T is not, my brethren, a temporal pros

Iperity that is to

avoid the ways of sinners and meditate continually on the law of God. All things which they do shall indeed prosper, but in that higher sense in which the inspired apostle assures us, that "for those who love God, all things work together unto good." (Rom. viii, 28.) The lot of the truly religious man may be obscurity and affliction; it may be disappointment in all his earthly hopes still "the light of God's countenance shines upon him;" he is advancing in the path of Christian perfection; his soul abounds in spiritual riches, and, growing daily in favor with his heavenly Father, is daily more and more adorned with heavenly graces. Truly, therefore, is he “like a tree planted near the running waters," I which hides its abundant fruit beneath its luxuriant foliage.

But, my brethren, there is a kind of temporal prosperity, which the greatest saints have prized and coveted, and which we all regard as a mark of divine approbation. I mean success in great undertakings begun for God's sake alone, and carried on through purest zeal for his glory, amidst continual sacrifices and self-denials, in the spirit of humble piety and incessant prayer. The Xaviers, the Ignatii, the Vincents of Paul, in their stupendous efforts to gain souls to Christ and benefit mankind, were animated by a hope that the divine blessing would prosper all their labors. The apostles, bearing the triumphant standard of Christianity from land to land, did not fail to sing canticles of victory to their heavenly leader, and as, when they were scourged by the Jews, "they rejoiced that they were accounted worthy to suffer reproach for the

name of Jesus" (Acts v, 41), so, when thousands were converted by their preaching, they gave thanks to God, who crowned their ministry with such success. This kind of prosperity is given to none but the chosen servants of God. Our divine Redeemer intimates it when he says to the twelve, "I have chosen you and have appointed you, that you should go and should bring forth fruit, and that your fruit should remain.” (John xv, 16.)

Now, my brethren, called together by a common feeling of gratitude towards a common benefactor, lift up your eyes, look round about and tell me what you see! what but monuments of the pure religious zeal of Bishop Dubois clearly marked with the seal of divine benediction? Who reared to the honor of Almighty God the temple in which you are now assembled? Who set it beautifully on the mountain's brow, to crown our sacred hill, as with a diadem of glory? From this lofty height, enjoying a magnificent prospect which expands and elevates the soul,—with half of Maryland stretched before you, and a large part of Pennsylvania, and something of Virginia too, tell me who has done most for the welfare, above all, the spiritual welfare of those who have pitched their tents upon the mountain's side, or in its fertile vallies, or on the plain below? Who adorned our neighborhood with that noble collegiate edifice? Who raised up in the tangled forest that abode of science and letters? Who dedicated to the muses that crystal spring gushing in wild music from the rock. Who taught the wilderness to bloom as a garden, and converted the rude forest into a paradise, in which study and piety might, like twin angels, walk hand

in hand, and from which it might be hoped that the tempting serpent of worldly dissipation would be effectually excluded? Who established that nursery of the American Church, from which so many priests and bishops have gone forth,-pastors according to God's own heart,-men whose talents, learning, and piety have reflected lustre on their Alma Mater, and rendered Mount St. Mary's "a bright and venerable name?" Who gave a still more enviable celebrity to St. Joseph's valley, and, like the prophet smiting the rock at Horeb, caused a perennial fountain of charity to gush forth, that the poor orphan might not, for want of the well-springs of religious benevolence, perish of thirst in the arid desert of human society? Who gave mothers to the motherless,-tender nurses to the destitute sick,meek-eyed, soft-toned sisters to calm the raving maniac, and govern by gentleness and sweet affection the darkened being whom reason has ceased to rule? Who prepared and formed those Christian heroines, ready at any moment to fly to the seat of contagion, there to hover, like guardian angels, around the suffering and dying,-soothing every sorrow, relieving every pain, inspiring confidence by their calm intrepidity, inspiring piety by their beautiful example, inspiring the guilty soul with contrition and the despairing with hopes of mercy, and breathing their own faith, and charity, and humble trust into the spirit trembling on the verge of eternity? Who, in a word, nurtured the institution of the Sisters of Charity from helpless infancy up to a strong and flourishing maturity? What one man, I ask, has in this our day, and in our country done most for the good of souls, most for the relief of human misery, most for the benefit of society? You are all ready with one voice to answer: It is Bishop Dubois, the father of St. Joseph's, the founder of Mount St. Mary's. Yes, he was that "blessed man," of whom the psalmist speaks. He was "like the tree, planted by the running waters and bringing forth fruit in due season." All things whatsoever he did, were fertilized by the dews of heaven, were watered from the fountains of divine grace, and prospered under the blessing of the Most High God.

To us particularly, my brethren, his religious zeal was a fountain of blessings; and now that he hath gone to rest in the bosom of his Lord, like pious children who have lost a beloved and venerated father, let us seek consolation in the remembrance of his virtues, and strengthen all our good resolutions by the argument of his edifying example.

In

The ways of God are indeed mysterious, and admirable are the designs of his mercy, and beautiful it is to trace, where light is given us to do so, their progress and development. A foreigner, flung by the tempest of an impious and bloody revolution on our hospitable shores, boldly undertakes, with none of the ordinary means and no human prospect of success, and happily achieves the most important works of benevolence: a friendless stranger flying from the wrath of his brethren beyond the Atlantic, adopting customs and institutions quite new and strange, and lisping a language unknown to his youth, becomes the benefactor of the country which adopts him; as Joseph, sold into captivity, a sojourner in the land of Cham, received from Egypt's sons the glorious name of "Saviour." studying the history of the good man, whose example it is my duty to unfold to you, I behold indeed a chosen instrument of Divine Providence; but I also behold the noble portrait which the royal psalmist has drawn with a skilful hand, of him who is truly pious, and therefore truly blessed,— one who flies the company of sinners, who gives all his affections to the law of God and meditates on it both day and night, that, knowing his heavenly Father's will, he may more and more perfectly accomplish it ;-one who, in reward for this fidelity of mind and heart, in the midst of "an unbelieving and perverse generation," is inspired with high resolves and great designs, is endowed with vigor, fortitude and perseverance to execute them, and favored with manifest signs of divine protection in the signal success of his undertakings.

Mr. Dubois was born in Paris on the 24th day of August, in the year 1764. His parents were respectable, and appear to have been in easy circumstances. They knew,

that "it is good for a man to have borne the yoke from his youth" (Lament. iii, 27): they knew that if you train up a young man in the way in which he should walk, “even when he is old, he will not depart from it." (Prov. xxii, 6.) They were therefore, or rather his prudent mother (for he lost his father when very young) was especially careful to implant in his tender breast the seeds of every virtue. From the character of the man we learn the principles instilled into the soul of the child. He was educated at the college of Louis le Grand,—a college, which has given to France so many of her most illustrious sons, and which contributed to form the character of him, who longest remained among us, as a grand and beautiful specimen of that august assembly, which decreed our national independence. Among his preceptors were the famous poet, the Abbé Delille, and the Abbé Proyart, author of the life of Decalogne. The memory of that saintly youth, whose example, faithfully pictured in this little volume, has led so many students to give to God the flower of their days, was then so reverenced and cherished, that the greatest mark of confidence and affection, which the directors of the college could bestow on a deserving pupil, was to give him, at the opening of studies, the place which Decalogne had occupied. This honor was conferred on the young Dubois, and so highly appreciated by him, that even in old age, when his silvery locks gave dignity to all his words, he could not mention it without tears of joy and gratitude. In the examples of his professors and of many among his fellowstudents, he found encouragement to the practice of every virtue; yet in the same school, and on the same forms with this pious youth, were some, who were soon to reach a bad pre-eminence and act a conspicuous part in the bloody tragedy, which his country was preparing to exhibit to the astonished and affrighted world. There, side by side, you might have seen John Dubois and Camille Des Moulins, the frantic instigator of the savage and ferocious mobs of Paris! or stranger still, the meek, benevolent founder of Mt. St. Mary's and protector of St. Joseph's, in contact with the

most execrable monster that France gave birth to even in the wild throes of her guilty revolution, the blood-thirsty Robespierre! "I shall never forget," Mr. Dubois was wont to say to his collegiate pupils, "I shall never forget the looks and manners of him, who afterwards proved such a monster of ferocity he was unsocial, solitary, gloomy, his head was restless, his eyes wandering, and he was a great tyrant towards his younger and weaker companions. I could literally apply to him," added this good old president, "the account, which St. Gregory Nazianzen gives of his fellow-student at Athens, Julian, the apostate. We might

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even then have exclaimed with this saint: What a monster our country is bringing up in this youth!" Between such fellow-students there could be no community of feeling. The one "walked in the counsel of the ungodly, and stood in the way of sinners, and sat in the chair of pestilence:" the other centred his will in the law of God, and made it his delight to learn and keep its precepts and imbibe its spirit. The one became the bloody scourge of his country: the other, the benefactor of ours. The one spoke the language of philosophy and philanthropy, and then filled France with widows and orphans: the other preached the gospel of charity, and dried the widow's tears and gave mothers to the orphans. The instrument and emblem of the one was the guillotine of the other, the cross of Christ.

Of Mr. Dubois' success in his collegiate studies, I know little more than that he took the prize in Latin poetry, and among many useful acquisitions, made himself thoroughly acquainted with the noble Roman language, which he afterwards wrote with ease and elegance. His parents had destined him for the army; but his Father in Heaven called him to a more honorable service and a better warfare. Listening to the voice, which bade him "deny himself and take up his cross and follow his Redeemer" (Matt. xvi, 24), he resolved to consecrate himself entirely to God, and entered on his ecclesiastical studies in the seminary of St. Magloire, under the direction of the Oratorians. Here his time was altogether devoted to the ac

quisition of that knowledge and the formation of those habits, which, like the columns of a majestic temple, are at once the supports and ornaments of the priestly character. From this time forth, his delight was wholly in the law of God, and on it he meditated day and night. In this calm retreat he laid the solid foundations of that beautiful edifice of Christian perfection, which all his life long it was his care to complete and adorn. Here he learned to regard himself as “a miserable sinner," the title, by which he loved to characterize himself, in his confidential communications with his pious friends. Here he acquired that ardent zeal and patient self-denial, which made him ever afterwards willing "to spend and be spent for souls, that he might gain them to Christ." (2 Cor. xii, 15.) Here he learned to live entirely by faith, that firm, unwavering faith, which does not deign to watch the flitting shadows of this life, but steadily contemplates those things, which though invisible to the eye of flesh, are alone substantial and eternal. (2 Cor. iv, 18.) Here piety grew up and flourished in his soul, and his heart was turned entirely to God and received all the sweet influences of divine grace, as the flower opens its bosom to the morning sun and catches the nurturing dews of heaven. He found kindred spirits among his brother seminarians, and with several of them contracted an intimate and lasting friendship ;-with two particularly, whom he esteemed and loved until they were called away before him to receive the crown of their labors,—the Abbé McCarthy, who after the revolution became the first pulpit orator of France, whose eloquence in recommending virtue was surpassed only by his fidelity in practising it, whose fame is a bright gem even in the diadem of the illustrious society of Jesus ;-and Cardinal Cheverus, the most beloved of pastors, the most amiable of men, who in Boston wrung the highest praise from bigotry itself.

Ordained priest before the canonical age, by a dispensation, on the 22d of September in the year 1787, he first exercised the holy ministry in the parish of St. Sulpice in his native city, and was one of the chaplains of a vast establishment in the Rue de Sevre, in

VOL. II.-No. 5.

which the sisters of charity had the care of a large number of insane patients and destitute orphans. But the revolution had begun, and the clergy were among its first victims. The archbishop of Paris, whose esteem and confidence were justly given to the young priest, had fled to Germany for shelter from the storm. The constitutional oaths, which could not be taken in conscience, were tendered and refused, and the firm independence of Mr. Dubois had rendered him especially obnoxious to the impious miscreants, who were grasping with bloody hands the powers of government. Like the great body of his clerical brethren, he preferred exile or death itself to any criminal compliance. Acquainted with the family of La Fayette, he obtained from him, not only a passport, but also letters of introduction to some of the leading men of the United States, and quitting Paris in disguise in May, 1791, he made his escape to Havre, accompanied by a trusty servant, and landed at Norfolk, in Virginia, in the following July. Bishop Carroll welcomed the faithful exile, and authorized him to exercise the functions of his holy ministry, first at Norfolk and afterwards at Richmond. Recommended by General La Fayette to the Randolphs, Lees, and Beverleys, to James Monroe and Patrick Henry, he received the kindest and most respectful attentions from these distinguished statesmen and their numerous friends, and for want of a Catholic chapel, said mass in the capitol, and there administered the sacraments to the few scattered Catholics, who could avail themselves of his ministry. This liberality, which even at the present day will appear astonishing, is still more surprising, when it is remembered, that his immediate predecessor in the pastorship of Frederick, Father Frambach, was obliged to disguise himself, when he visited the Catholics of Virginia, was in imminent danger the whole time, commonly on such occasions slept in the stable beside the beast that he rode, and once at least was so hotly pursued, that, had it not been for the fleetness of his horse, he would have been overtaken and killed before he reached the Potomac and found safety on the Maryland shore. Mr. Dubois supported

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