"In trials and crosses we are like a sick child, when its mother wants it to take some disagreeable medicine. The child kicks and screams and sprawls, and spits the medicine in its mother's face. That is just what we do when God sends us crosses and trials. But, like the mother, who will persevere in giving the medicine until the child has taken enough of it, God will send us crosses and trials until we have sufficient of them for the health of our souls."
CHAPTER XX.
Foreshadowings And Death.
Father Ignatius, for some months before his death, had a kind of sensation that his dissolution was near. He paid many last visits to his old friends, and, in arranging by letter for the greater number of flying visits, he used generally to say, "I suppose I shall not be able to pay many more." Writing to Mrs. Hutchinson in Edinburgh from St. Anne's Retreat, Button, in March, 1864, he says: "When I wrote to you some months ago in answer to your kind letter, I think I expressed a hope that I might again have the pleasure of conversation with you before the closing of our earthly pilgrimage. It was a distant and uncertain prospect then. Now it is become a near and likely one, and I write to express my satisfaction at it." He was heard to say by many that the volume of his journal he was writing would last him till the end of his life, and it is a curious circumstance that the last page of it is just half-written, and comes up to September 18, less than a fortnight before his death.
Our Father-General came from Rome to make the visitation of this province in May, 1864, and Father Ignatius acted as interpreter throughout the greater part of the visit. He was as young as ever in his plans for the conversion of England, sanctification of Ireland, and advancing all to perfection; and the approbation of the General to the main drift of his projects inflamed him with fresh ardour. A characteristic incident occurred during this visit. The Father-General was inspecting the books Father Ignatius was obliged to keep, as Rector of Sutton, and he found them rather irregular. The entries were neither clear nor orderly, and it was next to an impossibility to obtain any exact notion of the income and expenditure of the house. The General called the Rector to his room, in order to rebuke him for his carelessness. He began to lecture, and when he had said something rather warm looked at Father Ignatius, to see what effect it might produce, when, to his surprise, he found that he had nodded off asleep. He awoke up in an instant, and complimented the Father-General on his patience. Such was the indifference he had reached to by the many and cutting rebukes he had borne through life.
In August, 1864, Father Ignatius wrote a long letter to Father Ignatius Paoli, our Provincial, about his doings, and he seemed as fresh in them as if he had but just commenced his crusade. We shall give one extract from this letter:
"I could hardly have the spirit to keep up this work (the sanctification of Ireland) if it was not for aiming at a result so greatly for the glory of God, and working with a resolution to conquer. How exceedingly would it add to my spirit if I knew that our body was penetrated with the same thought, and we thus were supporting each other!"
So late as September 8 he had prepared a paper embodying his intentions, which he intended to submit to Roman authority. Ever himself to the last.
Before leaving the retreat for his "raid" as he called it, in Scotland, he called all the members of the community, one by one, to conference; he did the same with a convent of nuns, of which he had spiritual charge. He gave them all special advices, which are not forgotten, and his last sermon to his brethren, a day or two before he left, on the conversion of England through their own sanctification, was singularly impressive. It moved many to tears; and, those who heard him, say it was the most thrilling ever heard from him on the subject. In talking over some matter of future importance with his Vicar, before he left for Scotland, he suddenly stopped short, saying, "Others will see after this," or some such words. All those who spoke with him confidentially recall some dubious half-meaning expressions that seemed to come from an inward consciousness of his approaching end.
He was remarked to be very sombre and reflective in his last missions, but now and then his usual pleasant mood would show itself. The Rev. M. Conden, the priest at Cartsdyke, Greenock, in whose church he gave a little mission from September 14th to the 18th, writes as follows about his stay with him:—