HOW MY AUNT PILCHER FOUND THE CATHOLIC CHURCH.
Perhaps you don't know my aunt, Patients Pilcher? Very likely not. i know her very well, and am going to tell you something about her. She is my mother's sister, and was born in the town of Squankum, Vermont, where she lived until she was over thirty years old—she says, twenty-five, but that don't matter—when she came to New York to see Uncle George. Well, Aunt Pilcher was mightily pleased and surprised when she saw New York; and as she knew every house, barn, and fence, and every lane and field in Squankum, and to whom they belonged, she thought she must find out as much about New York. She had no sooner taken off her bonnet and shawl when she got to our house—I say our, because I live with Uncle George since mother died—than she wanted to put them on again and go out "and see the places, and find out where people lived, and git introduced," as she said, adding that she would "hev to begin directly, or she would never git through."
My Aunt Pilcher is a very tall, thin woman, with a very cold face, as I found out on the first day she came to our house, when she bent over and kissed me. She thought I wiped off her kiss, and said "Oh, fie!" but it wasn't that, it was the cold. As I was saying, she wanted to see all of New York, and I believe she has, too, by this time; but she soon got disgusted with what she called "the offishness of the Yorkers." "You don't know anybody," said she, "and nobody 'pears to want to know you." She never tired, however, of seeing the many beautiful buildings in the city, and among them all the churches seem to her to be the most attractive and the most worthy of her close investigation.
"I'm gittin 'most ashamed of our wooden meetin'-house to Squankum," said she, one day, after returning from a visit to Trinity Church; "we used to be kinder proud of it, though, when some of the folks down to Rattlebog came over to spend Sabbath with us; 'cause ye know what a mis'able little country skule-house of a place they've got over there. Then, ye've got sich a lot o' churches, my! I'm 'most afeered never see them all, or I'll forgit abeout the first ones afore I git through."
"What sort of churches have you seen, aunty?" I asked.
"Oh! I've seen white-marbled ones and brown-stun ones, and a sort o' speckled mixed ones like Washin'ton cake, ye know, a streak o' jelly and a streak o' cake. Then agin, I've seen all kinds o' styles; Grecian, Beshantem, Gothys, high-steepled style, low-steepled style, and no-steepled style. But I haint seeing a green winder-shutter one like ours to Squankum yit. I s'pose the taste in architectur here in York don't run that 'a way."
But I was not thinking of the outside of the churches when I asked her the question, but of their inside. The truth was that Uncle George and I had been two or three times to see Mass and Vespers in the Catholic Church, and I was so full of all I had seen and heard there that I was nearly dying to talk with some one about it. But Uncle George had told me that he thought Aunt Jane—that is, Uncle George's sister who keeps house for him and me—might possibly disapprove of our going again if I happened to mention it, and so I took care to say nothing about it. I was very anxious to find out if Aunt Pilcher had seeing a Catholic Church, so I asked her if she happened to see any boys in the churches she had been to.
"Boys!" said she. "Why boys? Of course boys. Shouldn't boys go to meetin' as well as girls?"
"But boys dressed up," said I.
"Dressed up! Laws yes, in their best Sunday-go-to-meetin', as they ort to be."
"In long red coats, perhaps, down to their heels," I suggested, in spite of Uncle George's frown; "with nice white lace jackets over that again, and carrying torch-lights and censers, and going up and down and all around?" I added, eager to describe all I had seen.
"Why! what's come to the boy?" exclaimed Aunt Pilcher, raising up her hands in astonishment. "He ain't right," meaning in my head."'
"Oh! yes, he is!" said Uncle George, "that's the way the Catholics go on in their churches, and I suppose that Fred must have seen it somewhere."
"Catholics!" ejaculated Aunt Pilcher, in a tone of horror, and half looking over her shoulder as if some ghost of one might come in at the sound of the word. "Ye don't mean them papists and other Jesuits that call themselves Catholics! It's enough to make a body hate the name."
"That won't do, you know, sister Pilcher," said Uncle George, "because it is in the Apostles' Creed."
"I know it," returned Aunt Pilcher, "but I'd like to know what the Holy Catholic Church in the Apostles' Creed has got to do with them ignorant idolaters, the Catholics, the Roman papists, I mean?"
"It's the same name, that's all," said Uncle George, with a sly twinkle in his eye; "and they say it's the same thing."
"Which in course is nonsense!" ejaculated my aunt.
"Oh! of course it is," rejoined Uncle George. "We are the real and true Catholic Church, and if some one wanted to come to our true and real Holy Catholic Church we would just tell him to ask for the Catholic church and anybody would show him."
"Well, they ort to, that's all I got to say," said Aunt Pilcher doubtfully.
"Certainly," continued Uncle George, "and I've no doubt now, sister Pilcher, that if you were to go out and ask people in the street here to point you to a Catholic church that they would show you our Protestant churches directly."
Aunt Pilcher looked very hard at Uncle George, as if she feared he might be making game of her; but he looked so solemn and sedate that she didn't suspect, but I did, and I got a crick in the back of my neck trying to keep from laughing. She seemed to think that she was bantered by my uncle, and said:
"Well, I never sot eout to do a thing yit that I didn't do it, and I'm going to do that."
"Hurrah! Aunt Pilcher," I shouted, "I would too, if I were you." And that confirmed her in her engagement, [{669}] for the very next morning she put on her bonnet and shawl, and hung her reticule on her arm, without which she never went out of doors, and off she started. She was gone all day and did not return until tea-time, appearing completely fagged out and exhausted. She was not in the best of humors either, to judge of the way she pulled off her out-door additions to her ordinary dress, and bade me "carry them things up-stairs, for people dead a'most and starved can't always be expected to wait on theirselves." But not a word did she say about the object of her long day's journey. I was all curiosity to know where, she had been and what she had seen; and when we had nearly got through tea, that is, Uncle George, Aunt Jane, Aunt Pilcher, I, and Bub Thompson, who had come to play with me in the afternoon, and said he smelt short-cake, and wondered whether Aunt Jane could make it nice, and so got invited to try them—then I could stand it no longer, and said I, "See anything nice to-day, Aunt Pilcher?"
"I didn't particularly see anything, my dear, but I heered something I shan't forgit, I can tell you, if hearin' a thing a hundred and ninety-nine times over is enough to' make a body remember it."
"What did you hear, aunt?" asked everybody at once.
"Hear!" exclaimed she. "These Yorkers never knows anything if a body asks them a perlite question abeout who lives in any house, or which is the way to somewhere; but to-day I do think they was all possessed, for everybody 'peared to know only one church, when, dear knows, they ort to know their own churches, I should think, and not be a' directin' everybody everlastin'ly to St. Peter's."
"How was that, aunt?" asked every one again.
"Well," said she, "I told you what I was goin' eout for, and I went. Neow I always do things in order: commence at the beginnin', I say, and then ye'll know when ye git to the eend. So I went clean deown to the battery, and then I turns reound and comes up. Not wishin' to ask questions of people too fur off (for these Yorkers don't know where anythin' is ef it ain't right deown under their nose), I walked on till I got pretty near Trinity Church, belongin' to the Episcopals, and says I to a knowledgable lookin' man, says I, 'Couldn't ye pint me eout, neow, a Catholic church?' 'I can't precisely pint ye to it,' says he, which I thort was queer, with a Christian church right afore his eyes, 'but I can tell you where one is: in Barclay street, right up Broadway, ma'am, Saint Peter's church,' and off he went like a shot. These Yorkers air in sich a hurry, they won't stop to hear a body eout. Well, on I walks, and I saw another church, Saint Paul's in Broadway, similarly belongin' to the Episcopals; and this time I got straight in front of it. The folks 'peared to be in sich an orful hurry jist here that I thort somebody must be dead; or somebody's house had ketch't afire, and I couldn't git eout the first word afore the person I spoke to was a whole block off, and I got kind o' bewildered like. At last, I tried a lady—for I give the men folks up—and says I to her:
"'Is this a meetin'-house of the Holy Catholic Church, ma'am?'
"'No, ma'am,' says she rather short, 'ef you want to go there, you had better go deown Barclay street, next street above, St. Peter's on the left,' and off she went. Well; I goes deown Barclay street, jist to see this St. Peter's, and do you believe, I found eout it was one of them papist churches.'
"That was rather strange," interrupted Uncle George.
"I thort it was a leetle so myself," said Aunt Pilcher, "and I began to conceit people took me for a papist or a Jesuit, so I made up my mind to say so to once; and on I walks agin till I come to Broome street, deown which I went till I found a nice look-in' church, and says I to a minister-lookin' gentleman, says I:
"'I'm not a Jesuit, sir.'
"'Glad to hear it, ma'am,' says he, 'there are concealed Jesuits all over.'
"'I'm a Protestant,' says I, 'pre-haps you can show me a meetin'-house that believes in the Holy Catholic Church; is that one there?'
"I am grieved,' says he, 'that anybody should wish to know anythin' abeout the Catholic Church, and I hope you have no intention of goin' to sich a place of abomination.'
"He didn't 'pear to know my mean-in', so says I, 'I mean the real Catholic Church.'
"'Ma'am,' says he, 'real or unreal, it is always the same thing; always was and always will be. That is a Baptist church, ma'am, before you, and not a Catholic mass house. There is one of them, called St. Peter's, in Barclay street, I believe,' and off he walked without sayin' another word. 'Patience,' says I to myself, 'be true to your name,' for, to tell the truth, I was gettin' a leetle bit flustrated. I walks on, turnin' corners and reound and reound, and at last I got into a street called Bedford street. There I saw a meetin'-house with a sign over the door tellin' it was a Methodist. Says I to a man that was jist then sweepin reound the door—thinkin' to begin right this time—says 'I:
"'My Christian friend, the apostles believed in the Holy Catholic Church.'
'"Not a bit of it,' says he.
"'Oh! yes,' says I, 'they did; it is in the Apostles' Creed.'
"'Is it?' says he.
"'Yes, it is, and what's more, you ort to know it,' says I, gettin' bothered with sich ignorance.
"'None o' yer impudence,' says he.
"'Why, good lands!' says I, almost swearin', 'they believe in the Holy Catholic Church in this meetin'-house, don't they?'
"'No, they don't, and don't want to,' says he, and slammed the door in my face. Then I wanders reound and seen lots of churches, but I didn't see anybody, to speak to till I got ever so fur off in the Fifth avenue, where I saw a handsome brick church with a tall steeple, and there I saw some people goin' in. I asked what was goin' on, and they said it was a prayer—meetin". I should liked to have jined in a York prayer-meetin', but I wasn't in a fit state jist then—in sich a twitter as I was—so I ups and speaks to a young lady who looked like a Sabbath school teacher, and says I:
"'The real Catholic Church in the Apostles' Creed is where the gospil is preached.' She kinder opened her eyes at me, and says she:
"'The gospil is preached here, ma'am; but this is not a Catholic church; this is a Presbyterian church.'
"'But,' says I agin,' where the gospil is preached is the true Catholic Church.'
"'I guess not,' says she, 'the gospil is not preached in the Catholic Church.'
"'Well, ma'am,' says I, feelin' considerably riled, 'I guess I larnt my catechism, not afore you was born, but abeout the same time, I should say; and I'm jist lookin' for somebody else that knows it, and if anybody in York knows what and where the Holy Catholic Church is;' and do you believe she actually turned 'reound to another gal and said I was crazy, and had run away from a 'sylum. I went away disgusted and tried agin, one plase and another. I even tried the Washin'ton cake church in the Fourth avenue, but not a soul would own up to what they ort to believe. You wouldn't get papists sendin' you to their St. Peter's, I'll be bound, if you asked them for a Protestant church."
"Of course not," said Uncle George, "and what conclusion have you come to, sister Pilcher?"
"I've come to the conclusion," said Aunt Pilcher, "that these Yorkers don't know the Apostles' Creed."
"I should say," said Bub Thompson, "that those folks you 'saw didn't believe it."
"Boy!" exclaimed Aunt Pilcher, with an awful expression of countenance, "speak when you air spoken to."
"How is it when you're spoken about?" asked Bub; "'cause I'm a Catholic, a papist as you say, and you've been speaking about my church."
"My! I never!" ejaculated Aunt Pilcher, looking first at one and then at another for explanation.
"Sister Pilcher," said Uncle George, "the truth is, it is no use for us Protestants to call ourselves Catholics, for we are not. You see how everybody denied it. Of course you could never get a Protestant to own to the name of 'Catholic,' either here in New York or anywhere else, any more than you could persuade any one to give us the name; and it seems to me that where the name is, and always has been, the reality is likely to be. As for your experiment to-day, it is just what would have happened thirteen hundred years ago; for I read in a book that Bub Thompson's father lent me, that St. Augustine said, speaking about the sects that tried to call themselves 'Catholics' in his time: 'The very name of Catholic detains me in the Catholic Church, which that church has alone, and not without cause, obtained among so many heretics, in such a way as that while all heretics wish to be called Catholics, nevertheless not one of them will dare to point out his basilica or house to a stranger inquiring for a place of Catholic worship." [Footnote 187]
[Footnote 187: Epist. contra Manich. I. 5, 6.]
"Well! sakes alive! live and larn," exclaimed Aunt Pilcher, "but it's enough to make a body think they never knowed anythin' when they find oat some things!"