I felt now that my vow had been kept and my promise fulfilled. I had shed my blood for Poland, and any further effort on my part would have been worse than useless.
I determined, therefore, to rejoin the countess and her children, who were at that moment at the waters of Altwasser. I pass over the joy of our reunion. We soon went on to Dresden for the winter, and once more that happy family were together, though in exile.
I heard soon after that Father Benvenuto had been struck by a ball in the heart at the battle of Swientz-Krszysz, at the very moment when he was lifting up the crucifix to bless his soldiers. The memory of this saint will be for ever revered in Poland, and in the hearts of all those who had the happiness of knowing him. With his heroic death I close my account of this episode in a war which, however mistaken on the part of those who first conceived so hopeless an attempt, was carried on to the last with a faith, a courage, and a patriotism that deserve to be immortalized in the history of any country, and will redound to the eternal honor of this persecuted and unhappy people.
THE LATE DR. T. W. MARSHALL.
The renaissance of English Catholic literature has been a growth of the last quarter of a century. From the time when Dr. Newman became a convert to the church there has been a continual stream of the most ardent Catholic literature, didactic, controversial, and devotional. Of devotional works we need hardly speak at all, since they are much the same in all Catholic countries, and are mostly modelled on one spirit of one faith. Of works which are didactic it is superfluous to say anything, for all teachers of the Catholic faith teach the same thing. But of works which are controversial it is desirable to take notice, because they indicate the peculiar spirit of the age, the nature of the anti-Catholic opposition, and the growth or the decay of old prejudices. There is probably no literature in any country in the world which is so full of original lines of pure controversy as that of the modern English school of Catholic converts. Nor is there any difficulty in accounting for this fact. When we remember that English converts have stepped across that huge gulf which divides old-fashioned Protestantism from Catholicity; that they have brought with them from the “Establishment” the most perfect knowledge of all the arguments which can be devised against the acceptance of “the faith”; that they are often highly educated men, who have been as “intellectually” as they have been “spiritually” converted—we should be surprised if they did not sometimes write controversy with both a newness and a richness of intuition.
For example, let us take the great Dr. Newman, whose vast stores of digested learning often sparkle or are sweetened with delicious touches of the perception of the humorous—a boon to his readers which is not only due to his wit but to the drolleries of the old heresy which he has left. Or let us take Dr. Faber—that “poet of Catholic dogmas,” as a Protestant lady has described him—and note the exquisite appreciation with which he contrasts Catholic truths with their denial or their imitation in Protestantism. These two writers could not have written as they have done unless they had been brought up as Protestants. They might have been equally luminous and profound; they might have wanted nothing of Catholic science; but their appreciation of contrast, which is one of the essentials of humor, could not have been nearly so developed.
Yet, delightful as it would be to dwell on the rich gifts of these two writers—the profound Newman and the poetical Faber—it is with reference to another writer that we would say something at this time—to one who has but recently passed away. Dr. T. W. Marshall, who twice visited the United States, and who gained great repute as a lecturer, was among the most gifted of the controversialists—in some senses he was unique—who have contributed to English Catholic literature. We are not speaking of his learning, though this was considerable; nor of his reasoning power, though this, too, was very striking; for there are many English Catholic writers who, both in learning and in reasoning, may be esteemed to have surpassed Dr. Marshall; but we are speaking of him as a “pure controversialist,” as one who made controversy his sole pursuit, or who, at least, will be always remembered as a polemic, and this both as a speaker and as a writer. Now, in the capacity of a polemic—of a “popular” polemic—we have affirmed that Dr. Marshall was unique; and let us indicate briefly in what respects.
We have spoken at the beginning of the immense advantage which is possessed by those Catholics who attempt to write controversy when their first years have been passed in the camp of the Anglican “Establishment,” and so they have learned all its secrets. Dr. Marshall was “bred and born” an Anglican. He was the descendant of a long line of Protestants. He was educated at two English public schools, and subsequently spent three years at Cambridge; emerging from the university to “take orders” in the Establishment, and soon becoming incumbent of a parish. Finding his lot cast in a pleasant rural district, where he had but very few clerical duties, he devoted his spare time to the study of the Fathers; and, while reading, he made copious notes. The present writer, who had the happiness to be his pupil, remembers well with what avidity he used to devour the big tomes which he borrowed from the not distant cathedral library. Finding, as he read on, that the Fathers were “strangely Roman Catholic,” that “they most distinctly were none of them Protestants,” he may be said to have read and to have written himself into the faith, which he embraced the moment that he realized it. And no sooner was he received into the Catholic Church than he devoted all his talents to the proving to English Protestants the truths of which he himself was convinced. Christian Missions was his first great work, though it had been preceded by more than one brilliant pamphlet; and My Clerical Friends and Protestant Journalism followed in much later years. Besides these works there was the unceasing contribution to more than one of the English Catholic papers, to several magazines or periodicals, and also to a few secular weeklies. It may be remembered with what raciness, and at the same time with what depth, he used to punish “our Protestant contemporaries” for their inventions and their puerilities about the church. His series on the “Russian Church” was especially brilliant, and produced much sensation among High-Churchmen. But his many other series, such as “Fictitious Appeals to a General Council,” “Sketches of the Reformation,” “Two Churches,” “Modern Science,” were all deserving of most careful digestion, and produced their due effect upon Anglicans. It was when probing the Ritualists, week after week, with the most terrible weapons of Catholic logic, that Dr. Marshall was seized with his last illness, and he laid aside for ever that pen which, for thirty years, had been the dread of many insincere Protestants.