The Irish standard., 1911-09-23
PEN PICTURE OF
NOTED PREACHER
Father Bernard Vaughn Known for
Extraordinary Elegance and
Charm of Manners.
Has Picturesque and Even Flamboy-
ant Style Which Produces I'm
mediate Effect.
His Phil1pp1cs on the Sins of Society
Have Raised him to World
Prominence.

Last week I tried to give por-
trait Of the most famous of the
Vaughn brothers; this week will try
to do something Of the same kind for
the best known member OF the family
who still survives. But cannot
write of him with the same intimate
knowledge as I did of his illustrious
brother. for his biography and his
diaries are not yet published and we
have to guess at the dim recess Of
his soul and read him only by what
we can sec, writes r.. P. O'Connor in
the Chicago Tribune.
first met Father Bernard Vaughn
at a small school town in Ramsgate,
where he was on a visit. I carried
away a strong impression from that
first glimpse Of the man. First, Father
Bernard has the striking beauty Of
face and figure which are character
istc of the whole family, a family OF
handsome statues in regularity of fea-
ture. and symmetry of figure. The
face has not the commanding power
of the cardinals. as it is OH a smaller
scale, but there is the same Norman
aquiline well-shaped nose, the same
distinction, the fine, well-chisclled
mouth, and the same impression OF
stalwart manhood. And before YOU
have been with him long time you
perceive also that Father Bernard has
the same really unquestioning and
even intolerant faith of the family.
With all English Catholics, there is
to an Irishman a certain sense of diff
ference between the faith as it is held
by them and by the Englishman; il l
may so express it. it seems less gen.
ia and less broad creed; 1t suggests
something of the aloofness and per-
haps even Intolerance that you asso-
ciatc with the English dissenter. 1t is
perhaps because the English Catholics,
like the dissenter, are outside the
dominant creed Of the English nation.
Possesses Charm Of Manner.
But more than all this, the impress
sion made upon me by Father Bernard
Vaughn was the extraordinary ele-
gance and charm of his manner. He
has a ready smile, certain hesitancy
in putting his ideas that make you
think of him rather as French aris-
tocrat Of the days before the French
revolution than Of a modern English
man, who does not as a rule strike
you at first by the sweetness of his
approach. You will like the English
gentleman of the right kind when you
know him, but you have first to know
him well, and that takes time.
Long after this. the name of Father
Bernard Vaughn began to figure in
the newspapers. In England, as in
other countries. the newspapers, when
they get after Il man, run him, to use
the common phrase. for all he is
worth; and for some years now there
has been scarcely week when you
| do not find Father Bernard Vaughn
mentioned in the English papers; he
| IS cnleIlN UlcHllOucu dS lIlC DOpuidl
preacher to fashionable congregations.
He breaches, as rule, in Farm Street
church, the chief church of the Jesuit
order in London. 1t is a church which
always has large congregation and
often a great proportion of the con-
! gregation is not Catholic. ] have seen
in my own time great change came
| over the attitude of the English and,
above all. the London people, to the
Catholics. When first l came to Lon
don it was faith which was consid'
e1ed not common: it was the faith
only for the poor Irish who fled to
England after the Irish famine and
who had to get their living with their
untutored minds and unframed hands
as hodmen, gasworkers and navvies--
in short, in the hardest worked and
poorest paid occupations. BY and by
the great Catholic revival in the An
glican church, of which Cardinal
Newman was the most powerful fig
ure, began to do it's work; high church
after high church began to be built
all over London, and after a prelimi-@
nary period of violent riotinC by the