The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1903-07-30
BENEpICTINEs AT HOME.
Arrival in England of Monks Ex-
PEELED from France.


A strangely significant little ceremony
took place last week at Charing Cross
station, where a deDutation of English
Roman Catholics welcomed back to
their own country the English Benedic-
tines, expelled from DOual. THE wheel
is come tun circle indeed when France
banishes and England welcomes the
brethren of St. Benedict, and 300 years
and more of perilous and intricate his
tory were summed I'D in that meeting
on the platform of Charing Cross. Nor
was the place as unapt a setting for
such scene as might appear to a cas-
ual glance. though railway station is
not as rule instinct with the romance
of history.
For almost within a stones throw
stands all that yet remains to us of old
Whitehall and but a little farther if
one follows the curve of the street past
the entrance to St. James park, where
the horse guards keep watch like
statues of scarlet and steel. the spire
and buttresses of Westminster lift mist
gray by steel-gray river. OF all that
is suggested by the great Benedictine
abbey it is impossible to speak in pass
ing, for it is in truth no less than all
English history. from the days of Ed
ward the Confessor to our own. But
Whitehall has its own links with the
order of ST. Benedict. 1t has been
truly observed that when Henry VIII
removed his court from Westminster
with its traditional sanctities he SYM
bolized the breaking away of the ma
ton from the dominance of the church.
Wolsey's York house. claimed from it's
magnificent owners, became royal
Whitehall and witnessed strange viciS-
STUDIES of warning faiths. Dark days
for the old faith were those times of
leveling the ancient structure and lay
ing the new foundations.
Thomas Cromwell Hammer of the
Monks, made broad space for the Eng
lish to be with his devastating reforms,
I a Er.~ l. ell
the 'martyred" abbots of Colchester,
Glastonbury and Reading, and expiate
on Tower Hill the crime of having serv-
ed his king and his age too nightly
The monks of St. Benedict must have
suffered more bitterly than others in the
day of the great unbuilding, when elois-
ter and church. the treasures of the
sacr1sty and the scriptorium, were swept
away together. "A Dominican or Fran
ciScan or Jesuit" writes Catholic
chronicier of the Benedictines, has no
home in any one house of his order more
than another. He is here today and
gone tomorrow. But home is the very
idea of a Benedictine monastery" From
such homes the black monks were driv-
en- by the hammer stroke of CromwelYs
remorseless reforms; from such a
| home" the monks come today, Eng
fish exiles in England. Mary Tudor,
that queen of unfulhlled hopes and frus-
| trated efforts, brought back the Bene-
dictines to Westminster, with a brief
and pathetic pomp of restitution 1t
was one of those same Benedictines,
John Fecknam, the last abbot of West
minister, who interceded for the hapless
'nine-days queen" Lady Jane Grey, and
for the Lady Eliza BETH" who later was
| to prove no friend to him and his or
der.
It was in the reign of Elizabeth when
the monks were scattered in a final ex-
| lie, that William Allen founded the
| English seminary at Douai, that learn
ed and devout priests should not be
lacking when the Catholics We're re-
called to their own in England. Little
he guessed how long the exile should
| last, who expected the invincible ar
mazda of Spain to conquer the hereto
queen and bring the true faith back in
triumph The religious and political
anita gOnislnS were tragically interviewer
in that period of striving and plotting.
! trigued with Philip of Spain and Mary
ereign, it was small wonder that the
edicts of Elizabeth against the Cath
olics were edged with mortal penalties
So the struggle went on with plot and
counterpart, with worldly ambition and
religious zeal. and the hopes of the
English Catholics did not falter even
when the armada was driftwood. Doua1
remained a holy city of guidance and
inspiration to them. a witness to the
true religion which England had re-
jected. and it sealed it's mission when
1t gave to the world the famous Douai
Bible. which is even now the accept
1 ed Catholic version.-LOndon CORE
spondence New York Post.