A royal son and mother

by freiherrin von Pauline Hügel

The Abbé Nagot soon founded an establishment for training youths for the priesthood; it was on so modest a scale and so humble in its beginnings it could hardly be called a seminary. Among its candidates for the priesthood, Stephen Badin was the first and Demetrius Gallitzin the second.

At first, of course, Gallitzin took up his abode in the quasi-seminary simply for convenience' sake—as a visitor,—for Brosius, his travelling companion, had been sent off to another mission; so he was alone. But he had hardly been Abbé Nagot's guest for two months ere he wrote a letter to Münster, in which he said that he had dedicated himself, soul and body, with all that he had and all that he was, to God's service and the salvation of his neighbor in America; and that what had led him to this resolve was the urgent need of workers in the Lord's vineyard. He saw that priests in this country had often to ride for forty or fifty hours or more to administer the Sacraments to the faithful. He could scarcely fear that any one would doubt the sincerity of his vocation, considering the prospect of very hard work which it entailed.

This was indeed true. Mitri had well counted the cost; for was he not living in the heart of the painful but glorious self-immolation which characterized those first Catholic missionaries? There was nothing feverish or spasmodic in his resolve: the sacred fire had been quietly kindled in his heart; little was said by him at any time, only much was done.

The young man was to receive no outward encouragement. The letter to which I have just referred was written to his confessor in Münster,—a good man, a Franciscan friar, but a man of the eighteenth century. He seems to have been too much alarmed to reply. Only after a second letter from Mitri had made it clear that his advice was no longer needed, and that the decisive step had already been taken, did he pluck up courage to write. In a long-winded Latin epistle, full of platitudes, he, a son of St. Francis, dared not positively say, "Give up this high-flown nonsense and return to your family"; but he said that it was Mitri's duty to consult his father, and to do nothing till he had obtained his consent. Alas for the friar if his blessed founder had followed such advice!

Demetrius had, of course, written to him in confidence, with the express recommendation to say nothing even to his mother for the present; for he had made up his mind not to proceed in the matter till he had waited a reasonable time for a reasonable answer. The reply failed to come; and when at length the friar did write, it transpired that Demetrius' first letter had been handed to him by the Princess herself, who said she had received but a short, unsatisfactory letter from her son; and as the Father's seemed to be a longer letter, she asked him if he would read it and tell her what her son wished or was doing.

"As I had forgotten my spectacles," the worthy man writes, "Dr. Overberg, who was also present, offered to read the letter aloud, which he did from beginning to end. How I felt during the reading and how overcome the reader himself was you can not well imagine. What deep sorrow filled my heart as I saw your mother look so sad and anxious! Herr von Fürstenberg was absolutely silent. Oh, how I sighed when I noticed that I had been the innocent cause of so much sorrow!"

The poor young student, so far from receiving encouragement, was disturbed by long letters from all sides, seeking to change his purpose. Even good men could not appreciate the heights of such a vocation as this. Such a new experience in the even tenor of the dear old Münster existence puzzled the saintly Overberg himself,—who, however, soon came to Gamaliel's conclusion—"If it be of men it will come to naught; if it be of God no one can resist it,"—and contented himself with merely exhorting his young friend to prove his own heart earnestly, and not to be in too great a hurry to take any irrevocable step.

The excellent Von Fürstenberg winced at the scandal of the Cross,—at the trials and humiliations of an unknown missionary in a strange land. If Mitri really wished to be a priest, he wrote, why not return to Europe, where such a vocation could at least be carried out in a manner suitable to his rank and position? It can, therefore, be no matter of surprise that Mitri's Protestant relatives should be furious. His uncle, a Russian general, wrote that he considered certain enthusiasts must be to blame for making his nephew forget his rank and family, as well as all sense of fitness and propriety, to embrace "a state of shame and disgrace."

In the meantime, as Gallitzin's German biographer writes, "his mother, though she was the hardest hit and had to bear the brunt of the storm, behaved much the most sensibly. She wrote immediately to the Abbé Nagot, the Bishop of Baltimore, and Herr Brosius. And when, through their answers and the letters of her son, she felt assured that it was a true vocation, she was unconcerned as to the worldly consequences of so unusual a proceeding, and exulted in the happiness of being the mother of a young man so superior to the colorless, commonplace personalities of these times as to have been capable of choosing such a state of life."

Prince Gallitzin (or Herr Schmet, as he was called) was all the while quietly pursuing his studies at Georgetown, to which place the little seminary had been removed from Baltimore. Humility had doubtless much to do with the ugly alias to which Gallitzin persistently clung; but in the first instance it had been motived by a little human prudence. A prince is often fleeced; and Mitri's father had wisely suggested that the American tour could be made equally pleasant at half the expense if the young man travelled as plain Herr Schmet.