Worcester daily spy. [volume] (Worcester [Mass.]) 1850-1888, 1854-03-23
GBe 4aiIgy SPY.
THURSDAY, MARCH 30, 1854.
A Modern Saint.

Saint Peter of Aleantara, as / have read in
life of st. Theresa, informed that devout
lady that he had passed forty years of his life
sleeping only an hour and half each day.
His cell was but four feet and a half long, so
that he never lay down; his pillow was a
wooden log in the stone wall he ate but once
in three days; he was for three years in con-
vent of his order without knowing any one of
his brethren except by the sound Of their
voices, for he never during this period took
his eyes off the ground he always walked
barefooted, and was butts and bone when he
died. The eating only once in three days, so
he told his sister Saint, was by no means i'm
possible, if you began the regimen in your
youth. To conquer sleep was the hardest of
all austerities which he practised fancy the
pious individual so employed, day after day,
night after night, on his knees, or standing up
in devout meditation in the cupboard, his
dwelling place; bareheaded and barefooted,
walking over rocks, briars, mud, sharp stones
(picking out the very worst places, let us
trust, with his downcast eyes, under the Bit
ter snow, or the drifting rain, or the scorching
sunshine. | fancy Saint Peter OF Alcantara,
and contrast him with such persononge as
the incumbent of Lady Whittlesea's chapel,
May Fair.
His hermitage is situated in Walpole street
let us say, on the second floor of quiet man
sion, let out to hermits by nobleman's but
. Ter, whose wife takes care Of the lodgings.
His cells consist Of refectory, a dornitory,
and an adjacent oratory where he keeps his
shower bath and boots-the pretty boots trim
ly stretched on boot trees and BACKED to
nicely (not vanished by the boy who waits
on him. The barefooted business may suit
superstitious ages and gentlemen of Alcanta-
ra, but does not become May Fair and the
nineteenth century. If st. Pedro walked the
earth now with his eyes to the ground he
would know fashionable divines by the way
in which they were shod. Charles Honey
mans is a sweet foot. l have no doubt as
delicate and plump and rosy as the white hand
with two rings, which he passes in impassion-
ed moments through his slender haxen hair.
A sweet odor pervades his sleeping apart
ment-not that peculiar and delicious fra
GRANGE with which the Saints of the Roman
Church are said to crafty the neighborhood
where they repose-but oils, redolent of the
richest perfumes of Macassar, essences from
Trueitt's or Delacroix 81 into which a thou
sand flowers have expressed their sweetest
breath, await his meek head on rising; and
infuse the pocket handkerchief with which he
dries and draws so many tears. For he cries
a good deal in his sermons, to which the la
dies about him contribute showers Of sympa-
thy.
Bv his bedside are sinners lined with blue
silk and worked of an ecclesiastical pattern.
by some of the faithful who sit at his feet
They come to him in ANONYMOUS parcels =
thew come to him in silver naper: boys in but
toms. fnooes who minister 10 female GRACE \
leave them Mt the door of the Rev. C. Honey
man and slim awav without a word. PURSES
are sent to hin. wipers, portfolios with the
Honevman arms, yea, braces have been known
TO reach him bv the most lin his davs of popu-
larity) and flowers, and grapes. and ielly when
he was i'll, and throat comforters and lozenges
for his dear bronchitis. In ono Of his draw
ers is the rich silk cassock presented to him
| by his CONGREGATION at Leathershead when
the Young curate Quilted the parish for Lon
| don duty5 and on his breakfast table the silver
teapot, once filed with soverigns and pre-
scented by the same deyotees. The teapot he
has, but the sovereigns, where are they
What different life this is from our honest