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"May 15th, 1900.-In March I prayed for special love for Jesus and Mary, and that I might do the Divine Will. By March 31st I was ill in bed and have been good for nothing ever since. It came to me when I was ill that the work I had promised to undertake two years ago remains where it was. I have therefore thrown over various undertakings and have promised to confine myself as much as possible to the Book for the Young Priest. As I seem to have been drawn away from that during two years, dear old St. Joseph has brought me back to it by sending me further illness. God grant that it may be well used."

In the following year, under date August 9th, 1901, he marks the close of another St. Edmund's Retreat by three rules:

"I. Continual ejaculatory prayers, and one and a half hour at night prayers.

"2. Humility and love-acts of as before, only with greater fervour.

"3. Greater generosity to generosity to God in everything generosity is the mot d'ordre for the rest of my life."

It will be noted that these extracts from the Cardinal's diaries contain no reference to anything in the nature of bodily austerity. Among all his papers I have found only one reference to the subject. Upon a single sheet of notepaper, bearing date July, 1888, are a number of resolutions concerning the spiritual life, and at the end comes this significant sentence: "To continue the discipline every Wednesday and Friday-even though I have not the courage to inflict severe punishment.”

This last sentence, in its mingled candour and simplicity, is surely very characteristic. Whether these

scourgings, which, at that time, were apparently habitual, were continued there is nothing to show one way or the other. In later life, for the greater mortification of his body, he devised a form of punishment which required another sort of courage. For years he wore on his left arm an iron bracelet with spikes on the inside which were pressed into the flesh. One which he had worn for some time had somehow got broken, and he commissioned Mgr. Dunn to make a new one, giving him a piece of the old one as a pattern. A day or two later the new bracelet was produced, but the points were mercifully blunt. The Cardinal handed it back with the words, "That is no use." He then gave more explicit instructions. It was to be made out of steel wire, piano wire, and the points were to be sharp. When it was made to his satisfaction, he told Mgr. Dunn to bring a pair of pliers and to fasten it on the arm so that it could never come off. When that was done, the Cardinal brought his right hand down heavily on the iron circlet and so drove it home. It was cut off his arm after death.

PORTION OF A CHAIN FOUND ON CARDINAL VAUGHAN AFTER HIS DEATH.

H

CHAPTER XIII

THE LAST DAYS

AD this book been a history of the diocese of Westminster as well as a biography of Cardinal Vaughan, there are many of his activities as Archbishop of which an account would here have to be given. The Catholic Truth Society, The Council of Temporal Administration, Converts Aid Society, The Catholic Social Union, The Catholic Evidence Lectures, The Ladies of Charity—each might claim a separate chapter as representing important events in the story of the diocese. They are of slighter consequence in a biography of the Cardinal. Even where the initiative was his, circumstances made sustained personal direction impossible. Speaking generally, it may be said that in its diocesan aspects the Cardinal's administration in Westminster was a continuation, and in some ways a development, of his work in Salford; but it was far less personal, because it could claim a much smaller share of his individual attention. During the last years of his life his grip on purely diocesan matters gradually loosened, and he had to trust more and

'The importance which he attached to the latter organisation is shown in the following extract from a letter to Lady Edmund Talbot: "I look upon the Association of the Ladies of Charity as destined to do the greatest work of the new departure in England, viz., the regular and systematic employment of the laity in the apostolic work of helping to train and retain the young who have left school in the love and practice of their religion."

more to others. There was one subject, however, in which his personal interest seemed only to deepen as his strength failed. The welfare of the children of his flock became his constant thought. His anxiety showed itself specially in his careful questionings as to how the work of catechising was done in this or that mission. He thought that throughout the country there was a sad want of system and method, and that the importance of early training for this apparently simple work was very imperfectly understood. This conviction grew with the years, and it was a subject of which he often spoke towards the end of his life. The following letter, addressed to his nephew, Father Herbert Vaughan, shows clearly the spirit in which the Cardinal approached the subject:

"MY DEAR HERBERT,-I now write to ask you to take up a definite work during the rest of the time you will be in Rome. As I told you in a former letter, I want you to help me in forming the young clergy, before they go upon the mission: (1) to sacerdotal perfection in prayer and in the work of the mission; (2) to apostolic zeal for the conversion of England. The special work, however, to which I want you to give attention is the art of catechising. As a rule the catechism is taught in the schools in a way to make the catechism book hated. It is taught by the teacher of secular lessons, and is viewed much as one of these by the children. After you left Oscott I arranged for one of the German Benedictines to teach the art of catechising to the divines.

That goes on, but more is required. With the new Education law and with the growth of all kinds of distraction and worldliness, both in the family and out of it, it becomes every day more and more important that priests should be good catechists.

It is the most important part of the ministry of the Word that they can exercise in England. I shall place the young priests and divines under you, and the thing that will be the greatest value to them will be their possessing the art of catechising. It will help them to teach the people as well as the children. This seems so elementary and simple a thing that a priest may be tempted to think that he can do all this by reading up a few books and talking common sense, but it is not so. I suppose the best authority on catechising is Dupanloup and the method of St. Sulpice. Some Sulpicians will be able to help you probably; but whatever attractions you may have for other things, give your whole attention for some months to this. Become deeply versed in it—make it your real subject. I cannot tell you what immense services you will be able to render if you do. I have for years wanted a priest to teach this-but could get nobody to do it properly. This month a course of lectures on catechism is going to be given to our Ladies of Charity, but the only priest I have got to give them says himself he is not well up in it. If I can make all the young priests good catechists they will begin to attach the children to their religion. As it is, their catechising is simply deplorable, and it is a work they dislike undertaking, and are only too glad to throw upon the schoolmaster or the schoolmistress. Here, then, is your mission and work for the next few months. Get to see the best samples in Rome if there are any, and work at Dupanloup and St. Sulpice. These may have to be modified to some extent to meet national character— but not much. Happy New Year. H. C. V."

The Cardinal's constant thought for the children of his flock found expression also at that time in the work he did

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