Henry Beste - Four Years in France

Eight and twenty years ago, when I became a catholic, I was told that I owed it, both to those whom I had joined, and to those whom I had quitted, to publish something in defence of the step I had taken. I answered, that the former had better apologists, and the latter better instructors than myself. My advisers were protestants, who, having thus defied any arguments I might by possibility adduce against them, were contented with my refusal of the challenge.

Even at this day I consider as utterly superfluous a serious refutation of protestantism, or a laboured vindication of the catholic faith, and, by consequence, of my conversion to it. Some account of this change in my opinions is prefixed to the book now offered to the public, in the hope of removing the prejudices with which the book may be read, or, what would be still worse, through which it may not be read at all. It is not my intention to enter into controversy, but merely to state how the thing happened that I turned papist at the moment when the pope was a prisoner at Valence, when Rome was in possession of the French armies, and all around me cried out "Babylon is fallen."

I must first ask pardon of the Anglican clergy, for having engaged in the service of their church so lightly and unadvisedly. If I am blamed only by those who have taken, on this matter, better pains than myself to be well informed, I shall not be overwhelmed by the number of my censurers; for the solidity of the ground of the Reformation is usually taken for granted: popery is exploded.

Indeed, I have found the clergy of the establishment to be the most tolerant and moderate of my opponents. Some of them expressed their regret, some smiled, but most of them respected my motives, and none were angry. The Bishop, now of Winchester, approved of my acting according to the dictates of my conscience; said that my conduct was evidently disinterested; expressing only his surprise, that a man of sense, as he was pleased to say he understood me to be, should be so convinced. Such was the purport of his lordship's observations, which was, as probably it was intended, repeated to me. His brother, Precentor of Lincoln, continued still to be my very good friend and neighbour.

A few years later, the ex-governor of – said, in speaking of me, – "I knew his father well; a very worthy man: but this young man, they tell me, has taken an odd turn; but I will return his visit when I get out again." He did not, however, get out again: he had been ill for some days; feeling himself dying, he called for a glass of wine and water, drank it off, returned the glass to his servant, shook the man by the hand, and saying kindly, "Good b'ye, John!" threw himself back in his bed and expired, at the age of more than fourscore years. Here was no odd turn ; the coolness with which his excellency met the grim king, was generally admired. But I am making a long Preface to a short Work; I must begin with my infancy, for reasons which the story of that infancy will explain.

I was born on the 21st October, 1768. My father was prebendary of the cathedral church of Lincoln, as his father had been before him. My grandfather's prebend was a very good, or, as they say, a very fat one; my father's prebend was but a lean one, but he had sense enough to be a doctor in divinity, whereas my grandfather had sense enough not to be a doctor in divinity. They both rest behind the high altar of the cathedral with their wives.

So accustomed are we to a married clergy, that we are not at all surprised to see them, during life, with their wives and children; and in death it is perfectly decent that the husband and wife should repose together. All this is natural and in order, to those who are used to it. But the feeling of catholics on this subject is very different. The story of the poor seminarist of Douay, in the 17th century, is an instance: he went to England on a visit to his friends; on his return to the seminary, he was asked "Quid vidisti?" He mentioned what had most excited his astonishment: "Vidi episcopos, et episcopas, et episcopatulos." A French emigrant priest entered my house one day, bursting with laughter: "Why do you laugh, M. l'Abbé?" said I. – "I have just met the Rev. Mr. – with the first volume of his theological works in his arms." – "What is there to laugh at in that?" – "He was carrying the eldest of his children," – "La coutume fait tout," said I: "you see the Rev. Mr. – is not ashamed." Marriage is allowed to the priests, though not to the bishops of the Greek church. I think the catholic discipline is the best. The merriment of M. l'Abbé was excited, I am inclined to believe, not so much by a sense of the incongruous and ridiculous in the very natural scene he had just before witnessed, as by his own joke – "le premier tome de ses œuvres théologiques."

My father's house, in which I was born, was so near the cathedral, that my grandmother, good woman! when confined to her chamber by illness, was wont, with her Anglican translation of the Bible, and Book of Common Prayer on the table, before her, to go through the service along with the choir, by the help of the chant and of the organ, which she heard very plainly. From my earliest years, my mother took me regularly every Sunday to the cathedral service, in which there is some degree of pomp and solemnity. The table at the east end of the church is covered with a cloth of red velvet: on it are placed two large candlesticks, the candles in which are lighted at even-song from Martinmas to Candlemas, and the choir is illumined by a sufficient number of wax tapers. The litanies are not said by the minister in his desk, but chanted in the middle of the choir, from what I have since learned to call a prie-Dieu . The prebendary in residence walks from his seat, preceded by beadles, and followed by a vicar or minor canon, and proceeds to the altar; the choir, during this sort of processional march, chanting the Sanctus . This being finished, and the prebendary arrived at the altar, he reads the first part of the Communion Service, including the Ten Commandments, with the humble responses of the choir; he then intones the Nicene Creed, during the music of which he returns to his seat with the same state as before. Here are disjectœ membra ecclesiœ : no wonder that the puritans of Charles the First's time called for a "godly, thorough reformation." At even-song , instead of the Antiphon to the Blessed Virgin, which is, of course, rejected, though the Magnificat is retained, with its astonishingly-fulfilled prophecy of the carpenter's wife, "all generations shall call me blessed;" at vespers was sung an anthem, generally of the composition of Purcell, Aldrich, Arne, or of some of the composers of the best school of English music.

Removed afterwards to St. Mary Magdalen College, Oxford, I found, in a smaller space, the same ceremonial; nay, the president even bowed to the altar on leaving the chapel, without any dread lest the picture of Christ bearing the Cross, by Ludovico Caracci, should convict him of idolatry. Here we all turned towards the altar during the recital of the Creed; at Lincoln this point of etiquette was rather disputed among the congregation: my mother always insisted on my complying with it; I learned to have a great respect for the altar. Whence this tendency of my mother's religious opinions or feelings was derived, is now to be told.

She was daughter of Kenelm Digby, Esq. of North Luffenham, in the county of Rutland. A younger brother of this ancient family, in the reign of Edward IV. became the progenitor of this branch, which, illustrated by the names and the fame of Sir Everard and Sir Kenelm Digby, adhered to the religion of our forefathers down to the time of my maternal grandfather: he was the first protestant of his family: he had married a protestant: he died while my mother was very young, but she was able to remember his leading her one day to the private burial vault, which had been, at the Reformation, consecrated for the use of the family in a retired part of the garden, and in which he was soon after deposited himself. His abjuration does not seem to have carried with it that of all his relations, at least not immediately or notoriously; for, on the approach of Prince Charles Edward, in 1745, when my mother was about twelve years old, the horses and arms of the family were provisionally taken from them, as being suspected papists: a precaution not unreasonable if their wishes were considered; for the children, as my mother told me, ran about the house, singing Jacobite songs, among which the following may vie, in poetical merit, though not in political effect, with the memorable Lilleburlero: