ' box.' It will
surprise many to learn that on such occasions he did not
hesitate to press into the service of God his powers of wit
and humour ; and if we did not find this statement made
by the Jesuit Fathers with whom he constantly associated
as a consultant and genial friend, we should be slow to
record it : —
As in the pulpit so in the confessional (we are told), his exuberant
power of fun was of great advantage to him. He was at once en
rapport with his penitents. He buoyed them up with his own
wondrous buoyancy of heart, he turned their thoughts away from
themselves by his dashes of weU-timed humour, he fiUed the most
diffident with confidence, he introduced thoughts of heaven and
aspirations after God in such a genial and natural way that virtue
became attractive to those who had before shrunk from it and

VISITS THE DYING. 35 I
religion could not fail to seem full of cheerfulness and joy when
spoken of by one who was himself so cheery and joyous.'
Fr. Burke's fame as a great priest was now in its zenith.
The wavering sought his aid as well as the sick. Sometimes
he is found receiving converts, at other times drying the
tears of repentance by the bed of death.
' Were you ever called upon to attend any sick person who
declined the Sacraments or refused to let the thought of death near
them ? ' he was asked by his old school-fellow John Brady. Ft
Burke replied, ' The friends of a young married woman, knowing
the danger of her position, had, with the parochial priest, vainly
urged her to prepare for death. At last they begged of me to go.
She was a beautiful girl with long tresses of golden halt Her heart
seemed set upon the vanities of the world, and I merely whispered,
" I don't say you are going to die, but, my child, what harm can it
do you to receive the rites of Holy Church?" This tone being
different from that in which she was previously addressed, she
yielded, and made her confession. When I saw her again she wore
the sweetest expression of resignation. I called a third time and
found her dead.'
The circumstances under which he was summoned were
as varied as the changes of the kaleidoscope. In St. Paul's,
Brooklyn, U.S., March 3, 1872, he mentioned how he had
stood by the bedside of a man whose physician had just
brought him through six long days of delirium tremens :
The doctor said to him, ' As sure as God created you, if you
touch alcohol for the next week you will be a dead man ! ' I was
trying to see if the poor fellow would go to confession. A flask of
brandy slood near him on the table, for they had had to give it to
him. While the doctor was yet speaking, I saw his eyes fastened on it
and the hand creeping up towards it ; and if ever you saw a hungry
horse or mule looking at oats, it was he, when, with his eyes devour
ing the bottle, he reached out, clutched it, and put it to his head,
after hearing that, as surely as God made him, so surely would he
die if he drank of it ! He could not help it. Where, then, was
that man's freedom ? It had perished in the habit of sin.
' The Month [edited hy a. Jesuit Father], September, 1883. Fr. Burke had
sobriquets for most of his penitents. One lady he always accosted as ' Pilgrim.'

352 LIFE OF FATHER TPIOMAS BURKE.
Dt Shannon once attended a tedious and critical case of
illness in conjunction with Fr. Burke, who offered his spiritual
ministrations. Both were sitting in an ante-room with the
sister of the patient, when she at length broke a solemn pause
by the remark, ' After all, I would rather be a priest than a
doctor.' ' Then you would find it easier to preach than to
practice,' was Ft Burke's ready rejoinder.
A book more curious and instructive than ' The Diary of
a Late Physician ' might be compiled from the materials
which -have survived Fr. Burke. These reminiscences of the
dead and dying are found scattered through his sermons ; a
few are now given — more are reserved.
Curran once said to Fr. O'Leary, ' I wish you were St.
Peter, for then you could let me into heaven.' ' It would be
better to have the key of the other place,' was the reply, ' for
then I could let you out.' Fr. Burke in graver mood re
peatedly told his hearers that the golden key which opens the
gate of heaven is mercy. Christ will say, ' As you are merciful
to the poor you are merciful to Me. I have said, " Blessed
are the merciful, for they shall find mercy." '
Preaching on the 'Attributes of Catholic Charity,' he
said :
Nowhere without the pale of the Catholic Church do you find
charity organised. You may find a fair ebullition of pity, here and
there, as when a rich man dies and leaves, perhaps, thousands to
found an hospital. But it is an exceptional thing, as when some
grand lady, magnificent of heart and mind — hke Florence Nightin
gale — devotes herself to the poor and goes into the hospitals. If
¦ you travel out of the bounds of that fair and beautiful compassion
that runs in so many hearts, and go one step farther into the cold
atmosphere of State aid, there is not one vestige of true charity there;
it becomes polkical economy. The State believes it is more
economical to pick up the poor from the streets and lanes, to take
them from their sick beds, transferring them into poor-houses and
hospitals, and there, overwhelming them with the miserable pity that
patronizes, making its gifts a curse and not a blessing, by breaking
the heart whilst it relieves the body. Such is ' State charity.' I

A SAD SCENE. 353
remember once in Dublin I got a sick call. It was to attend a
poor woman. I went and found in a back lane a garret room.
I climbed up to the place. There I found, without exaggeration,
four bare walls, and a woman seventy-five years of age, covered
with a few squalid rags, and lying on the floor — not as much as
a little straw had she under her head. I asked for a cup to give
her a drink of water. There was no such thing to be had ; and
there was no one there to give it I had to go out and beg
amongst the neighbours, until I got the loan of a cupful of cold
water. I put it to her dying lips. I had to kneel down upon
that bare floor to hear that dying woman's confession. The
hand of death was upon her. What was her story? She was
the mother of six children — a lady, educated in a lady-like manner —
a lady beginning her career of life in affluence and in comfort. The
six children grew up. Some married, some emigrated. But the
weak and aged mother was abandoned. And now she was literally
dying, not only of the fever that was upon her, but — of starvation I
As I knelt there on the floor, and as I lifted her grey-haired head
upon my hands, I said, ' Let me, for God's sake, have you taken to
^4he workhouse hospital ; at least you will have a bed to lie upon ! '
She turned and looked at me. Two great tears came from her
dying eyes, as she said, ' Oh, that I should live to hear a priest talk
to me about a poor-house ! ' I felt that I had stabbed this already
broken heart On my knees I begged her pardon. ' No,' she said,
' let me die in peace ! ' And there, whilst I knelt at her side, her
chastened spirit passed away to God — but the taint of the ' charity of
the State ' was not upon her.
If it was his lot to witness too often the drunkard's death,
he had the happiness, at least in one instance, of hearing
joyous news. Andrew Lynch, Fr. Burke's oldest friend, gives
us the following instance of his wit. A gentleman with
whom Fr. Burke was well acquainted indulged so freely that
the priest bemoaned his state to a common friend. ' Oh, he's
quite reformed, and has now joined our rowing club.' ' Then
he has given up Jameson and taken to Roe,' replied Fr.
Burke, alluding to the two great distillers, but inwardly
ejaculating ' Deo Gratias ! '
Some of the painful scenes described by Fr. Burke were
also witnessed by less demonstrative Dominicans. When
VOL. I. A A

354 LIFE OF FATHER THOMAS BURKE.
spending the evening with the community. Ft Burke, to
relieve their minds and his own, often personated as many
characters as Charles Mathews the eldet He was once
mimicking the precise and polished Russell, Provincial of the
Order, when to his confusion he found him standing at his
elbow, having entered the room unobserved. He would not
only mimic some of his most distinguished colleagues of the
cowl, but for several he had nicknames. One voluntarily
over-worked Father he called ' the maid-of-all-work,' ' the
skirts of his habit as they flitted rapidly past not weakening
the simile. The energy of this zealous worker knew no rest ;
he rarely sat down to take a meal — a crust of bread in the
hand as he hurried to overtake some task of the hour serving
him for refreshment.
One day, as Fr. Burke emerged from his convent, ac
companied by a distinguished friend who addressed him with
much animation, he failed to heed an old crone who begged
for alms. Losing temper, she exclaimed, ' Ah ! you're all for
the rich. Fr. Eustace, the darlin', he's the man for the poor.'
' Of course you gave her a flea in her ear ? ' said a priest to
whom he told the incident. ' I hadn't even a flea,' replied
Fr. Burke.
In speaking of the human and natural side of the argu
ment in favour of confession. Ft Burke more than once
recurred to the great relief it was to find a friend to whom a
man might throw off the burden of his soul, just as Simon
lifted the Cross from the shoulders of Christ. But where
were we to seek a man on whose honour and secrecy we could
rely? It is very hard to find such a man. I do not speak at all of
finding a woman. I remember once I was going to preach a sermon
in Dubhn one Sunday for some charity, and they came to me at
' Fr. Burke, though fond of nicknames, never gave an unkind one unless to a
public character, and we know no second instance in which it occurred. At a time
when Bismarck was imprisoning bishops and priests, he called him ' Beastsmark.'
See lecture on ' The Church and Civil Government,' Waterford, 1875.

ATTENDS CONCERTS. 355
the last minute and said, 'WiU you preach on Sunday? We want
money for this thing or that.'
' Very well,' said I. It was on Friday.
' But,' said they, ' there is no time to publish it.'
' Oh,' I said, ' do you leave it to me, I'll publish it.' And I went
to a lady friend of mine and said, ' I want to tell you a secret They
have asked me to preach on Sunday at such a place, but I would
not have it known.' ' Ah,' said she, ' I am the soul of honour.' I
went away. I came back that road in about half an hour, and I met
four or five people on the way. ' Well, Father Tom, you are going
to preach at a certain place on Sunday.' There was not a paving
stone in Dublin that did not hear it There is our first great difficulty
to find a reliable friend.
It seems almost inconsistent in God — if I may so say — to have
given to man such a nature, such a heart, that he cannot bear his
own sorrows alone, and yet to make the true friends so difficult to
find. Until about ten years before his death, when he ceased
attendance, Fr. Burke — his collar buttoned up to avoid
observation — was yet a familiar figure at concerts and public
readings. How often have his more domestic brethren been
amused with imitations of what he heard, especially of a
Shaksperian elocutionist whose readings were ever and anon
interrupted by the yelping of a cur dog ! ' I have seen him
wrapt almost in ecstasy,' writes Fr. Murphy, ' as he sat in a
public hall when the artist went through the creations of the
great masters and the grand music thrilled the very air.'
Mr. Kennedy, who is known in the musical world, happened
to sit next him during a concert. Though not previously ac
quainted, they exchanged observations, more especially in re
ference to one song which Fr. Burke seemed most anxious
to hear. Encores had retarded the progress of the pro
gramme, but just as that part was reached to which both
had eagerly looked forward, he rose to leave, whispering
in reply to an expression of surprise, ' Ordered to be home
by ten.' 'In the year 1871,' writes his friend and Provincial, the-

3S6 LIFE OF FATHER THOMAS BURKE.
Very Rev. J. T, Towers, ' he preached 1 72 sermons and gave 2 1
retreats. With him a retreat was four sermons for seven
days, so that in one year he spoke publicly about 700 times.'
Among those retreats was one at Maynooth for ecclesiastical
students, which made many uneasy consciences. He depicted
with such strength and vividness the grave responsibility
involved in the priestly state that not a few drooped under
the fear of personal unworthiness. His appeals awakened a still
higher spirit of asceticism in pursuit of their sacred calling.
He warned them of the dangers which would attend their
absence from college during the recess, and urged them to
guard with equal vigilance their vocation and their vacation.
He begged them to avoid the fashionable ' sea-side,' where
he had known most promising students to form acquaintances
which afterwards led to a friendly letter that bore unseen
the germ of romantic mischiefi Some of these dangers
Florentius, the master of a Kempis, had already pointed out
to his novices.
Among his discourses this year were two dedication sermons
— one on May 21, in the Parochial Church, Donegal ; the other
in the south, for the Bishop of Ferns. This latter is noticed
in the MS. diary of the Bishop of Clogher :
1871. jfune 25, Sunday. — Met Fr. Burke at Ramsgrange, co.
Wexford. Sermon a masterpiece. I was celebrant at a Pontifical
High Mass, the Bishop of Ferns assisting on the throne. The crowd
immense. Dinner in the evening ; some short speeches and songs,
and coundess jokes from Fr. Burke, until at 11 p.m. he went off with
Sir James Power a drive of twenty-six miles to Edermine.
August 15. — He preached at the laying of the foundation stone
of St. Michael's, EnniskiUen. Many Protestants present I forget
in what r6le I assisted, whether as celebrant at the Mass or merely
as bishop of the diocese. CoUection about 1,000/. Fr. Tom chock-
full of fun all that day and following day. Three interruptions to
his sermon — two by people fainting away, and a third by a noisy
intruder who had to be removed.
August 16. — Profession of two nuns in the Convent of Mercy,
EnniskiUen. Ft Tom preached later on that day. There was an

GENERAL CHAPTER HELD. 357
excursion organised and started down Lough Erne in a small
steamet The excursionists formed a large party, of which Ft Tom
was the sun and centre. All kinds of fun. One great incident of
the trip was the trial of a priest present on board who had rendered
himself somewhat disagreeable, on a charge of horse-stealing ! Fr.
Tom acted as Attorney-General in the prosecution, and displayed
great powers of eloquence in his address to the jury. A verdict was
given against the prisoner, and a severe sentence passed. '
All the officers quartered in EnniskiUen attended the
sermon. Major Esmonde White, the only Catholic in the
regiment, was glad to observe the favourable impression pro
duced by the manner in which Fr. Burke discharged his
delicate task. After the solemn function of the day. Major
White met him at dinner. ' The evening was one roar of fun
from six till ten.'
A general chapter of the Dominican Order was held this
year at Ghent, and Thomas Burke, like Thomas Aquinas at
the chapter in Holborn, was deputed to attend it as ' defi-
nitor.' His duty, as ' L'Annee Dominicaine,' states, was ' to
revise the Constitutions.' This passage some persons read
as altering or amending the Constitutions. But it would
require three general chapters to change a Constitution,
and Fr. Burke's duty was to revise a new edition of that
invaluable book. The work of revision formed, however, but
a small part of his programme. Fr. Sablon says that the
chapter in its discussions resembled a parliament. He
describes Fr. Burke as working so hard that he had barely
time while it lasted to swallow his dinnet An occasional run
upon the ramparts, with a view of the quaint old city built
on twenty-six islands and united by three hundred bridges,
was pleasant and bracing.
' In the Chapter of 1871,' writes Ft Sablon, 'it was re
markable that of all the Fathers there assembled the merriest
were the two best preachers of our Order — Fn Burke, the
' MS. Diary of the Bishop of Clogher.

358 LIFE OF FATHER THOMAS BURKE.
Definitor from Ireland, and Ft Monsabr6, the Soeius to the
Definitor for France.'^
During this autumn we find Ft Burke preaching in
Dominick Street, Dublin,^ both morning and evening, a series
of farewell sermons previous to his departure for America.
The church (writes the late W. J. Battersby) was crowded to its
utmost capacity by a congregation who hung with sorrow and pride
on the last accents of the gifted preacher — sorrow that Ireland
should lose, even for a season, the services of one whose wondrous
and winning eloquence was familiar throughout the length and
breadth of the land, and pride in anticipation of the added lustre
which the display of his genius in another hemisphere would be
sure to reflect on the land of his birth.
There is a poor community of nuns in a southern suburb
of Dublin whom he had often visited to advise, to cheer, or to
console. The Rev. Mother has pointed out to us the granite
step on which Fr. Burke, in calling at this time to bid them
farewell, knelt down to ask the blessing of a Sister whom he
esteemed. She herself did not witness the incident, but the
Sister, who is still there, told her of it with wonder.
Before starting for America he repaired to Galway in
order to receive from his aged parents what might prove a
last embrace and blessing. Visiting Tuam, he became the
honoured guest of ' the lion of the fold of Judah.' We find
in an American journal, the Western Watchman, a speech
delivered by Ft Burke one year later in reply to the health
of Archbishop MacPIale. This toast was proposed at a dinner
given to Ft Burke by the Knights of St Patrick at St.
' Letter of Very Rev. P. Sablon, O.P., Definitor for England at Ghent, to the
Author, April 20, 1885.
'¦ On investigating the title of the ground on which the Dominican Church
now stands in Dominick Street, Dublin, it appears that the street derives its
name, not from the Dominicans, as many people assume, and has been publicly
alleged, but from Christopher Dominick, the grandfather of Emilia St. George,
who married, Nov. 4, 1775, Willi.am Duke of Leinster. She was a great heiress^
and inherited, with other weallh, the property of Christopher Dominick, whose
house and demesne adjoined the site of the present Dominican Church. The Duke
of Leinster still retains a residence in Dominick Street.

AN EPISCOPAL HARPIST. 359
Louis, Missouri. What he said we venture to press into the
mosaic of his life :
At this very time twelvemonth, just one week before I started
for America, I spent eight days in the company of that venerable
man, and every morning at six o'clock, rain or shine, there was the
aged Archbishop, his white hair falling like the untrodden snow
over his shoulders, observed in prayer at the foot of the Cross before
the altar of the Cathedral of Tuam. WeU do I remember having
preached in his presence, not without fear and trembling, and return
ing with him, clad in my Dominican habit, into his house, and the
old man sitting in the corner of his room, pulled out his Irish harp,
and flinging open his purple soutane, and shaking his aged head, he
drew his trembling fingers over the strings, and with his grey eye
uplifted in inspiration, and mild with tears, he applied his whole
heart to the accompaniment of that lyre ; and it seemed to me as if
I beheld Brian the Brave as he sat in his tent on the morning of
Clontarfi and invoked the God of battles by the sound of his Irish
harp. ' He never wore purple,' said Canon Ulick Burke to Ft
Tom some years aftet ' Well, if he didn't, he ought to have
worn it,' was the reply.

END OF THE FIRST VOLUME.

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