Placed at the beginning of modern times, on the threshold of the church’s momentary eclipse, and of the decadence of public morality all over Europe, she stands out in bold relief a champion of the church, which, in proud gratitude to her sex, has been her champion in return.
St. Teresa, whom all ages and creeds agree in accepting as an extraordinarily gifted woman, was another of the shining lights of Spain at this time. She too was a Castilian; her influence was no less widely spread than that of Isabella, and, if anything, it has lasted longer and more visibly. One of the greatest orders of the church acknowledges her as its reformation, and, for all practical purposes, even as its foundress. The Carmelite Friars speak of her as “our holy mother,” as the ancient Benedictines speak of Benedict as “our father.” The writings of St. Teresa are among the most important spiritual treasures of the church. Her health was for many years a grievous trial to her, and her temptations, as recounted by herself, seem to have been neither light nor few. In the reform so urgently needed among the lax followers of the Order of Carmel, she was systematically opposed by many influential persons and superiors of her own as well as of the opposite sex. After a sort of novitiate of twenty years of unceasing efforts to attune her soul to the practice of mental prayer, she began her agitation in favor of reform under disappointing circumstances, but, triumphing with time over many of her opponents, at last procured the assistance of powerful colleagues. Many of these were women. In 1562, she was established in a convent where the reform was first practised. Butler says, “The perfection and discretion of her rule eclipsed all former reformations of her order.” She next founded two monasteries for men according to the reform. At Medina del Campo, at Pastrana, at Durveo, she founded communities of men; at Valladolid, Avila, Salamanca, Alva, of women. It is impossible to enumerate her many other foundations. When her co-laborers, the priests Gratian, Marian, and others, gave up all for lost on account of the ceaseless opposition they encountered, she alone remained firm and hopeful, saying, “We shall suffer, but the order will stand.” She also said that the cross was “the secure and beaten road” to lead their souls to God. Women are proverbially called weak, and said to be unwilling to forego luxuries or court trials; yet how Teresa vindicated her sex in her heroic resolve to “let justice be done, though the heavens fall”! Her contemporary, Bishop Yepez, tells us that her deportment was not less agreeable than edifying, that her prudence and address were admirable, and speaks no less of her gracefulness, dignity, and charms than of the gravity, modesty, and discretion of her conversation and carriage. Truly a most womanly woman, who could take upon her man’s responsibility without forfeiting the beautiful attributes of her sex. Like in this to the Catholic Church, Catholic womanhood has all that is claimed by women outside the church, and not only that, but she adds far more, just as the church holds whatever truth is held by the different sects, and infinitely more beside. Teresa died in 1582, having lived to see sixteen convents of Carmelite nuns, and fourteen of friars, founded and successfully organized. The impress of her noble work is undying; she had the talents of the unhappy Luther, but dedicated them to a worthier cause, and, now that the same number of centuries have passed over their respective graves, the woman’s name is universally honored even by her conscientious opponents, while the man’s is execrated in many a community whose original constitution was derived from his teachings.
In the same century as Teresa lived another great reformer and Christian agitator, St. Cajetan, of Thienna, who owed to his admirable mother his enthusiasm and ardent zeal for holy things. He showed by his foundations how highly he esteemed woman’s virtue and integrity; one of his chief aims being to establish refuges for fallen women, and asylums for those whose honor was endangered through poverty and destitution. But one of his greatest works would never have been accomplished if a noble and wealthy woman had not generously taken its fulfilment upon herself: namely, what is called in Catholic Europe the “Mont de Piété,” an untranslatable and most touching synonym for our more repulsive pawn-shops. These institutions were established to counterbalance the shameful system of usury in vogue at the time, and were so controlled by the state that the needy masses should be benefited by them instead of being duped. To the Countess of Porto is Italy indebted for these much-needed reforms. Mother Ursula Benincasa, the foundress of an order called the Theatine Hermits, was, according to Ventura, the bulwark of orthodoxy in the kingdom of Naples. She was the first to unmask the heresiarchs Bernardin Ochino and Peter Vermillo, who had begun to preach Protestantism under the cloak of reform. St. Philip Neri examined her and encouraged her in her labors, and the city of Naples reveres her as its protectress.
One of the best known and best loved saints of modern times is St. Francis of Sales. One of his most popular works is his Introduction to a Devout Life—the most useful, readable, and intelligible manual of devotion ever written for persons living in the world. Yet this would never have been written save for a woman, to whom were addressed the letters from which it was subsequently compiled. He treats in this work almost exclusively of the duties of women, and chiefly of women of the higher classes—those of whom it is said by too many, in their excessive severity, that they are debarred by the circumstances of their life from real Christian work. St. Francis’ Treatise on Divine Love, a longer work, is modelled much on the same plan. The woman whose soul he thought worthy of inspiring these efforts was Madame Jeanne Françoise de Chantal, the grandmother of another gifted and well-known woman, the charming Madame de Sévigné. Her domestic life, during the years of her happy and holy marriage, was a model of severity and order. Regular hours were assigned for everything in her household, every duty and employment discharged with, great order, and the spiritual and moral welfare of her servants attended to with the minutest solicitude. Butler says that order is an indispensable part of virtue; and what is more worshipped (in theory!) among our modern women-reformers than this very quality! But here we have it exhibited in a saint: is it the less attractive for that? When her husband was absent, she refrained from visiting and entertainments, and was at all times conspicuous for shunning, as far as the duties of her position would allow, all useless and frivolous occupations. Again, we have Butler commending her for this, and adding that “to make a round of amusements and idle visits the business of life, is to degrade the dignity of a rational being and to sink beneath the very brutes.” Is this not the language held by the modern advocates of a reform among women? Thus we see that, in everything to which reason points, the church not only stands up for the rights of woman, but also that her ministers and exponents have even forestalled the “newly discovered movement,” both by word and example, many centuries ago. Jeanne Françoise de Chantal lost her husband after several years of marriage, and gave herself up to the care and education of her children. To this task, which she superintended with the gravest diligence, she applied herself for several years, until her eldest daughter’s marriage. Then she entered the religious life, leaving her son under the guardianship of her father, but retaining herself the privilege of still superintending his studies. Her Congregation of the Visitation soon after became a regularly constituted order, and she and some companions, under the auspices of St. Francis of Sales, took their solemn vows at Annecy, in 1610. In the same year, she stayed for several months at Dijon, arranging family affairs and watching over her son’s studies. She also founded convents in nine or ten prominent towns in France, and, between 1619 and 1622, governed the convent in Paris, where she at first met with and overcame serious difficulties. Her son, whose marriage had been her special care and work, was killed in 1627, in the religious wars then desolating France, and her daughter-in-law and son-in-law (the husband of her eldest daughter) died not long after. Her fortitude under these trials was worthy of the Roman and Spartan matrons of old, and her tenderness for those more bereaved than herself, a model of Christian grace. Her aptitude for directing souls was very remarkable, and her bravery in tending the body in sickness no less so. During the pestilence at Annecy her efforts were ceaseless, and her prayers for its cessation full of fervent belief. In 1638, the Duchess of Savoy sent for her to Turin to found a Convent of the Visitation, and treated her (to her great mortification) with the greatest honor. The same happened in Paris, where a royal mandate had also summoned her. It is impossible to calculate the influence this energetic woman has had upon the modern destinies of Catholic Europe, both during her busy and fruitful life and since her death, when the houses of her order have multiplied to an enormous extent, and for some time monopolized almost entirely the education of the upper classes of women. If they no longer hold the first place among such institutions, another order, no less useful and especially designed for this one end, has successfully taken up their work, the Congregation of the Sacred Heart.
The seventeenth century gave birth to another institution even more perfect than that inaugurated by the Baroness de Chantal, that of the Sisters of Charity. This is perhaps the only Catholic foundation against which the malice of the church’s opponents—of all shades of belief and unbelief—has never dared to raise its voice. Not the most improbable tale of scandal has been hurled at these women; not the remotest trace of a sneer has ever been pointed at them; infidels on their death-bed, philanthropists who scouted the Catholic ideal, soldiers on the field of battle, physicians whom they outdo in zeal in the worst hospitals—all are agreed on the unimaginable and gigantic heroism of the Sisters of Charity. They alone, of all nuns, are allowed to walk the streets of London without the least concealment of their distinctive dress, and all over the world there is not a queen whose royal robes are more respected than the simple peasant-like costume of the daughters of St. Vincent of Paul. Louise de Marillac was the saint’s first great helper in this noble work. Their rule is one that might serve women of the world, so entirely spiritual and interior is its nature. “Let them have,” it says, “the houses of the sick for their monastery, the rooms of the poor for their cell, the parish church for their conventual chapel, for grating the fear of God, and holy modesty for their veil.” The Countess of Soigny, who assisted St. Vincent in his missions among the agricultural poor in 1616; Madame de Goussault, who suggested to him the formation of an organized body of ladies to attend regularly on the sick of the present hospital in Paris, the Hôtel Dieu; Madame de Polaillon, who herself supplemented his labors by visiting the sick, and teaching the ignorant country population herself, under the disguise of a peasant woman, and who finally took upon herself to found, under his direction, the Institute of Mercy for the reformation of abandoned women; the Queen-Regent, Anne of Austria, who nominated him to a post of great moral influence, and consulted him in all ecclesiastical affairs; Mesdames de Marillac, de Traversai, and de Miramion, who were the life and soul of his immortal Foundling Institution—these and many others, of all classes and all ages, were the real and earnest fellow-laborers to whose zeal, under God, he owed the success of his many admirable enterprises. Whatever amelioration the lot of man has undergone has always been traceable either to a woman’s suggestion or at least her practical co-operation. One woman, whose name should not be forgotten in the catalogue of Vincent of Paul’s spiritual lieutenants, is that of Marie de Gournay, the wife of a small wine-seller, a most holy and discreet woman. M. Olier, a priest of that age, has left us her panegyric in glowing terms: “All the good which is done at this time passes, so to speak, through her hands; all the great undertakings of our day are somehow referable to her. Although her birth and position are obscure, yet she is the counsel and the light of the most illustrious persons in Paris.” He then names the great ladies of the court who ask her advice in spiritual matters, and adds: “There are no apostolic men, no missionaries, who fail to go to her for instruction. Father Eudes, a famous preacher, consults her frequently. The General of the Oratorians does the same. Mademoiselle Manse, whom God has inspired to go out to Canada to help in the propagation of the faith there, undertook this work only after receiving Marie de Gournay’s approbation. She it is who directs M. de Coudray, who is working for the Levant missions and the defence of the church against the Turks.... A certain counsellor of state takes her advice in all things, and has worked in consequence much to the benefit of the church. The chancellor of the kingdom, according to her persuasions, is very zealous in the extirpation of heresy and the defence of the church. I pass over many names as illustrious as these, the position of their bearers precluding me from mentioning them.” M. Olier’s own conversion was due to her predictions and timely warnings, and through his vocation her influence was greatly spread in the work of reforming the ecclesiastical seminaries of France. The historian Rohrbacher only mentions her as a power on the side of religious reform. The College of Vaugirard and the Seminary of St. Sulpice, now the two foremost educational institutes of Paris, were the fruits of her prayers and counsels.
The end of the reign of Louis XIV. was remarkable for the happy and beneficial rule of a woman, his wife, Madame de Maintenon, whose rigid virtue and wise influence were boons no less prized by the nation than by the sovereign. Before her marriage with the king, she was the queen’s true and loyal friend, and exercised the influence she even then possessed over Louis XIV. wholly in his consort’s favor. She never would accept gifts from him, and indeed told him plainly that he had not the right to give her anything. The great institution in which she was interested, and which owed its foundation to her, was the Free School of St. Cyr, for the daughters of poor gentlemen. It was in this school that many of the heroines of the French Revolution were educated. Fénelon avowed that he looked to her as the king’s conscience. Racine wrote at her suggestion his masterpiece, Athalie, and broke through the senseless tradition which deified and consecrated in poetry crimes which, told in prose, would have made any modest man or woman blush. Fénelon’s determined stand against the king’s encroachments on religious liberties left him without a friend in the fickle court of Versailles; Madame de Maintenon boldly ranged herself on his side and exerted all her influence in his favor.
We have come so near to the days of our fathers that we must stop, as on the confines of well-known and well-worn subjects. The heroic and manly character of Maria Theresa, the fortitude of Louise de France, the Carmelite nun, the calm bravery of Marie Antoinette and Madame Elizabeth, are facts too well known to need repetition. Perhaps it may not be so with the origin of the Propagation of the Faith, which was begun at Lyons in 1822 by a few humble working-women, instinct with the spirit of Martha, and undeterred by the first obscurity of their good works. We might mention women who have influenced literature and made a name that will never be forgotten—Eugénie de Guérin, Lady Georgiana Fullerton, Countess Ida Hahn-Hahn, and many others; especially of late the charming authoress of the Récit d’une Sœur. Is it necessary to speak of the numberless convents where girls of all classes are thoroughly educated, and in which the teachers, were they men, would shine as college tutors and holders of professional chairs? In fact, if we had time and space to go through the modern world, as we have explored the ages of our ancestors, we should find no less vitality among women, no less determined championship of the sex on the part of the church. Let us end by a tribute to one of the noblest works of charity ever undertaken, that of the Little Sisters of the Poor, the earthly guardian angels who live in such evangelical poverty that, when they have begged the remains of rich men’s tables to feed their infirm and aged charges, they humbly and cheerfully make their own scanty meal from the refuse of these very remains. In days when luxury has created wants destructive to human strength and health, let us honor above all these heroines of charity who live as the angels, and almost make us forget that their bodies are still under the law of the flesh and require fleshly sustenance.
With this picture of the very ne plus ultra of charity, let us close our catalogue of woman’s perfections in the kingdom of grace, knowing well that we leave many an act of heroism unrecorded, many a sacrifice “hidden with Christ in God.”
We have seen what the church has done for woman: we have seen what woman has done for and in the church. It is at the sex’s option to continue this mission. The cultivation of its highest faculties is a duty it owes to the church and society. Mothers will be doubly mothers if they develop their sons’ moral nature, as they are bound to do, through the education of their own; the wife is solemnly bound to become truly her husband’s “helper, like unto himself”; daughters and sisters have a work to do in their homes far above the preparation of a meal or the smoothing over of domestic troubles; all women, of whatever age, class, or mental calibre, have their vote to give in the great election that will decide the victory of the church or the world. If women vote for vice, the world of men will be bad; if for virtue, society may be regenerated: theirs is the casting vote, the decisive move. Let it be upward, sisters—let it be God-ward!