The Baltimore County union. [volume] (Towsontown, Md.) 1865-1909, 1909-06-12
RoME. ITALY. june bth. leOe.

nllles ctCs my eyes WCEC 6uuoCuiJ dAtCctC0 W
a red bound brochure entitled.
"a LITTLE JOURNEY TO PURGAToRY,"
Personally Conducted by
FATHER VICTOR JOUET.
! thoughtit must be a joke book. maybe carl
caturist's concentrated edition of Ebert Hub
bard's "Little Journeys to the Homes of Great
Men," but no, it sincere, albeit friendly in
vitation to go to hell, and / went. Instead of
crossing the Styx in Charon's boat, crossed the
Tiber in a tram-car, and instead of passing
through gloomy cavern like portal, guarded by
Cerberus. 1 entered the internal regions via
modern church in the vicinity of the new city
court house. Doubtless am not the first who
has chosen a similar route to perdition.
Father Jouet is priest who has devoted his
life to the collection of objects bearing marks
and finger prints of alleged supernatural origin,
tending to show that purgatory is a definite
geographical spot in the universe. and that the
unhappy souls, who have been plunged therein
to expiate their sins, live literally In lake of
fire. These relics he has preserved in a museum
at No. IL Lungo Tevere Pratt. next door to the
church above mentioned. Visitors are shown
the church first as a sort of preparation for the
extraordinary sights which are to follow. 1t is
decorated with frescoes and paintings repre-
senting the torments of the lower regions, and
above the altar is realistic panorama illumined
by red lights showing a sea of flames in which
men and women are struggling.
Twelve years ago, beside the altar, an event
occurred which Father Jouet and many other
Romans regard as a miraculous endorsement of
the priests project to prove to the world the
material existence of purgatory. One night at
an hour when no one was in the churcha candle
fell from the altar setting afire some velvet cur
tains. The blaze crept along wooden railing
md OF xnlo wall
where the woodwork ended without doing
further damage.
Next morning when Father Jouet and his con-
freres discovered the accident they set about at
once to clear away the ashes aud have the place
repaired. "This section of the wall will have to
be replastered. See how curiously it has been
dscolored by the fire and smoke, !" remarked one
of the priests, and then suddenly raised his
hands in amazement toward the stain.
The flames had traced picture on the wall!
Not grotesque. phantasmagoric, shadowy smoke
effect, requiring an effort of the imagination to
discern, but human face and figure outlined as
clearly as if depicted by the painters brush an
old man clothed in a red robe wearing on his
head bishops mitre and standing waist deep in
flames.
"a soul in purgatory - cried Father Jcuet.
"And a bishop!" whispered the others.
That same morning Father Jouet visited the
| Vatican and communicated his strange discov-.
| cry to the Pope Now, as all the world knows,
| Leo XIII was strong on natural sciences and not
much of believer in latter day miracles, so he
turned the matter over to committee of emil
nent painters for cold, technical examination.
The artists readily admitted that 1t was real
| picture and lost no time in arriving at quite
simple explanation of the phenomenon. 1t was
aHor.
cardinal of the early church being burned at the
stake as martyr. 1t had been effaced by time,
or by a thin coat of plaster or whitewash, and
the sudden heat coming in contact with the wall
had brought out these old outlines and colors.
/ It was most extraordinary work of art, they
said, and were beginning to analyze its style for
| the purpose of assigning it to particular date
| and school when Father Jouet calmly set their
| wisdom at naught by proving that the wall was
only two years old, that he himself had superin-
| tended its construction, and that it had been
plastered with ordinary lime and mortar by
common workman who still lived in neighbor-
ing street and who recollected having been paid
40 day for the job.
"Astonishing !" exclaimed the learned artists
and gave it up.
Months passed and the fame of the miraculous
picture was noised abroad. Other artists came
to marvel and persons of devout faith to pray
one day an eminent church historian from the
Piedmont came to Rome and dropped in casually
to see the picture; Scarcely had his eyes rested
upon the features when he turned pale as death
and gasped in Father Jouet's ear:
my God, man, don't you know That face
Its Cardinal ~ And he mentioned the name of
great prelate who had been dead for more than
quarter of a century.
1 saw the mysterious picture with my own
eyes. 1t is an awe-inspiring visage, nightmare
of face. which haunts the imagination for
hours afterward. It is no accident or freak of
nature. 1t was executed by masters hand,
whether of man spirit. 1t shows design.
From the church Father Jouet conducted me
to the museum. The objects it contains are
difficult to describe. Imagine piece of linen,
a book or a wooden table upon which a red hot
human hand, hand of flesh and blood glowing
with heat and yet not withered or consumed,
has lain for fraction of a second, just long
enough to leave the scorched blackened i'm
print of the fingers and palm, but not long
enough to set the object ablaze. The museum
contains twenty or thirty articles bearing such
imprints, collected from all parts of Europe,
each with separate terrible history of its own.
Persons without faith in the supernatural are
of course disincliued, even after having seen
buccc bulUBes W Croulb Tic JucOTy tuub buCy HdNO
actually been touched by souls returning from
purgatory to earth. but no one who has seen the
collection and the documents accompanying it,
and who has afterward talked with Father Jouet,
can harbor the suspicion that the fiery finger
prints have been fraudulently fabricated with
the deliberate intention to deceive. That they
have been faxed" to use an American slang
expression. Whatever is the real origin of these
imprints Father Jouet believes them to be ex-
actly what he represents them to be.
The Reverend Mother Ang ella, nun at the
Ursuline Convent at Sommieres, of which the
Abbot Leonard was the chaplain, died about two
decades ago, at the age of So years. She was
venerated as saint by the whole community,
and no one thought it necessary to say masses
for her soul or pray for her deliverance from
purgatory. because it was taken for granted
that she went straight to heaven.
Shortly after Mother Angela's death young
girl from Clermont presented herself as novice
at the door of the convent. She was called Sister
Maria, was pious, intelligent and full of ZEAL
One day she said to the Abbot Leonard, her con-
fessor:
Father. am afraid to stay in my room alone
at night
'why, what's the matter, my child p asked
the aged priest.
For several nights have not been able to
sleep each night. just as the clock is striking
IL, a strange light enters my room and hovers
above the stool on which / am accustomed to
kneel before my little altar. 1t is like a candle
flame surrounded by mist or fog. / am sick
from fear"
The old chaplain patted the child on the head,
laughed good-naturedly at her story and told
her she must have been drea ming. But Sister
Maria, who continued to be visited by the mys-
FERROUS light, not getting any satisfaction from
the chaplain, finally demanded and obtained per-
mission to speak to the Mother Superior. The
latter also treated the matter lightly, but as she
had some writing to do that night and was anx-
ious to calm the girls fears she consented to sit
up and watch with her. Neither saw anything
that night, and the Mother Superior took advan-
tage of the negative experience to ridicule the
simplicity of Sister Maria and declare that she
was the victim of her own imagination, but the
child, certain as to what she had seen, insisted
that the Mother Superior return the next night,
and midnight found the two again seated
together in the cell, one trembling with expec-
tation, the other sceptical. Suddenly the young