It was in 1847 that Mr. Timon was removed from the Western field and consecrated first Bishop of Buffalo. When he had disposed all his affairs and made ready for his departure, his worldly goods consisted of a small trunk about half-full of scanty clothing. He had to borrow money enough to pay his way to New York. But meanwhile some friends, having heard of his poverty, replenished his wardrobe, and made up a purse of $400 for his immediate needs. He was consecrated in the cathedral of New York by Bishops Hughes, Walsh, and McCloskey, on the 17th of October, and reached Buffalo five days afterward. It was evening when he arrived. An immense crowd of people—it is said as many as 10,000—were in waiting for him at the railway station. There were bands of music, banners, and flambeaux, a four-horse carriage for the bishop, and a long torchlight procession to escort him home. It is reported—but the biographer gives the story with some reserve—that, after the cortége had gone some distance, the humble bishop was discovered, valise in hand, trudging afoot through the rain and mud, behind the coach in which he was supposed to be riding. In after-times he must have sadly compared the cordial greeting of his flock on this night with the trials, the insults, the persecutions, which he had to bear from some of the very same people during almost the whole of his episcopate. We shall not enlarge upon the history of these sad years. The scandals which arose from the factious and schismatical spirit of the trustees of the Church of St. Louis in Buffalo are too recent to have been forgotten by our readers. The troubles began while Bishop Timon was still a humble missionary in Missouri. They had been quelled by the firmness of Bishop Hughes, but they broke out again very soon after the creation of the new diocese, and Bishop Timon suffered from them to the end of his life. Having no cathedral and no house, he lodged when he first arrived with the pastor of St. Louis's, but he had been there only a few weeks when the trustees, in their mad jealousy of possible invasion of their imaginary rights, requested him to find a home somewhere else. This brutal behavior was the beginning of a long warfare. Those who may care about studying it will find the necessary documents in Mr. Deuther's book. Let us rather devote the short space remaining at our disposal to a description of some of the charming traits of character of the holy man who crowned a life of incessant labor with an old age of suffering. From the moment of his elevation to the episcopal dignity, the sacred simplicity of his disposition seems to have daily increased. If the anecdote of his behavior at the torchlight reception is not true, it is at any rate consistent with his character. Bishop Hughes declared that the Bishop of Buffalo was the humblest man he had ever known. Though he was very neat and precise in everything relating to the service of the sanctuary, rags of any kind seemed to him "good enough for the old bishop," and it was only by stealth, so to speak, that his friends could keep his wardrobe tolerably well supplied. In his visits to the seminary it was his delight to talk familiarly with the young men. At the orphan asylum the children used to ride on his back. Visiting strange churches, he would kneel in the confessional like any other penitent. In his private and official intercourse with his clergy, it was not unusual for him to beg pardon with the utmost humility for fancied acts of injustice. On one occasion he had slightly rebuked a priest for some irregularity. Satisfied afterward that the rebuke had not been deserved, he invited the priest to dinner, placed him at the head of the table, treated him with marked distinction, and afterward, taking him to his own room, in the presence of another bishop, threw himself upon his knees and begged to be forgiven. In the course of a visitation to a disturbed parish, a member of the congregation he was addressing publicly spat in the bishop's face. He took no notice of the occurrence, but went on with his remarks. "Never shall I forget," wrote the late distinguished Jesuit, Father Smarius, "the days of the missions for the laity and of the retreats for the clergy which I had the pleasure to conduct in the cathedral of Buffalo during the three or four years previous to his holy demise. The first to rise in the morning and to ring the bell for meditation and for prayer, he would totter from door to door along the corridors of the episcopal residence, with a lighted candle in his hand, to see whether all had responded to the call of the bell and betaken themselves to the spot marked out for the performance of that sacred and wholesome duty.... And then, that more than fatherly heart, that forgiving kindness to repentant sinners, even such as had again and again deservedly incurred his displeasure and the penalties of ecclesiastical censures or excommunications. 'Father,' he would say, 'I leave this case in your hands. I give you all power, only save his soul.' And then, that simple, child-like humility, which seemed wounded by even the performance of acts which the excellence and dignity of the episcopacy naturally force from its subjects and inferiors. How often have I seen him fall on his aged knees, face to face with one or other of my clerical brethren, who had fallen on theirs to receive his saintly blessing!" He took great pains to cultivate the virtue of humility in his clergy. A proud priest he had little hope for. To those who complained of the hardships of the mission, he would answer, "Why did you become a priest? It was to suffer, to be persecuted, according to the example laid down by our Lord Jesus Christ." In the strictness with which he tried to watch over the spiritual welfare of his clergy, and changed their positions when he thought the good of their souls required it, his rule was like that of the superior of a monastery rather than the head of a diocese. He was filled to a remarkable decree with the spirit of prayer. He began no labor, decided no question, without long and fervent supplication for the divine assistance. On occasions of festivity or ceremony, he loved to steal away to the quiet of the sanctuary, and under the shadow of a column in the cathedral to pass long hours in meditation. In travelling he was often seen kneeling in his seat in the cars. His household was always ordered like a religious community. The day began and ended with prayer and meditation in common. The bishop rose at five, and in the evening retired early to his room—not to sleep, but to pass most of the night in devotion, study, and writing. Up to the very close of his life he used to set out in the depth of winter to visit distant parishes unannounced, starting from the house before any one else was awake, and trudging painfully through the snow with his bag in his hand. Religious communities, when they assembled for morning devotions, were often surprised to find the bishop on his knees waiting for them. By these sudden visits he was sometimes enabled to correct irregularities, which he never suffered to pass unrebuked; but he used to say that in dealing with others he would rather be too lax than too severe, as he hoped to be judged mercifully by Almighty God.
Mr. Deuther, in attempting to show that the bishop had to conquer a naturally quick temper, has created an impression, we fear, that this saintly man was irascible if not violent in his disposition. It is most earnestly to be hoped that no one will conceive such an utterly wrong idea. Mr. Deuther himself corrects his own unguarded language, and it is only necessary to read the book carefully to see that he does not mean what at first glance he seems not to say, but to imply. Nobody who knew Bishop Timon will hesitate to call him one of the kindest and most amiable of men; whatever faults he may have had, nobody will think of mentioning a hot temper as one of them. The sweetness of his disposition was in correspondence with the tenderness of his heart. The patience with which he bore the sorrows of his episcopate was equalled by the keenness with which he felt them. Toward the close of his life several anonymous communications, accusing him of cruelty, avarice, injustice, and many other faults—of cruelty, this man whose heart was as soft as a woman's—of avarice, this charitable soul, who gave away everything he had, and left himself at times not even a change of linen—of injustice, this bishop who pardoned every one but himself—were sent him in the form of printed circulars. So deeply was he wounded that his biographer is assured that the incident hastened his death; he never was the same man afterward. At the end of the next diocesan synod he knelt before his priests, and, in a voice broken by tears, asked pardon of every one present whom he might have in any manner treated unjustly. He died on the 16th of April, 1867, after a rapid but gradual decay whose termination he himself was the first to foresee, and his last hours were as beautiful and inspiring as his years of holy labor.
GUALBERTO'S VICTORY.
A mountain-pass, so narrow that a man
Riding that way to Florence, stooping, can
Touch with his hand the rocks on either side,
And pluck the flowers that in the crannies hide—
Here, on Good Friday, centuries ago,
Mounted and armed, John Gualbert met his foe,
Mounted and armed as well, but riding down
To the fair city from the woodland brown,
This way and that swinging his jewell'd whip,
A gay old love-song on his careless lip.
An accidental meeting—yet the sun
Burned on their brows as if it had been one
Of deep design, so deadly was the look
Of mutual hate their olive faces took,
As (knightly courtesy forgot in wrath)
Neither would yield his enemy the path.
"Back!" cried Gaulberto. "Never!" yelled his foe.
And on the instant, sword in hand, they throw
Them from their saddles, nothing loth,
And fall to fighting with a smothered oath.
A pair of shapely, stalwart cavaliers,
Well-matched in stature, weapons, weight, and years,
Theirs was a long, fierce struggle on the grass,
Thrusting and parrying up and down the pass,
Swaying from left to right, till blood-drops oozed
Upon the rocks, and head and hands were bruised;
But at its close, when Gualbert stopped to rest,
His heel was planted on his foeman's breast;
And, looking up, the fallen courtier sees,
As in a dream, gray rocks and waving trees
Before his glazing eyes begin to float,
While Gualbert's sabre glitters at his throat.
"Now die, base wretch!" the victor fiercely cries,
His heart of hate outflashing from his eyes.
"Never again, by the all-righteous Lord,
Shalt thou with life escape this trusty sword!
Revenge is sweet!" And upward flash'd the steel,
But e'er it fell—dear Lord! a silvery peal
Of voices, chanting in the town below,
Rose, like a fountain's spray, from spires of snow,
And chimed, and chimed, to die in echoes slow.
In the sweet silence following the sound,
Gualberto and the man upon the ground
Glared at each other with bewildered eyes.
And then the latter, struggling to rise,
Made one last effort, while his face grew dark
With pleading agony: "Gualberto! hark!
The chant—the hour—you know the olden fashion—
The monks below intone Our Lord's dear Passion.
Oh! by this cross"—and here he caught the hilt
Of Gualbert's sword—"and by the blood once spilt
Upon it for us both long years ago,
Forgive—forget—and spare your fallen foe!"
The face that bent above grew white and set,
The lips were drawn, the brow bedew'd with sweat,
But on the grass the harmless sword was flung,
And, stooping down, the generous hero wrung
The outstretched hand. Then, lest he lose control
Of the but half-tamed passions of his soul,
Fled up the pathway, tearing casque and coat,
To ease the throbbing tempest at his throat—
Fled up the crags, as if a fiend pursued,
Nor paused until he reached the chapel rude.
There, in the cool, dim stillness, on his knees,
Trembling, he flings himself, and, startled, sees
Set in the rock a crucifix antique,
From which the wounded Christ bends down to speak:
"Thou hast done well, Gualberto. For my sake
Thou didst forgive thine enemy; now take
My gracious pardon for thy years of sin,
And from this day a better life begin."
White flash'd the angels' wings above his head,
Rare subtile perfumes thro' the place were shed;
And golden harps and sweetest voices pour'd
Their glorious hosannas to the Lord,
Who, in that hour and in that chapel quaint,
Changed, by his power, by his sweet love's constraint,
Gualbert the sinner into John the saint.