TO BE CONCLUDED NEXT MONTH.
BROTHER PHILIP.[102]
The century in which we live has distinguished itself by a terrible propaganda of evil, error and corruption taking every variety of form to insinuate themselves into society; yet this same century is also marked by great and generous efforts in the cause of truth and goodness, and in these France has proved herself true to her ancient vocation. From a peculiar vivacity of energy (if we may be allowed the expression) in the national character, whether for good or for evil, the land that has produced some of the most hardened atheists, the worst and wildest communists, and the most frivolous votaries of pleasure, continues to produce the most numerous and devoted missionaries, the readiest martyrs, and saints whose long lives of hidden toil for God and his church are a noble pendant to her martyrs’ deaths.
One of these lives of unobtrusive toil is now before us—that of Brother Philip, who during thirty-five years was Superior-General of the Frères des Ecoles Chrétiennes, or Brothers of the Christian Schools. Before tracing it, even in the imperfect manner which is all for which we have space, it will be well to give a brief sketch of the institute of which he was for so long the honored head.
Jean Baptiste de la Salle, the son of noble parents, was born at Rheims in the year 1651. Entering Holy Orders early in life, he greatly distinguished himself in the priesthood, not only as a scholar and theologian, but also as an orator, so eloquent and persuasive that he might have aspired to the highest dignities in the church had he not chosen to limit his ambition to the lowly work of popular education. This education was not then in existence. Not that there was an utter absence of schools, but these were all unconnected with each other, and were besides greatly wanting in any good and efficient method of teaching. The Abbé de la Salle invented the simultaneous method, namely, that which consists in giving lessons to a whole class at a time, instead of to each child separately. The subjects of instruction were reading, writing, French grammar, arithmetic, and geometry, with Christian teaching as the basis and invariable accompaniment of all the rest. He founded an association of religious who were not to enter the priesthood, of which, however, they were to become the most efficient allies in the education of the young according to the mind of the church, this intention being their distinguishing characteristic. Resolving to live in community with them, he resigned his canonry at Rheims, and sold his rich patrimony, distributing the money among the poor. He gave the brethren their rule, and also the habit which they wear. Thus a new religious family, not ecclesiastical, appeared in France, the members of which were only to be brothers, united by the vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience. The Abbé de la Salle also established a school for training teachers, which was the first normal school ever founded in France; he also originated Sunday-schools for the young apprentices of different trades, and pensionnats, or boarding-schools, the first of which was opened at Paris, for the Irish youths protected by James II. of England, and fugitives like himself.
The chief house of the order was St. Yon (formerly Hauteville), an ancient manor just outside the gates of Rouen, surrounded by an extensive enclosure, and affording a peaceful solitude where M. de la Salle enjoyed his few brief intervals of repose in this world. He had been invited to settle there by Mgr. Colbert, Archbishop of Rouen, and M. de Pontcarré, First President of the Parliament of Normandy, and, after the death of Louis XIV., made it more and more the centre of his work. It was at St. Yon that he resigned the post of superior-general in 1716, and there he died on Good Friday, the 7th of April, 1719, aged sixty-eight years. The house was soon afterwards enlarged and a church built, to which in 1734 the Brothers transferred the remains of their holy founder, which had until then rested in the Church of S. Sever.
The Brothers of the Christian Schools were called the Brothers of St. Yon, and sometimes les Frères Yontains, whence originated the title of Frères Ignorantins, which has, however, been lived down by the institute, the excellence of the instruction afforded by the Christian Schools not permitting the perpetuation of the derisive epithet.
The new order supplied a want too generally felt not to extend itself rapidly, and at the time of the Abbé de la Salle’s death it numbered twenty-seven houses, two-hundred and seventy-four Brothers, and nine thousand eight hundred and eighty-five pupils. In 1724 Louis XV. granted it letters-patent expressive of his approval, and it was in the same year that Pope Benedict XIII. accorded canonical institution to the congregation, thus realizing the earnest desire of the venerable founder, that his institute should be recognized by the Sovereign Pontiff as a religious order, with a distinctive character and special constitutions. Brother Timothy was at that time superior-general. He governed the institute with energy and wisdom for thirty-one years, during which time no less than seventy additional houses of the order were established in various of the principal towns of France, everywhere meeting with encouragement and protection from the bishops and the Christian nobility, so that every inauguration of a school was made an occasion of rejoicing.
The successor of Brother Timothy was Brother Claude, who was superior-general from 1751 to 1767, when, having attained the age of seventy-seven, he resigned his office, continuing to live eight years longer in the house of St. Yon, where he died. It was at this period that the atheism of the XVIIIth century was making its worst ravages. A band of writers, under the leadership of Voltaire, laid siege, as it were, to Christianity, by a regular plan of attack, and, employing as their weapons a false and superficial philosophy, distorted history, raillery, ridicule, corruption, and lies, they conspired against the truth, while licentiousness of mind and manners infected society and literature alike. At the very time when the followers of the faith were devoting themselves with renewed energy to the instruction of the ignorant and the succor of the needy, philosophy, so-called, by the pen of Voltaire, wrote as follows: