Blessed JOHN DUCKETT, Priest, 1644

TO SAVE OTHERS

HE was taken, in company with two Catholic laymen, as he was going to baptize two children on the Feast of the Visitation, July 2. His captors, the Parliament soldiers, carried him before a committee of the Sequestrators at Sunderland. He declined to answer as to his priesthood and demanded proof, but was committed to prison by reason of the Holy oils and books found on h

im. Again examined, and again refusing to inculpate himself, he was threatened with lighted matches placed between his fingers to make him confess what he was. This availing nothing he was sent back to prison. After an hour he was again called, and found his two companions on the point of being shipped and sent away, merely because he would not confess who he was. " Seeing this," he says, " and also fearing that the Catholics of the neighbourhood who knew me might suffer, and especially those with whom I lived, I confessed myself to free them and the country." His self-sacrifice was successful, and seemed an inspiration from Heaven. No more inquiry was made after his friends, but Father Duckett was sent up to London in company with Father Corby, a Jesuit, who was taken in these parts as he was going up to the altar to say Mass.

" If therefore ye seek Me, let these go their way."—JOHN xviii. 8.

Venerable RALPH CORBY, SJ and Venerable JOHN DUCKETT, Priest, 1644

THE KISS OF PEACE

HAVING each refused to be spared at the cost of the other's life, they were sentenced to death, and returned with joy to prison, there to wait. V. Corby wrote: " For that holy and happy Saturday (September 7), which is the vigil of her glorious Nativity, by whose holy intercession I hope to be born again to a new and everlasting life." Their last day and the whole ensuing night was spent in prayer, fasting, watching, and in spiritual conferences with those who came to confess and to hear their last Mass. Amongst these were the Duchess of Guise and the French envoy. Father Corby in his last Mass appeared to be overwhelmed with an agony of sadness and fear. At length the cloud passed, and his joy returned. They went out to suffer with their tonsures shaved, the one in his Jesuit's habit, the other in his priest's cassock. At the gallows Father Duckett made no speech, but told an heretical minister that he had not come hither to be taught his religion, but to die for it. After a short discourse from Father Corby, the two confessors turned to each other. Together they had been arrested, supported each other by their mutual courage and self-sacrifice, and with a last most loving embrace they together received their eternal crown.

" Salute one another in a holy kiss; all the saints salute you."—2 COR. xiii. 12.

Venerable RALPH CORBY, Jesuit and Venerable JOHN DUCKETT, Priest, 1644

HOLY RIVALRY

Biographies of Ralph Corby and John Duckett

RALPH CORBY, alias Darlington, was born near Dublin of English parents, natives of Durham, whothat both parents and children entered into religion : the father and his three sons into the Society of Jesus, the mother and her daughters into the Order of St. Benedict. After twelve years' hard work, notwithstanding continuous ill-health, among the poorer Catholics in Durham, he was arrested and sent up to London with Father Duckett. They were escorted from Westminster to Newgate by a company of Parliament soldiers, with a captain at their head, beating drums and firing off their muskets through the crowded streets, as if they had been the enemy's generals taken in war as in the old Roman battles. In prison the life of one of them could have been saved by an exchange made for a prisoner in the hand of the Emperor of Germany. The offer was first made to Father Corby, who declined it on the ground that Father Duckett, being younger, could do more work than himself; but he in his turn refused it with thanks, as Father Corby's life, on account of his experience, was of greater value.

had gone over to Ireland for the free exercise of their religion. The piety of the family is sufficiently attested by the fact

" Behold what manner of charity the Father hath bestowed upon us."—1 JOHN iii. 1.

+ Blessed JOHN DUCKETT, Priest, 1644

THE CONTEMPLATIVE WAY

Biography

OF an old Yorkshire family, he entered Douay and was so much addicted, the Diary says, to mental prayer, that while he was yet a student he was known to pass whole nights in those heavenly communications. Being both humble and discreet, before going on the English Mission he conferred at Paris with some very spiritual persons on his way of prayer, of which they approved, though what passed between his soul and God was so sublime that they owned it was above their comprehensions. For further security against delusions, to which contempla-tives are often exposed, he placed himself under the direction of the Prior of the Carthusians at Newport (for the earlier history of this house), and spent two months in preparing himself by spiritual exercises for the conversion of souls. His mission was in the diocese of Durham, where he had been about a year when he was arrested, tried, and condemned. On hearing his sentence his countenance, which was naturally pale, became in a manner angelical, and his cheeks a beautiful colour, which continued till death. That this expression of outward joy proceeded from his heart, we learn from his letters. " Ever since I was a priest," he writes, " I did much fear to live, but nothing fear to die."

" This is my rest for ever and ever ; here will I dwell, for I have chosen it."—Ps. cxxxi. 14.