There was not, so far as we know, a single apostate Catholic in the community at Plymouth, not one who, having tasted the pure Gospel, known the divinely given faith and the divinely instituted worship, turned to wallow in the mire of man-made creeds and worship devised by shallow men. Standish cannot be accused of being in league with known apostates. Yet even had he been guilty of such a step, we cannot judge him too harshly, for even in our days one may address a notorious and scandalous apostate in terms of eloquent welcome, and yet be deemed Catholic enough to lecture before pre-eminently Catholic bodies, and address the young graduates of our literary institutions as one fit to guide their future career.
But, it may be said, he must have lived in utter neglect of his duties as a Catholic. Who can tell this? Like Le Baron, the French surgeon wrecked and captured on the coast, he may have clung to the faith to the end, performed his devotions as he might, and died with the crucifix over his heart. The opportunities for approaching the sacraments from time to time were given him, and his position gave him greater ease in embracing those opportunities. The trading-houses of Plymouth in Maine stood near
similar French posts, where Capuchins and Recollects were maintained. The report of Mgr. Urban Cerri and the French colonial documents show that, for the benefit of Catholics in New England, English-speaking priests were sent to those points and maintained in Canada on the frontiers. Who can say that Standish, who was frequently in Maine on colonial matters and for trade, meeting these priests and speaking French, for his powers as a linguist are mentioned, did not avail himself of the opportunity of hearing Mass and approaching the sacraments. It is not likely that when he did he went with a file of soldiers and a drum-beating, or that he made a special report to the Plymouth government. It would be a fact of which evidence would not be heralded.
In his last days, 1651, Father Druillettes visited Boston and Plymouth with his Plymouth friend Winslow, where he must have met the aged Standish.
His library, it may be urged, as shown by the inventory, contains no Catholic works, and several devotional and doctrinal works of the Puritan school. As his wife was a Protestant, we may well suppose this part of the family library to have been her reading. Surely, when all New England authorities concur in admitting “that he never cherished any strong impressions of their religion,” or took any interest in it, we may put down Rogers’ Seaven Treatises, Wilcock’s works, Burrough’s Christian Contentment, Davenport’s Apology, and the Comentary on James Ball Catterkesmer, as her reading and not his; while we readily recognize the soldier’s taste in Cæser’s Comentaryes, Banft’s Artillery, the History of the World, Turkish History, Chronicle of England,
Ye History of Queen Elizabeth, The State of Europe, the Garmon (German) History, and Homer’s Iliad.
The whole case is now before the reader. Miles Standish has been always classed as a Protestant, but there is certainly grave doubt on the point. He never renounced the Catholic faith in which he was undoubtedly born; and therefore, we Catholics have some claim to his name and fame. No descendant of his, to the writer’s knowledge, is now a Catholic, but some have been in our day pupils of Catholic institutions. These will, we trust, follow up our labors, and bring from the records of the past more conclusive evidence of the lifelong Catholicity of Miles Standish.
[180] Historical Magazine, April, 1873, p. 251.
[181] Standish Monument, Boston, 1873, pp. 21, 25.
[182] Hist. Mag., March, 1871, pp. 273, 274.