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.