The Cathedral of Boston is the last relic of Franklin Street as I delight to remember it. One by one, the theatre, the residence of the Catholic bishops, and the old mansions that bore such a Berkeley Square-y look of respectability have passed away; and the old church alone remains. Tall warehouses look down upon it, as if it were an intruder there, and the triumphal car of traffic makes its old walls tremble and disturbs the devotion of its worshippers. An irreverent punster ventured a few months since to suggest that, out of regard to its new associations, it ought to be rededicated under the invocation of St. Casimir, and to be enlarged by the addition of a chapel built in honor of St. Pantaleone.
Quid non mortalia pectora cogis,
Joci sacra fames!
But it is well that it should follow the buildings with which it held companionship through so many quiet years. The charm of the old street has been destroyed, and the sooner the last monument of its former state is removed the better it will be. The land on which it stands formerly belonged to the Boston Theatre corporation. It was transferred to its present proprietorship in the last week of the last century, and the first Catholic church in New England was erected upon it. That church (enlarged considerably by the late Bishop Fenwick) is the one which still stands, and towards which I feel a veneration similar in kind to that inspired by the cathedrals of the old world. Even now I remember with pleasure how I used to enjoy an occasional visit to that strange place in my boyhood. "Logic made easy" and "Geometry for Infant Schools" were things unknown in my young days. I was weaned from the Primer and Spelling-book with the Arabian Nights' Entertainments, and the works of Defoe, Goldsmith, Addison, and Shakespeare. Therefore the romantic instinct was not entirely crushed out of my youthful heart, and it would be difficult, dear reader, for you to conceive how much I found to feed it on, within those plain brick walls.
The lamp which used to burn constantly before the altar, until an anxiety for "improvement" removed it out of sight behind the pulpit, filled me with an indescribable awe. I was ignorant of its meaning, and for years was unaware that my childish reverence for its mild flicker was a blind homage to one of the profoundest mysteries of the Catholic faith. I remember to this day the satisfaction I took in the lighting of those tall candles, and what a halo of mysterious dignity surrounded even the surpliced boys grouped around that altar. That strange ceremonial surpassed my comprehension. The Latin, as I heard it sung there, was pronounced so differently from what I had been taught at school, that it was all Greek to me. Yet, when I saw the devotion of that congregation, and the pious zeal of the devoted clergymen who built that church, I could not call their worship "mummery," nor join in the irreverent laughter of my comrades at those ancient rites. There was something about them that seemed to fill up my ideal of worship—a soothing and consoling influence which I found nowhere else.
I never entertained the vulgar notion of a Catholic priest. Of course my education led me to regard the dogmas of the Roman Church with any thing but a friendly eye; but my ideas of the clergy of that Church were not influenced by popular prejudice. I was always willing to believe that Vincent de Paul, and Charles Borromeo, and Fénelon were what they were, in consequence of their religion, rather than in spite of it, as some people, who make pretensions to liberality, would fain persuade us. When I recall the self-denying lives of the two founders of the Catholic Church in Boston,—Matignon and Cheverus,—I wonder that the influence of their virtues has not extended even to the present day, to soften prejudice and do away with irreligious animosity. They were regarded with distrust, if not with hatred, when they first came among us to take charge of that humble flock; but their devotedness, joined with great acquirements and rare personal worth, overcame even the force of the great Protestant tradition of enmity towards their office. Protestant admiration kept pace with Catholic love and veneration in their regard, and when they built the church which is now so near the term of its existence, there were few wealthy Protestants in Boston who did not esteem it a privilege to aid them with liberal contributions. The first subscription paper for its erection was headed by the illustrious and venerable name of John Adams, the successor of Washington in the presidency of the United States.
The memory of the first Bishop of Boston, Dr. Cheverus, is (for most Bostonians of my age) the most precious association connected with the Cathedral. He was endeared to the people of this city by ten years of unselfish exertion in the duties of a missionary priest, before he was elevated to the dignity of the episcopate. His unwillingness to receive the proffered mitre was as characteristic of his modest and humble spirit, as the meekness with which he bore his faculties when the burden of that responsibility was forced upon him. His "episcopal palace," as he used facetiously to term his small and scantily-furnished dwelling, which was contiguous to the rear of the church, was the resort of all classes of the community. His simplicity of manner and ingenuous affability won all hearts. The needy and opulent, the learned and illiterate, the prosperous merchant and the Indians in the unknown wilds of Maine, found in him a father and a friend. Children used to run after him as he walked down Franklin Place, delighted to receive a smile and a kind word from one whose personal presence was like a benediction.
His face was the index of a pure heart and a great mind. It was impossible to look at him without recalling that fine stanza of the old poet.—
"A sweete attractive kind of grace,
A full assurance given by lookes,
Continuall comfort in a face,
The lineaments of Gospel bookes;—
I trow that countenance cannot lie
Whose thoughts are legible in the eye."
One of the ancient Hebrew prophets, in describing the glories of the millennial period, tells us that upon the bells of the horses shall be the words, Holiness unto the Lord—a prophecy which always reminded me of Cheverus; for that divine inscription seemed to have been written all over his benign countenance as with the luminous pen of the rapt evangelist in Patmos.
But Bishop Cheverus was not merely a good man—he was a great man. He did not court the society of the learned, for his line of duty lay among the poor; but, even in that humble sphere, his talents shone out brightly, and won the respect even of those who had the least sympathy with the Church to which his every energy was devoted. Boston valued him highly; but few of her citizens thought, as they saw him bound on some errand of mercy through her streets, that France envied them the possession of such a prelate, that the peerage of the old monarchy was thought to need his virtuous presence, and that the scarlet dignity of a Prince of the Church was in reserve for that meek and self-sacrificing servant of the poor. Had he been gifted with prophetic vision, his humility would have had much to suffer, and his life would have been made unhappy, by the thought of coming power and honour. He had given the best part of his life to Boston, and here he wished to die. He had buried his friend and fellow-labourer, Dr. Matignon, in the Church of St. Augustine at South Boston, and when he placed the mural tablet over the tomb of that venerable priest, he left a space for his own name, and expressed the hope that, as they had lived together harmoniously for so many years, they might not in death be separated. It was a strange sight to see more than two hundred Protestants remonstrating against the translation of a Catholic bishop from their city, and speaking of him in such terms as these: "We hold him to be a blessing and a treasure in our social community, which we cannot part with, and which, without injustice to any man, we may affirm, if withdrawn from us, can never be replaced." And when he distributed all that he possessed among his clergy, his personal friends and the poor, and left Boston as poor as he had entered it, with the single trunk that contained his clothes when he arrived, twenty-seven years before,—public admiration outran the power of language. Doctrinal differences were forgotten. Three hundred carriages and other vehicles escorted him several miles on the road to New York, where he was to embark.