Saint JOHN WALL, OSF, 1679

THE NARROW WAY

BORN of a Lancashire gentleman's family, he received the habit of St. Francis at Douay in 1651, being then thirty-two years of age. He entered on the English Mission, 1656, and laboured successfully for twelve years. At the breaking out of the Oates Plot he was apprehended, and, refusing to take the oath of allegiance, was imprisoned in Worcester gaol. Of his sentiments then he writes: " Imprisonment in these times, when none can send to their friends or their friends come to them, is the best means to teach us how to put our confidence in God alone in all things, and then He will make His promise good 'that all things shall be added unto us' (Luke xii. 31), which chapter, if every one would read and made good use of, a prison would be better than a palace, and a confinement for religion and a good conscience' sake more pleasant than all the liberties the world could afford. As for my own part, God give me His grace and all faithful Christians their prayers; I am happy enough. We all ought to follow the narrow way, though there be many difficulties in it. It is an easy thing to run the blind way of liberty, but God deliver us from all broad, sweet ways."

" How narrow is the gate and straight the way that leadeth to life, and few there are that find it."—MATT. vii. 14.

Saint DAVID LEWIS also known as CHARLES BAKER, Jesuit, 1679

REPROACHED FOR CHRIST

Biography

Born of Protestant parents in Monmouthshire, he was reconciled at the age of nineteen, when a law student in London. Ordained at the English College, Rome, he entered the Society, and was sent on the English Mission in 1648. For thirty-one years he toiled for souls, fearless in dangers, patient in suffering, till his apprehension, November 19, 1678. While in the hands of his captors he was summoned to a dying priest, Father Ignatius Price, who was sinking from hunger and cold and the hardships of a hunted life, but he could only send him his best wishes for eternity, and after three days Father Price died. At Monmouth Father Baker, in spite of a brilliant defence, was condemned and sent up to London, where Lord Shaftesbury suggested to him to save his life and improve his fortune by revealing something of the plot or conforming in religion ; but he refused, for of the plot he knew nothing, and to conform would be against his conscience. On the scaffold he forgave his persecutors, and to the Catholics he said : " Fear God, honour the King. Be firm in your faith ; bear patiently persecutions, always remembering St. Peter's words, that reproach borne not for any evil thing, but for Christ's sake, is a blessing." He suffered at Usk, August 27, 1679."

If you be reproached for the name of Christ you shall be blessed : for that which is the honour of God resteth on you."—1 Pet. iv. 14.

Venerable JOHN WALL, Franciscan, 1679

A VOLUNTARY OFFERING

Biography

With Blessed John Jones

ON hearing his sentence he made a bow, and said aloud, " Thanks be to God. God save the King. I beseech God to bless your Lordship and all this honourable bench." The judge answered, " You have spoken very well. I do not intend that you should die, at least not for the present, until I know the King's further pleasure." Father Wall writes : " I was not, I thank God for it, troubled with any disturbing thoughts, either against the judge for his sentence, or the jury that gave in such a verdict, or against any of the witnesses; for I was then of the same mind, as by God's grace I ever shall be, esteeming them all the best friends to me, in all they did or said, that ever I had in my life. And I was, I thank God, so present with myself whilst the judge pronounced the sentence that without any concern for anything in this world I did actually at the same time offer myself and the world to God." After five months' delay he was executed at Worcester, and was much rejoiced at being, as he was, the first martyr in that city. He had been arrested on the Oates Plot after twenty-two years on the Mission, and was offered his life if he would apostatise.

"He was offered, because it was His own will."—ISA. liii. 7.

Saint JOHN KEMBLE, Priest, 1679

THE CROWN OF DIGNITY

Biography

HE was eighty years old, and had toiled on the Mission for fifty-four years, when he was taken at Pembridge Castle, Herefordshire, by Captain Scudamore.

Disguised altar used at Pembridge Castle

Though warned of his coming seizure, he said, "As he had but a few years to live he would gain by suffering for the faith, and therefore would not abscond. He was committed to Hereford gaol, ordered up to London, and thence back to Hereford. In this last journey he suffered terribly from a painful malady, which necessitated him riding sideways. In prison he was frequently visited by Captain Scudamore's children, and he gave them many good things, their father being, he said, his best friend. On the scaffold he said, " It will be expected I should say something; but as I am an old man it cannot be much. Not having any concern in the plot, neither believing there is any, I die only for the old Roman Catholic religion, which first made England Christian, and whosoever would be saved must die therein. I beg pardon of all I have offended, and forgive those that have caused my death." From the local tradition that he smoked on his long walk to the gallows, the last pipe of the evening has been called the "Kemble pipe."

" Old age is a crown of dignity when it is found in the ways of justice."—PROV. xvi. 31.

Blessed NICHOLAS POSTGATE, Priest, 1679

THE WINGS OF A DOVE

Biography

Hunted about during the Oates persecution, he was at last arrested and condemned, not as a plotter, but for high treason as a priest. On the eve of his martyrdom at York came, with other visitors, Mrs. Charles Fairfax and Mrs. Meynel of Kilvington in great grief at taking leave of him. But the Confessor, bright and cheerful, laid his right hand on one and his left on the other and said, " Be of good heart, you shall both be delivered of sons, and they will be both saved." The two ladies gave birth to sons, who were baptised and died in infancy. In his weary hunted life he prayed as follows :—

And thus, dear Lord, I fly about In weak and weary case ; And, like a dove in Noe's Ark, I find no resting-place.

My weaned limbs, sweet Jesus, mark ; And when Thou thinkest best, Stretch forth Thy hand out of the ark And take me to Thy breast.

The new Mission of Pickering is a memorial of the Martyr's ministry.

" Who will give me wings like a dove, and I will fly and be at rest."—Ps. liv. 7.

Blessed NICHOLAS POSTGATE, Priest, 1679

THE INNER LIFE

Biography

BORN in Yorkshire of parents great sufferers for the faith, he returned from Douay to the English Mission, June 1630. He laboured in his native county and converted hundreds from sin and heresy. With all his active work he led the life of a solitary in a hut on Blackamoor, which is thus described by a contemporary :—

Nor spared they Father Posket's blood, A reverend priest, devout and good, Whose spotless life in length was spun To eighty years and three times one. Sweet his behaviour, grave his speech, He did by good example teach. His love right bent, his will resigned, Serene his look and calm his mind ; His sanctity to that degree As Angels live, so lived he.

A thatched cottage was the cell Where this contemplative did dwell, Two miles from Mulgrave Castle 't stood,
Sheltered by snow-drifts, not by wood. Tho' there he lived to that great age It was a dismal hermitage, But God placed there the Saint's abode For Blackamoor's greater good.

" You are dead and your life is hid with Christ in God."—COL. iii. 3.