My Unknown Chum: "Aguecheek"

THE OLD CATHEDRAL

In many people who have been abroad, the mere mention of the old city of Rouen is enough to kindle an enthusiasm. If you would know why this is, – why those who are familiar with the cathedrals of Cologne, Milan, Florence, and the basilicas of Rome, have yet so deep a feeling about the old capital of Normandy, – the true answer is, that Rouen, with its Gothic glories and the thrilling history of the middle ages written on its every stone, was the first ancient city that they saw, and made the deepest impression on their minds. They had left the stiff and unsympathetic respectability of Boston, the tiresome cleanliness of Philadelphia, or the ineffable filth of New York behind them; or perchance they had been emancipated from some dreary western town, whose wide, straight, unpaved streets seemed to have no beginning and to end nowhere; whose atmosphere was pervaded with an odour of fresh paint and new shingles, and whose inhabitants would regard fifty years as a highly respectable antiquity, – and had come steaming across the unquiet Atlantic to Havre, eager to see an old city. A short railway ride carried them to one in which they could not turn a corner without seeing something to remind them of what they had seen in pictures or read in books about the middle ages. The richly-carved window frames, the grotesque faces, the fanciful devices, the profusion of ornament, the shrines and statues of the saints at the corners of the streets, and all the other picturesque peculiarities of that queer old city, filled them with wonder and delight. Those fantastic gables that seemed to be leaning over to look at them, inspired them with a respect which all the architectural wonders and artistic trophies of the continent are powerless to disturb.

It was not my fortune thus to make acquaintance with Rouen. I had several times tasted the pleasure of a continental sojourn. The streets of several of the great European capitals were as familiar to me as those of my native city. Yet Rouen captivated me with a charm peculiarly its own. I shall not easily forget the delicious summer day in which I left Paris for a short visit to Rouen. That four hours' ride over the Western Railway of France was full of solid enjoyment for every sense. The high cultivation of that fertile and unfenced country – the farmers at work in the sunny broad-stretched fields – the hay-makers piling up their fragrant loads – the château-like farm houses, looking as stately as if they had strayed out of the city, and, getting lost, had thought it beneath their dignity to inquire the way back – and those old compactly built towns, in each of which the houses seem to have nestled together around a moss-grown church tower, like children at the knees of a fond mother, – made up a scene which harmonized admirably with my feelings and with the day, "so calm, so cool, so bright, the bridal of the earth and sky." My fellow-passengers shared in the general joy which the blithesomeness of nature inspired. We all chatted merrily together, and a German, who looked about as lively as Scott's Commentaries bound in dark sheep-skin, tried to make a joke. So irresistible was the contagion of cheerfulness, that an Englishman, who sat opposite me, so far forgot his native dignity, as to volunteer the remark that it was a "nice day."

At last we began to consult our watches and time tables, and, after a shrill whistle and a ride through a long tunnel, I found myself, with a punctuality by which you might set your Frodsham, in the station at Rouen. I obeyed the instructions of the conductor to Messieurs les voyageurs pour Rouen to descendez, and was, in a very few minutes, walking leisurely through narrow and winding streets, which I used to think existed only in the imaginations of novelists and scene-painters. I say walking, but the fact is, I did not know what means of locomotion I employed in my progress through the town. My eyes and mind were too busy to take cognizance of any inferior matters. My astonishment and delight at all that met my sight was not so great as my astonishment and delight to find myself astonished and delighted. I had seen so many old cities that I had no thought of getting enthusiastic about Rouen, until I found myself suddenly in a state of mental exaltation. I had visited Rouen as many people visit churches and galleries of art in Italy – because I had an opportunity, and feared that in after years I might be asked if I had ever been there. But, if a dislike to acknowledge my ignorance led me to Rouen, it was a very different sentiment that took possession of me as soon as I caught the spirit of the place. The genius of the past seemed to inhabit every street and alley of that strange city. I half expected, whenever I heard the hoofs of horses, to find myself encompassed by mailed knights; and if Joan of Arc, with her sweet maidenly face beaming with the inspiration of religious patriotism, had galloped by, it would not have surprised me so much as it did to realize that I – a Yankee, clad in a gray travelling suit, with an umbrella in my hand, and drafts to a limited amount on Baring Brothers in my pocket – was moving about in the midst of such scenes, and was not arrested and hustled out of the way as a profane intruder.

Wandering through the mouldy streets without any definite idea whither they led, and so charmed by all I saw, that I did not care, I suddenly turned a corner and suddenly found myself in a market-place well filled with figures, which would have graced a similar scene in any opera-house, and facing that stupendous cathedral which is one of the glories of France. I do not know how to talk learnedly about architecture; so I can spare you, dear reader, any criticism on the details of that great church. I have no doubt that it is full of faults, but my unskilful eyes rested only on its beauties. I would not have had it one stroke of the chisel less ornate, nor one shade less dingy. I could not, indeed, help thinking what it must have been centuries ago, when it was in all the glory of its fresh beauty; but still I rejoiced that it was reserved for me to behold it in the perfected loveliness and richer glory of its decay. Never until then did I fully appreciate the truth of Mr. Ruskin's declaration, that the greatest glory of a building is not in its sculptures or in its gold, but in its age, – nor did I ever before perfectly comprehend his eloquent words touching that mysterious sympathy which we feel in "walls that have long been washed by the passing waves of humanity."

After lingering for a while before the sacred edifice, I entered, and stood within its northern aisle. Arches above arches, supported by a forest of massive columns, seemed to be climbing up as if they aspired to reach the throne of Him whose worship was daily celebrated there. The sun was obscured by a passing cloud as I entered, and that made the ancient arches seem doubly solemn. The stillness that reigned there was rendered more profound by the occasional twitter of a swallow from some "jutty frieze," or "coigne of vantage," high up above my head. I walked half way up the aisle, and stopped on hearing voices at a distance. As I stood listening, the sun uncovered his radiant face, and poured his golden glory through the great western windows of the church, bathing the whole interior with a prismatic brilliancy which made me wonder at my presumption in being there. At the same moment a clear tenor voice rang out from the choir as if the sunbeams had called it into being, giving a wonderful expression to the words of the Psalmist, Dominus illuminatio mea et salus mea; quem timebo. Then came a full burst of music as the choir took up the old Gregorian Chant – the universal language of prayer and praise. As the mute groves of the Academy reëcho still the wisdom of the sages, so did that ancient church people my mind with forms and scenes of an age long passed away. "I was all ear," and those solemn strains seemed to be endowed with the accumulated melody of the Misereres and Glorias of a thousand years.

I have an especial affection for an old church, and I pity with all my heart the man whom the silent eloquence of that vast cathedral does not move. The very birds that build their nests in its mouldering towers have more soul than he. Its every stone is a sermon on the transitoriness of human enterprise and the vanity of worldly hopes. Beneath its pavement lie buried hopes and ambitions which have left no memorial but in the unread pages of forgotten historians. Richard, the lion-hearted, who made two continents ring with the fame of his valour, and yearned for new conquests, was obliged at last to content himself with the dusty dignity and obscurity of a vault beneath those lofty arches which stand unmoved amid the contentions of rival dynasties and the insane violence of republican anarchy.

But it was not merely to write of the glories of Rouen and its churches, that I took up my neglected pen. The old cathedral of which I have now a few kind words to say, does not, like that of Rouen, date back sixteen centuries to its foundation; neither is it one of those marvels of architecture in which the conscious stone seems to have grown naturally into forms of enduring beauty. No great synods or councils have been held within its walls; nor have its humble aisles resounded daily with the divine office chanted by a chapter of learned and pious canons. Indeed it bears little in its external appearance that would raise a suspicion of its being a cathedral at all. Yet its plain interior, its simple altars, and its unpretentious episcopal throne, bear witness to the abiding-place of that power which is radiated from the shrine of the Prince of the Apostles – as unmistakably as if it were encrusted with mosaics, and the genius of generations of great masters had been taxed in its adornment.

The Cathedral of Boston is the last relic of Franklin Street as I delight to remember it. One by one, the theatre, the residence of the Catholic bishops, and the old mansions that bore such a Berkeley Square-y look of respectability have passed away; and the old church alone remains. Tall warehouses look down upon it, as if it were an intruder there, and the triumphal car of traffic makes its old walls tremble and disturbs the devotion of its worshippers. An irreverent punster ventured a few months since to suggest that, out of regard to its new associations, it ought to be rededicated under the invocation of St. Casimir, and to be enlarged by the addition of a chapel built in honor of St. Pantaleone.

But it is well that it should follow the buildings with which it held companionship through so many quiet years. The charm of the old street has been destroyed, and the sooner the last monument of its former state is removed the better it will be. The land on which it stands formerly belonged to the Boston Theatre corporation. It was transferred to its present proprietorship in the last week of the last century, and the first Catholic church in New England was erected upon it. That church (enlarged considerably by the late Bishop Fenwick) is the one which still stands, and towards which I feel a veneration similar in kind to that inspired by the cathedrals of the old world. Even now I remember with pleasure how I used to enjoy an occasional visit to that strange place in my boyhood. "Logic made easy" and "Geometry for Infant Schools" were things unknown in my young days. I was weaned from the Primer and Spelling-book with the Arabian Nights' Entertainments, and the works of Defoe, Goldsmith, Addison, and Shakespeare. Therefore the romantic instinct was not entirely crushed out of my youthful heart, and it would be difficult, dear reader, for you to conceive how much I found to feed it on, within those plain brick walls.

The lamp which used to burn constantly before the altar, until an anxiety for "improvement" removed it out of sight behind the pulpit, filled me with an indescribable awe. I was ignorant of its meaning, and for years was unaware that my childish reverence for its mild flicker was a blind homage to one of the profoundest mysteries of the Catholic faith. I remember to this day the satisfaction I took in the lighting of those tall candles, and what a halo of mysterious dignity surrounded even the surpliced boys grouped around that altar. That strange ceremonial surpassed my comprehension. The Latin, as I heard it sung there, was pronounced so differently from what I had been taught at school, that it was all Greek to me. Yet, when I saw the devotion of that congregation, and the pious zeal of the devoted clergymen who built that church, I could not call their worship "mummery," nor join in the irreverent laughter of my comrades at those ancient rites. There was something about them that seemed to fill up my ideal of worship – a soothing and consoling influence which I found nowhere else.

I never entertained the vulgar notion of a Catholic priest. Of course my education led me to regard the dogmas of the Roman Church with any thing but a friendly eye; but my ideas of the clergy of that Church were not influenced by popular prejudice. I was always willing to believe that Vincent de Paul, and Charles Borromeo, and Fénelon were what they were, in consequence of their religion, rather than in spite of it, as some people, who make pretensions to liberality, would fain persuade us. When I recall the self-denying lives of the two founders of the Catholic Church in Boston, – Matignon and Cheverus, – I wonder that the influence of their virtues has not extended even to the present day, to soften prejudice and do away with irreligious animosity. They were regarded with distrust, if not with hatred, when they first came among us to take charge of that humble flock; but their devotedness, joined with great acquirements and rare personal worth, overcame even the force of the great Protestant tradition of enmity towards their office. Protestant admiration kept pace with Catholic love and veneration in their regard, and when they built the church which is now so near the term of its existence, there were few wealthy Protestants in Boston who did not esteem it a privilege to aid them with liberal contributions. The first subscription paper for its erection was headed by the illustrious and venerable name of John Adams, the successor of Washington in the presidency of the United States.

The memory of the first Bishop of Boston, Dr. Cheverus, is (for most Bostonians of my age) the most precious association connected with the Cathedral. He was endeared to the people of this city by ten years of unselfish exertion in the duties of a missionary priest, before he was elevated to the dignity of the episcopate. His unwillingness to receive the proffered mitre was as characteristic of his modest and humble spirit, as the meekness with which he bore his faculties when the burden of that responsibility was forced upon him. His "episcopal palace," as he used facetiously to term his small and scantily-furnished dwelling, which was contiguous to the rear of the church, was the resort of all classes of the community. His simplicity of manner and ingenuous affability won all hearts. The needy and opulent, the learned and illiterate, the prosperous merchant and the Indians in the unknown wilds of Maine, found in him a father and a friend. Children used to run after him as he walked down Franklin Place, delighted to receive a smile and a kind word from one whose personal presence was like a benediction.

His face was the index of a pure heart and a great mind. It was impossible to look at him without recalling that fine stanza of the old poet. —

One of the ancient Hebrew prophets, in describing the glories of the millennial period, tells us that upon the bells of the horses shall be the words, Holiness unto the Lord– a prophecy which always reminded me of Cheverus; for that divine inscription seemed to have been written all over his benign countenance as with the luminous pen of the rapt evangelist in Patmos.

But Bishop Cheverus was not merely a good man – he was a great man. He did not court the society of the learned, for his line of duty lay among the poor; but, even in that humble sphere, his talents shone out brightly, and won the respect even of those who had the least sympathy with the Church to which his every energy was devoted. Boston valued him highly; but few of her citizens thought, as they saw him bound on some errand of mercy through her streets, that France envied them the possession of such a prelate, that the peerage of the old monarchy was thought to need his virtuous presence, and that the scarlet dignity of a Prince of the Church was in reserve for that meek and self-sacrificing servant of the poor. Had he been gifted with prophetic vision, his humility would have had much to suffer, and his life would have been made unhappy, by the thought of coming power and honour. He had given the best part of his life to Boston, and here he wished to die. He had buried his friend and fellow-labourer, Dr. Matignon, in the Church of St. Augustine at South Boston, and when he placed the mural tablet over the tomb of that venerable priest, he left a space for his own name, and expressed the hope that, as they had lived together harmoniously for so many years, they might not in death be separated. It was a strange sight to see more than two hundred Protestants remonstrating against the translation of a Catholic bishop from their city, and speaking of him in such terms as these: "We hold him to be a blessing and a treasure in our social community, which we cannot part with, and which, without injustice to any man, we may affirm, if withdrawn from us, can never be replaced." And when he distributed all that he possessed among his clergy, his personal friends and the poor, and left Boston as poor as he had entered it, with the single trunk that contained his clothes when he arrived, twenty-seven years before, – public admiration outran the power of language. Doctrinal differences were forgotten. Three hundred carriages and other vehicles escorted him several miles on the road to New York, where he was to embark.