The Irish standard., 1908-08-01
A PEN PICTURE
Rev. Father Bernard Vaughan
and His Methods.

Sees Disaster in Neglect Of
Children, Servants, Home.
My God! To think that my coun.
try should have come to this!"
Like pistol-shot the sentence rang
out upon the startled air, and l raised
my head to look at the preacher,
writes Raymond Balthwayt in Black
and White.
With dramatic arms wide.flung on
space, and his fine. clear-cut features
outlined against a richly-painted win
dow, through which the sun threw
shaft of gold across the misty church,
Father Vaughan constituted in him
self a splendid picture of mediaeval-
ism and modernity. Beneath him
swayed huge congregation, out of
which perpetually leaped some we'll
known far-famed face, and Pan-Angeli.
can bishops, smart women, popular
actors, pungent writer's, and Imperial
Consuls drew in simultaneous
breath as the preacher depicted for
them the horrors of modern married
life. That is one picture of Father
Vaughan: Last Sunday morning in
Mayfair.
Yet again recall him as once
heard him far away upon the high
seas. We were voyaging together in
a P. and o. steamship homeward
bound from India, and one Sunday
afternoon the Anglican chaplain on
board and two dissenting ministers
brought their congregations in body
to the saloon, pumped them at the
feet Of Father Vaughan, who, clad
simply in his cassock and gown, gave
US a most fascinating and absolutely
undenominational and uncompromis.
ing address upon the being of God.
The musical ripple of the sun-lit ocean
chimed in we'll with the ringing per-
iods of the eloquent voice, and the
scene photographs itself upon an un-
dying memory,
And one cold March day, when the
wind whistled through the dim alleys
of the East End, l caught glimpse
of Father Vaughan, one hand tightly
clutched by little street arab, the
other stretched out in eloquent invita-
ton, pressing upon an audience
drenched in poverty end misery, and
yet with faces agleam with the splen-
did fervour of their friend and priest,
the claims of Christ and His Virgin
mother upon their hearts and lives.
AS one asks oneself what is the
secret of his undaunted. power and in
fluence, Just as one asks oneself time
and again from whence is 1t, and how
is it, that the Jesuit priest gains his
knowledge of and his domination over
the hearts and minds of the vast body
polite in every part Of the world?
What is there in the Society of
Jesus. or what was there in the spirit
of it's founder, that has captured for
all time the mainsprings Of human
thought in so many widely divergent
issues and respects?
In some curiously subtle manner
the Jesuit priest the world over re-
veals himself as a man Of the world.
knowing his fellow man and especially
his fellow woman, more intimately
than even they know themselves. And
whence comes this knowledge, one
asks oneself? Is it from the confess
nal?-the confessional to which
slowly creeps the world-worn travel
er. the woman of fashion ever bent
upon the exploitation of new emotions,
the man of action. and the recluse of
the study; the confessional wherein
are poured out all the secrets of the
human heart; the sordid miseries Of
Mile End and the no less sordid
meannesses of Mayfair? Be that as
it may, and from whateve" source he
reaps his experience, the Jesuit priest
for keen insight into human nature,
for knowledge of all the multitudinous
avenues down which human thought
pours itself in endless streams. for
subtle comprehension of and sym.
pathy with the frailties Of human ma
ture, has not his equal on earth.
l think Father Vaughan, most Low.
able and humorous of men, partly solv-
ed the mystery for me. as I put the
question right out to him as we pass
ed rapidly through the gaily-cl sit
ters in the Park one warm day last
week.
"My dear fellow" he said. I'VE are
all human. The most interesting
book l ever read is myself, because
through it I get to know my brothers
and my sisters. Look at them now.
poor dears." as he raised his hat to
a very popular and beautiful woman