hand to bless God, to bless his kin, to bless the land. But how shall we portray the emotions of his heart when no more in hiding-places, but in full noon-day, openly and freely, he saw the clean Sacrifice offered by the priests of the Most High? And when the form of his beloved son knelt before him for a last blessing, how with the father’s benedictions must have mingled feelings of pride and gratitude because even by the untiring labors of that son had the blessings of liberty to church and state been won!
It was the writer’s good-fortune, a great many years ago, to seek for rest in what, among Catholic Marylanders, was formerly known as the “Jesuit Tusculum.” In a secluded nook in Cecil County, on the Eastern Shore, lies embosomed within dense thickets and shady lanes the Bohemia Manor, a dependency of Georgetown College. When the Catholic youth of Maryland were debarred the privilege of collegiate training in their native schools, the members of the Company of Jesus had, at a very early period, opened there a boarding-school, especially for such of the American boys as would afterwards, like their persecuted peers in England, seek for a sound education and a thorough Christian training at the well-known academies of Belgium and France. Wandering through those woods, rowing over the meandering streams whose soft murmurings give life to the silent homes of the crane and gentle game, the youthful forms of the Carrolls and Brents, Dorseys and Darnells, haunted the imagination and brought one back to those days of fervent Catholic spirit, pure hearts, and high-minded youths who waxed in years and strength under the saintly training of Hudson and
Manners, Farmer and Molineux. To the care of experienced, learned, and saintly Jesuits was entrusted the training of that part of the Lord’s vineyard which, amid persecution and manifold dangers, mirrored the days of primitive Christianity.
Young Charles Carroll, who was born in 1737, was sent thither to drink the first pure waters of secular learning and Christian training. At one time well-nigh twoscore of the sons of the more fortunate colonists were there united with him at the Tusculum of the Company of Jesus.
But a day of separation dawned. Charles was in his eleventh year when not the swift steamship of our time but a laggard craft was to convey him to distant shores. He was accompanied in his journey by his cousin, John Carroll, with whom many years after he accomplished a most delicate and important mission at the command of the government. Thus he added to the ties and sympathies of blood a link of such friendships as are so apt to knit in college life and ever after congenial souls and hearts beating in unison. True, when the day arrived on which each was to enter an avenue of life that would lead to the career for which each was fitted by nature, they chose different gates, but came forth on the great drama of life to be the leaders of two generations, one in the church, the other in the state. Charles Carroll with unerring finger points to the Catholic layman the resources which he should improve for the perfect execution of his part; John Carroll has represented him who is the infallible guide of the church, becoming at the same time the model of bishop and priest, the pride and the joy of the
anointed minister of that same church in the United States.
Six years did young Carroll spend at St. Omer’s, in French Flanders, in the study of the classics of ancient and modern times under Jesuit tuition; thence he passed to Rheims; and lastly he entered the college of Louis le Grand in Paris. In the two last places he applied himself, under the guidance of learned Jesuits, to the study of logic and metaphysics, mathematics and natural sciences. When at Louis le Grand the elder Charles crossed the ocean a third time to feast his eyes and gladden his doating heart on the son who had waxed in years as well as in grace. He found the promising boy grown into a manly youth, and bade him say farewell to the charms of a life whose days glided on in unruffled peace, breathing in an atmosphere of religion and science. His intercourse there was with men whose aspirations were to the greatest glory of God, whose conversation was in heaven. These men, so noble, so learned, so perfect, had entwined the hearts of their pupils with their own.
In 1757 Charles Carroll removed to London to enter upon the study of law. Admitted to the Inner Temple, an inmate, or at least a frequenter, of those halls wherein surely the Holy Ghost did not hold an undisputed sway, the noble-minded and pure-souled Maryland youth must have felt the change to the quick. What a contrast to the simplicity of his western home at the paternal manor, the sweet influences and innocent life at the Bohemian Tusculum, and in the blessed halls of Bruges and St. Omer’s! At the Temple he spent the five years requisite in order to be called to the bar; but
he remained in Europe until 1764, when he again set sail for his western home.
A great change had meanwhile come over the moral atmosphere of his native State. Whilst bickerings about religion were growing distasteful, a rumbling noise of threatened disasters in the distance drew the hearts of the colonists together. Indistinct and sombre figures of enemies lurking around the premises counselled measures of internal peace, equal distribution of civil rights, and a unity of sentiments and aims as the only hope of averting ruin and of conquering a powerful foe. Ties of friendship were strengthened, measures of concerted action were discussed, whilst religious questions were laid aside, and arrogant claims of superior rights on the part of non-Catholics forgotten, in the presence of an impending danger; the more so because it was felt that there was a party brooding in their midst which was in accord with the enemy outside.