Saint EDMUND ARROWSMITH, Jesuit, 1628
A HOLY YOUTH
His family were great sufferers for the faith. His maternal grandfather, Mr. Nicholas Gerard, being unable to move with the gout, was carried to the Protestant Church and placed close to the minister, but he sang Psalms in Latin so loud that the minister was inaudible, and he had to be removed. His parents and their household were driven, tied two and two, to Lancaster gaol, the four youngest children, of which Edmund was one, being left homeless and unclad until some charitable neighbours took compassion on them. After some years, to ease his now widowed mother of her burden^ a venerable priest took charge of Edmund. As the boy went to school, about a mile distant, his daily practice was to recite with his companions the little hours of Our Lady's Office, and on his way back the Vespers and Compline. After his return home he would withdraw to his oratory and there perform his customary devotions of the Jesus Psalter, the Seven Psalms, &c, and so engaging were his tempef and manners that he won the affection of even the Protestant schoolmaster. His priestly studies, though often interrupted by his bad. health, were completed at Douay, whence he went on the English Mission, 1613.
"When he was yet a boy he began to seek the God of his father David."—2 PARAL. xxxiv.3
His family were great sufferers for the faith. His maternal grandfather, Mr. Nicholas Gerard, being unable to move with the gout, was carried to the Protestant Church and placed close to the minister, but he sang Psalms in Latin so loud that the minister was inaudible, and he had to be removed. His parents and their household were driven, tied two and two, to Lancaster gaol, the four youngest children, of which Edmund was one, being left homeless and unclad until some charitable neighbours took compassion on them. After some years, to ease his now widowed mother of her burden^ a venerable priest took charge of Edmund. As the boy went to school, about a mile distant, his daily practice was to recite with his companions the little hours of Our Lady's Office, and on his way back the Vespers and Compline. After his return home he would withdraw to his oratory and there perform his customary devotions of the Jesus Psalter, the Seven Psalms, &c, and so engaging were his tempef and manners that he won the affection of even the Protestant schoolmaster. His priestly studies, though often interrupted by his bad. health, were completed at Douay, whence he went on the English Mission, 1613."When he was yet a boy he began to seek the God of his father David."—2 PARAL. xxxiv.3
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