Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1903-07-23
BENEDICTINES AT HOME
ARRIVAL IN ENGLAND OF MONKS
EXPELLED FROM FRANCE.
Earlier Expulsion From Britain Re
called-Striking Incidents in the
History Of the Order.

London Correspondence New York Evening Post.
A strangely significant little ceremony
took place last week at Charing Cross sta
| ton, where a deputation of English Roman
Catholics welcomed back to their own coun-
try the English Benedctines. expelled from
DCuai. THE wheel Is come full circle In
decd when France banishes and England
welcomes the brethren of St Benedict. and
three hundred years and more of perilous
and intricate history were summed up in
that meeting on the platform of Charing
Cross. Nor was the place as unapt set
ting for such scene as might appear to
casual glance. though railway station is
not as a 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 little farther. IL one follows the
curve of the street past the entrance TO 81
James Park. where the Horse Guards Keep
watch like statues of scarlet and steel, the
spire and buttresses of Westminster lift
mist-gray by a steel-gray river. or all that
Is suggested by the great Benedictfne abbey
1t Is impossible to speak in passing. Tor Il
Is in truth no less than all English history.
from the days of Edward 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 re-
moved his court from Westminster with its
traditional sanctites he symbolized the
breaking away of the nation from the DOM
nance Of the church. Wolsey's York House.
claimed from its magnificent owners, be-
came royal Whitehall and witnessed
strange vicissitudes of warning faiths Dark
days for the old faith were those times OF
leveling the ancient structure and laying
the new foundations.
Hammer Of the Monks.
Thomas Cromwell Hammer of the Monks.
made broad space for the English to be
with his devastating reforms. until the
hour came for him to follow the mar
tyred' abbots of Colchester. Glastonbury
and Reading. and expiate on Tower Hill
the crime of having served his king and his
age too nightly. The monks of st. Bene-
dict must have suffered more bitterly than
others In the day of the great unbuilding.
when cloister and church. the treasures of
the sacristy and the scriptorium, were
swept away together. "A Dominican or
Franciscan or Jesuit" writes Catholic
chronicler 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
Benedictine monastery" From such
homes the black monks were driven by the
hammer stroke of Cromwell's remorseless
reforms: from such a home" the monks
come today. English exiles in England
Mary Tudor, that queen of unfulfilled hopes
and frustrated efforts. brought back the
BenedictineS to Westminster with a brief
and pathetic pomp Of restitution. 1t was
one of those same BenedictneS John Feck-
nam. the last abbot of Westminster. who
1nterceded for the hapless ''nine-days
queen" Lady Jane Grey. and for the Lady
Elizabeth" who later was to prove no
friend to him and his order.
The Seminary at Douai.
1t was in the reign Of Elizabeth when
the monks were scattered in final exile
that William Allen founded the English
Seminary at Douai, that learned and de-
vout priests should not be lacking when the
Catholics were recalled to their own in
England. Little he guessed how long the
exile should last, who expected the invin-
chile armada of Spain to conquer the here
tic queen and bring the true faith back in
triumph. The religious and political antag-
onisms were tragtcally interviewer in that
period of striving and plotting and since
the banished Catholics intrigued with Philip
of Spain and Mary of Scotland against
their native sovereign it was small wonder
that the edicts of Elizabeth against the
Catholics were edged with mortal penal
ties. So the struggle went on with plot
and counterpart with worldly ambition and
religious zeal. and the hopes of the English
mazda was driftwood. Douai remained a
holy city of guidance and inspiration to
them. a witness to the true religion which
England had rejected. and 1t sealed its mis-
sion when 1t gave to the world the famous
Douai Bible, which is even now the ac-
cepted Catholic version