His noviciate glides quietly on to its end; and except his ordinary work of attending to a mission in Stone besides his home duties, nothing occurs to break the monotony.
At length, on the 6th of January, 1848, Father Ignatius and Father Dominic remain up after matins. We are told in the Journal, that the novice made his confession and had a long conference with his director, in preparation for the great event of his profession. Father Dominic was going off that day, but the conveyance disappointed him, he was obliged to wait till the next. That evening Father Ignatius is once more in the midst of a moving ceremony: on his knees, with his hands placed in Father Dominic's he pronounces his irrevocable consecration by the vows of his religious profession.[Footnote 10] The badges are affixed to his breast, the sacrifice is completed—and well and worthily was it carried out. It is easier to imagine than to describe the joy of the two holy friends, so long united in the bonds of heavenly charity, as they spoke that day about their first acquaintance, and wondered at the dispositions of Providence, which now made them more than brothers.
[Footnote 10: The profession on death-bed is conditional, so that if a novice recovers, after thus pronouncing his vows, he has to go on as if they had not been made.]
CHAPTER II.
His First Year As A Passionist.
Shortly after his profession, Father Ignatius was sent out on missions. The first mission he gave, with Father Gaudentius, was to his old parishioners of West Bromwich. Crowds came to hear him; some to have another affectionate look, and hear once more the well-known voice of their old pastor; others from curiosity to see what he had been transformed into by the monks. This mission was very successful, for, besides the usual work of the reconciliation of sinners, and the helping on of the fervent, there were fifteen Protestants received into the Church before its close. He gives another mission somewhere in the Borough, London, with the same companion. During this mission he hears that his style of preaching is not liked much by the Irish; he feels a little sad at this, as he fears the work may fail of success through his deficiency.
The preaching of Father Ignatius was peculiar to himself; he cannot be said to possess the gifts of human eloquence in the highest degree, but there was a something like inspiration in his most commonplace discourse. He put the point of his sermon clearly before his audience, and he proved it most admirably. His acquaintance with the Scriptures was something marvellous; not only could he quote texts in support of doctrines, but he applied the facts of the sacred volume in such a happy way, with such a flood of new ideas, that one would imagine he lived in the midst of them, or had been told by the sacred writers what they were intended for. Besides this, he brought a fund of illustrations to carry conviction through and through the mind. His illustrations were taken from every phase of life, and every kind of employment; persons listening to him always found the practical gist of his discourse carried into their very homestead; nay, the objections they themselves were prepared to advance against it, were answered before they could have been thought out. To add to this, there was an earnestness in his manner that made you see his whole soul, as it were, bent upon your spiritual good. His holiness of life, which report published before him, and one look was enough to convince you of its being true, compelled you to set a value on what he said, far above the dicta of ordinary priests.
His style was formed on the Gospel. He loved the parables and the similes of Our Lord, and rightly judged that the style of his Divine Master was the most worthy of imitation. So far as the matter of his discourses were concerned, he was inimitable; his manner was peculiar to himself, deeply earnest and touching. He abstained from the rousing, thundering style, and his attempts that way to suit the taste and thus work upon the convictions of certain congregations, showed him that his fort did not lie there. The consequence was, that when the words of what he jocosely termed a "crack" preacher would die with the sound of his own voice, or the exclamations of the multitude, Father Ignatius's words lived with their lives, and helped them to bear trials that came thirty years after they had heard him.
Towards the end of his life, he became rather tiresome to those who knew not his spirit; but it was the tiresomeness of St. John the Evangelist. We are told that "the disciple whom Jesus loved" used to be carried in his old age before the people, and that his only sermon was "My little children, love one another." He preached no more, and no less, but kept perpetually repeating these few words. Father Ignatius, in like manner, was continually repeating "the conversion of England." No matter what the subject of his sermon was, he brought this in. He told us often that it became a second nature to him; that he could not quit thinking or speaking of it, even if he tried, and believed he could speak for ten days consecutively on the conversion of England, without having to repeat an idea.