[Life of J. Theophane Vénard], Martyr in Tonquin; or, What Love Can Do. Translated by Lady Herbert. New York: The Catholic Publication Society. 1873.
[Life of Henry Dorié, Martyr]. Translated by Lady Herbert. New York: The Catholic Publication Society. 1873.
These two works are translations from the French by Lady Herbert, for the benefit of S. Joseph’s Foreign Missionary College at Mill Hill near London, to which she has been a warm friend and liberal patron from the beginning. Americans cannot help feeling a great interest in that institution, for the first band of missionaries it sent forth came to labor among the colored people of our Southern States.
Nothing could be better calculated to stimulate the fervor of the aspirant to the missionary life than the example of these two young Christian heroes worthy of the primitive ages of the church—worthy, it might be said, of the XIXth century; for never was there an age that required more firmness of purpose and constancy to the truth than this, with its glorious confessors of the faith in Asia, and as large an army of martyrs on the other side of the globe undergoing the slower torture of heart and soul that is far worse than that of the cangue.
The lives of the two missionaries before us are affecting to the last degree. Every Catholic youth should read them, if not to fully emulate their example, to which all have not the happiness of being called, at least to catch something of the unworldliness and burning piety they manifested from their very childhood. Indeed, we wish everybody could read them, for there could be no better proof of the holy influences of the Catholic religion upon the young heart. We linger with admiration over the account of their boyhood overshadowed by their future martyrdom. One golden thread runs through their whole lives—one constant aim—the wish to win souls to Christ, and at last to gain the martyr’s crown. And this intense desire for martyrdom was no mere youthful enthusiasm, as was proved when their lifelong prayer was granted. But amid all the self-denial with which they fitted themselves for their glorious destiny, nothing in their character is more striking than the tender affection—passing ordinary human love—apparent in their intercourse with their families, as if religion had refined every fibre of their hearts, and made them more keenly susceptible of love, of suffering, and of devotion to the service of God. They never allowed earthly affections, however, to come between them and their great aim in life. What angels of the sanctuary they were while preparing for the sublime functions of the priesthood! What a lofty conception they had of the sacrament of holy orders that consecrated them to a life of sacrifice! How joyfully they entered upon the life that promised them the radiant crown.
“Prepared for virgin souls and them
Who seek the martyr’s diadem.”
“Souffrir pour Dieu—To suffer for God—will henceforth be my motto,” said Henri Dorié, about to leave his country for ever. Everything at the Séminaire des Missions Etrangères was calculated to strengthen this desire for suffering. Old missionaries, who bore in their bodies the marks of the Lord Jesus, were their professors. Every day they went to pray in the Hall of Martyrs, around which are ranged the relics of those who have suffered for the faith in China, Japan, and the isles of the sea, together with the instruments of their martyrdom—an appalling shrine at which to pray! And the whole room is crimsoned with the light diffused through the red hangings—significant of blood and suffering.... Among other sacred articles in this hall is the blood-stained crucifix of Bishop Borie, whose interesting life has been written by the Rev. F. Hewit.
One of the most affecting scenes related in these books is when a band of missionaries is about to leave for their field of labor. On the eve of their departure, the young apostles all stand before the altar—victims ready for the glorious sacrifice—and one by one the loved companions and friends they are to leave behind come up to prostrate themselves, and kiss the feet of these heralds of salvation, the whole congregation meanwhile chanting: Quam speciosi pedes evangelizantium pacem, evangelizantium bona!—How beautiful are the feet of them who preach the Gospel of peace, of them that bring glad tidings of good things!
M. Vénard went to labor in Tonquin. When the first missionary to that country—a Dominican friar—landed there in 1596, he found a great cross on that unknown shore, which seemed to prefigure what awaited those who should attempt to evangelize it. And to see how truly, we need go no further back than 1861, when, in the course of nine months, sixteen thousand Christians were martyred in only two provinces of Anam, and twenty thousand condemned to perpetual slavery. This was the year in which M. Vénard was martyred. The letter he wrote his beloved sister in his cage at midnight on the eve of his martyrdom has been styled by an eminent Frenchman “one of the most beautiful pages of the history of the martyrs of the XIXth century.”
Henry Dorié was sent to Corea—the very name of which is symbolical to the Christian ear of persecution and martyrdom. The whole history of the church in that country is written in blood. Its first missionaries were all martyrs, its first bishop, its first converts. In one year—1839—over eight hundred Christians were martyred, and a still larger number perished from want in the mountains where they had taken refuge. But M. Dorié had but one desire—when his labors were ended, to win the palm. His prayer was not denied him.