Harriet Starr Cannon, first mother superior of the Sisterhood of St. Mary

Front matter

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA.

HARRIET STARR CANNON

J A-

I. Preujdk

OF all the views on the line of the Hudson River, none, perhaps, is more striking than that presented at the point where the stream, escaping from the compression of the Highlands, expands into the broad inland lake known from old time as the Tappan Sea. Through the mountain range, cloven ages ago by some vast glacial movement or convulsion of nature, the impatient waters have forced a passage, until, as if with a sensation of relief, they pour down upon the level land, catching, perhaps, the first sound of welcome from the ocean towards which they now draw rapidly and joyously forward. The scene at the point referred to arrests and charms the eye. On the right hand, like an outer bastion, stands a great round- topped mountain ; to the left, where the shore is indented by a deeply recessed bay, appears the village of Peekskill shut in by defending hills. The ridge to the north of that village lifts a dense foliage into the air ; and above the masses of maples, cedars, and chestnuts, may be descried what seems to be the bell tower of some church or chapel hidden from sight and crowning the plateau. The structure to which the tower belongs, and whatever other buildings may be there, remain invisible until the traveller has climbed the heights on which they stand, and passed through a wide gateway into an enclosure of some fifty or sixty acres presenting as he advances one object after another apt to fix the attention. A broad avenue commands the prospect over the low country, the valley in which the village stands, and the inland lake ; one building after another is reached and passed, until the chapel is disclosed to which the tower belongs. Built on the rock of the plateau, itself as it were a part of the ledge, it reminds one of the church at Assisi, having, like that, an upper and a lower church, the former spacious and of noble proportions, the latter a mortuary chapel, where the Offices of the Dead are statedly sung, and to which the bodies of the faithful departed are taken to await the time of burial. Beyond, as he advances, the traveller sees to the right buildings of large size, half hidden by the trees;

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and, first, the school known as St. Gabriel's, from whose door it is probable that a troop of merry girls may come fluttering forth, taking their way to favourite woodland paths for recreation; still further appears the outline of the great Mother House of the Community of St. Mary, where dwell the head of the Order, some twenty Professed Sisters and Minors, and a score at least of Novices. If now the pilgrim to this home of religion, art, and letters, leaving the Chapel on his right hand, should walk some distance northward, he will come to a level field, or dell, surrounded by rocky heights, the resting-place of some who have passed beyond these earthly lights and shadows. The grass-grown mounds which break the surface of the ground are without headstone, name, or inscription ; on each is a simple cross ; nothing indicates what traveller may here have reached the end of the journey, what weary frame is sleeping here in the peace of God ; nor need this be known, save to the Community, as one by one their dead are brought here to burial.* But

* Since writing this paragraph, I am informed that Mr. Le Grand Cannon of New York has made arrangements to erect a cross in the cemetery at St. Gabriel's, as a memorial to his kinswoman, to bear her name and an appropriate inscription.

it may be questioned whether anywhere else on earth a deeper impression of the restfulness of holy death is made upon the thoughtful observer. All is still; no sound of the outer world disturbs this repose; the trees wave in the wind; the cliffs look down upon the place; lights and shadows fall, in course, across it as days and nights come and go; a woodpath leading from the side of the convent passes on to a point whence may be seen the great river flowing steadily towards the sea ; not far away is a grove of pines, where, of a summer evening, the wanderer may rest, and see beyond him the military camp-ground of the State, and hear at sunset the call of the bugle and the evening gun. The sleeping place, to which we now return, seems fitted above all others for the rest of those daughters of our I^ord, who having finished their course in faith, and having left there what of them could die, now expect the resurrection of the dead and the life of the world to come. It is not to be wondered at that, now and then, one trained at St. Gabriel's for her life work, and finding the end at hand in some far-off region, has longed for her own place among those sleepers, and asked, earnestly, that her body might be taken home and laid beside her sisters in the much-loved spot.

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In that cemetery at St. Gabriel's, on the 9th day of April, 1896, it being the Thursday in Baster week, there was committed to the ground the mortal body of one of the noblest and most remarkable women of our day; a body once the earthly tabernacle of a vigorous mind, a clear intellect, a resolute will, and a great heart full of love to God and man. The world knows little of her and cares less; her life work was not that which this generation applauds; the object for which she lived makes no appeal to the restless spirits of our day; but if ever God's work has been done well and faithfully it was so done by that active brain, that devoted heart, those hands that never tired, those feet which trod for forty years the path of close and closer walk with the Iyord. As if by His special and most gracious mandate, she was called out of this world on Easter Day ; at half-past three in the afternoon the exodus was made; four days later the precious body was committed to the ground, in the midst of those nearest and dearest to her on the earth, a great number of sisters, associates, priests, and devoted friends assisting at the solemn action. After the due performance of the Rites of the Church, in long procession, carried on the shoulders of four priests, followed by her spiritual children, and by many clergy from our own and distant dioceses, she was borne to the grave. It was remarked, and none could fail to notice, that the season, which had been backward, seemed to have changed suddenly; the voice of the springtide and the first prophecy of summer were in the air ; the sun shone brilliantly on the little procession; light breezes stirred the trees; and, for the first time that year, the birds began to sing, as if joyfully praising the L,ord. Unseen forms must have been also in attendance; visitants from another realm, to whose presence may have been due some of that impression of awe and wonder with which we withdrew from the scene.

And now that all is over on this side, and now that she has been received out of our sight, it has been felt that some memorial, some written record, should be prepared of greater length than those which have already appeared in the journals of the day, commemorative of that life. This seems desirable for many reasons; as a tribute to the woman who was with us once as a burning and a shining light; as a statement of the motives of her action during a long and memorable life; as a record of the results of the indomitable energy with which she wrought, and the reward of patience and faith conceded to her lov-

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Ing service ; as a history of the varied experience, through which, in evil report and good report, in reproaches, misunderstandings, and opposition, she steadily pursued her way ; as a gift to those of the Community founded by her, which may serve for reminder, encouragement, and warning, as they carry on the work which throve so wonderfully under wise and strong leadership, and now devolves on them the weight of an unspeakably grave responsibility. Such purposes might a memoir serve which was all that it should be; therefore the writer could wish that the task of preparing it had been laid on some one more worthy than he. There are men and women in the Church far better fitted for this undertaking, though in one point he yields to none of them ; in his devotion to that blessed memory, his appreciation of that mission of which she was the apostle, his profound reverence for the manner in which her work was accomplished, his earnest desire that every thought of hers respecting it may be fulfilled. It is nearly a quarter of a century since, as Pastor of the Sisterhood of St. Mary, he knew, in the sacred intimacy of the priestly office, all that its Superior was planning, desiring, suffering. Others, since that distant day, have done the work which he was compelled to lay down, but the afterglow is bright on the skies behind us, and through that light it may be given him to write down something apt to help and teach, to remind those who were then her companions, to help those who shall come after.

' ' So be it : there no shade can last In that deep dawn beyond the tomb : And bright from marge to marge shall bloom The eternal landscape of the past."

We move, like shadows, between a past full of visions and dreams of good, and a future where in substance these visions and dreams are to turn to unchanging realities in the heavenly city.

II. Birth And Early Years

SO now let us take our work in hand, and show what God wrought, in one consecrated life, in those seventy-four years, between 1822 and 1896. What years they have been, whether we look upon them from the secular side or from the precincts of the Kingdom of Heaven ! How strong the contrast between the action of the Spirit of God in souls and hearts reverent of the truth, and aiming at union with Him and fulfilment of His will, and the working of the Spirit of the Age, in souls equally in earnest but misled by the chimeras of the day and dreaming of progress apart from religion! We have seen, and are now seeing, strange sights ; revolts and revolutions, the phantasmagoria of experiment, the agitation caused by morbidly sensitive and nervous men and women, crazed by excitement, and stimulated by the wish for the 9 impossible: and this we recognize as the work of the Zeit Geist. On the other hand we see a revival of the life hidden with Christ in God : fruits of divine charity; building on a sure foundation; help meet for a world which lives in God and cannot get away from God: plainly the work of that I^ord whom it is light and joy to follow and sin unpardonable to reject and deny. My story is that of a woman's life, led in the grace of the Gospel, and growing from more to more; a woman who turned her talents to account for the Master of the house; who exalted the ideal of true womanhood; who saw, first and always, the overruling Providence which guides the course of time, who was reverent of the Supernatural, and strong in that faith which is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. Had it been possible for such a thought to pass through her humble mind, she might have appropriated to herself the saying of the Ever Blessed, ' ' For He that is mighty hath magnified me : and holy is His Name."

My story begins with that of the Cannon family, of which the progenitor emigrated from France early in the 17th century. The Cannons were a family of rank and wealth, Huguenots by religion, and, for that reason, refugees; passing first into

BIRTH AND EARLY YEARS. II

Holland, thence to England, and thence to the Colony of New Netherland, into which they came about the year 1632. We have few details of their history for the first fifty years; no record can be traced of births and deaths, but if tradition may be trusted they held a high social position in the town and province. The first authentic record brings before us John Cannon, then known as "Jean Canon," a merchant in the city of New York in 1693. In 1697 he married Marie I,e Grand, daughter of Pierre I^e Grand; he resided in Pearl St. between State and Whitehall Sts., and carried on a large and prosperous business until 1720, when he was succeeded by his son John. L,e Grand Cannon, son of John, and grandson of the first John Cannon, a distinguished man of his day, resided for many years in Stratford, Conn., and died there in 1789. Further information on the subject of this family may be found in the New York Biographical and Genealogical Register, in Orcutt's work on Stratford, and in Valentine's Manual of the Common Council of New York for 1864, in which latter work, in a list of baptisms in the Dutch Church, 1697 to 1720, appear the names of several children of John (or Jan) Cannon. The names of Pintard and Schermerhorn also occur in this large connection. I have before me a drawing of the family coat-ofarms; the field has a figure of an artilleryman, in the costume of 150 years ago, applying a lighted fuse to an equally old-fashioned gun ; for a motto, the words, Firmior quo Paratior. An old family Bible containing records of the Cannon family was long in the possession of the late Reverend Mother Superior; she sent it, in 1892, to her kinsman I^e Grand B. Cannon, Esq., of 311 Fifth Avenue, New York. From a letter of his, acknowledging the gift, I am permitted to make the following extract :

" I duly received this morning (Dec. 15, 1892) your kind note announcing your Xmas present, and by special messenger your gift of the Old Family Bible, and also your photograph and Dr. Dix's letter.

1 ' I greatly prize the gift, as quite independent of its antiquity and family associations, the impulse which governed you in making me its inheritor and possessor enhances the value of the gift ; and for all this you have my earnest thanks.

' ' The condition that your own mortuary shall be the last record in the Bible will be observed if I survive, or the obligation transmitted to my son."

In the early part of this century in the city of Charleston, South Carolina, lived William Can-

BIRTH AND EARLY YEARS. 1 3

non and Sally his wife. Mr. Cannon was the son of I^ewis L,e Grand Cannon ; his wife, Sally Hinman, was the youngest daughter of Isaac Hinman. Two daughters were born to them, Catharine Ann, Sept. 23, 1821, and Harriet Starr, May 7,

1823. On or about the 24th day of November,

1824, both parents died at Charleston, of yellow fever, leaving the little girls helpless and all but alone among strangers. Fortunately, Capt. James Allen, brother-in-law of Mrs. Cannon, arrived in the port of Charleston about that time, on a trading voyage in his own sailing packet; having been advised of what had occurred, he found the children, living, but divested of everything that they possessed, and in a position of great danger. They were taken at once on board the vessel, and brought to Bridgeport, Conn., where they were gladly received by Mrs. Fowler, their aunt, a sister of their mother's, and taken to that home which was thenceforth theirs until they attained to womanhood.

The children received a good education, and were carefully brought up. Their attachment to each other appears to have been singularly strong and devoted. Harriet is described as a girl of lovable disposition, and attractive and charming manners, a general favourite, always bright and cheerful, making every place happy in which she appeared. She was a proficient in music, and gave lessons in that art to the children of her relatives and friends.

Time passed on; and in 1851 the elder sister Catharine was married to Mr. John Ruggles, and went out to California, to make her home on the Pacific coast. Her one desire appears to have been that Harriet, her beloved sister, should be with her; arrangements to that end were made, and all was ready when, only a week before her departure for the West, the fatal tidings came that Mrs. Ruggles was dead. This was in 1855. The blow overwhelmed the survivor of that devoted pair. It formed the crisis of her life. I/eft, as she felt herself to be, alone, her purposes defeated, her plans broken off, and herself free to take her own course in the world, she little knew that God, in the mysterious order of His Providence, was drawing her away from earthly ties, and nearer to Himself. Vocations are determined in many and diverse ways. Some go to God, from the unclouded brightness of happy morning hours ; some through the heavy shadow of sorrow; some after bitter trial of the instability of temporal things, and some without one painful memory to darken the retrospect. In this case it

BIRTH AND EARLY YEARS. 1 5

was intense sorrow which prompted action. The penumbra of that sorrow lay, for many years, upon the chastened soul. In a letter written thirty-one years afterwards, she recurs most touchingly to her bereavement. Writing from St. Gabriel's, June 28, 1886, to one of the Community, she says :

" I have your plaintive letter; and I feel that I know it all, that I understand it all ; at the same time I know that you are ready to learn the lesson God would have you to learn; that He has given the loneliness only that He may fill the void with a double portion of His Spirit. I can look back to one period of my life when I scarcely knew whether the sun rose or the sun set ; when for days there seemed to be no one in the world but myself. That time was, when God took to Himself my only sister, whom I loved with a love which words can hardly express, for she was my all. Having neither father nor mother nor brother, we were almost like one person. God had a purpose for me. Had she lived, I doubt if I could have had the courage to respond to His purpose. God in His good time will show you too what He would have you to do and to be, because of this voice."

In another letter she refers to the same subject, as dwelling on a life-long and vivid memory.

" Aug. 12, 1887. 1 1 My dearest Sister:

" A thousand thanks for your dear note. The day it reached me I was thinking of the events of fifty years ago, events brought to my mind by an invitation to be present at a ' Golden Wedding.' I remembered (I was just fourteen then) how I stood in a certain spot to witness the marriage ceremony. Oh how little do we know what our lives are to be ! We plan for one manner of life, while God plans for us altogether another plan of life. It is a great rest to me never to have doubted His will in my regard. It cannot be long now before I shall go to Him, before ' I shall see Him as He is.'

' 1 Ever lovingly yours,

" The Mother."

It may be inferred from these letters that some thought of a dedication of her life to the immediate service of God had been in the heart of this young girl; an idea yet crude, an immature purpose. But the crushing sorrow cleared up the matter; she saw her way, she took her course; she held it thenceforth, steadfastly, step by step, as the Spirit led on, even unto the end.

Assured, now, that the Lord had called her, she began to look about and consider how and where to find the means of obeying that summons. And here, in the record of her life, we come upon the

BIRTH AND EARLY YEARS. I?

figures of a man and a woman, noted in their day, who helped her, and left the impress of their influence upon her career. L,et us turn to them, and see how the strands of those three life histories were woven together, and how, later on, these faithful servants of the Master drifted apart, when the Divine purpose had been fulfilled.

III. First Kssay In A Sister's Ufe

AT the time of which I write the Church of the Holy Communion, on Sixth Avenue and Twentieth St., was one of the most important centres of Church work in the City of New York. Its Pastor was William Augustus Muhlenberg, of blessed memory, one of the great powers of his day. Dr. Muhlenberg may be said to have had at heart two things above all others : the extension of charitable work among the poor, and the restoration of visible unity among the Christian bodies around us and their unification in one Catholic Church. He was the founder of St. juke's Hospital, a magnificent monument to his memory, an institution which will be, to the end of time, associated with his name. The Church of which he was the Pastor, and which was built for him, was regarded, at that time, or rather somewhat before that time, with the same 18 apprehension with which people now look upon the ritualistic churches of our day ; it was the ' ' advanced ' ' parish of the moment. Dr. Muhlenberg loved the beautiful in the externals of religion ; music, architecture, ceremonial, and all that makes divine worship impressive. I have heard old men who were scholars of his at College Point long before he came to New York, describe the services in the chapel at that place, and tell how they used to hold their Christmas Matins at early dawn, the place fragrant with incense, the picture of the Madonna and Child above the altar decorated with flowers, and the service sung, with carol and chant, in I^atin.* There was much in all this to attract, delight, fascinate the ardent souls of the young, who no doubt imagined beneath this exterior some things which did not exist. For to say that Dr. Muhlenberg had his limitations is to say what might be said of most great and holy men. His theology was rather of the Lutheran than the Anglican type. In his devotion to the cause of Christian unity he might perhaps have taken down some defences which to others appear necessary to the safety of

* On the ritualism and services in the school, see " The Life of Dr. Muhlenberg," by Miss Anne Ayres, pages 18, 148.

our own Church. Beautiful as was the order of the services, he stopped short of the sacramental system as taught by the Oxford school; and he had no sympathy with views in advance of the point which he had reached in working out his own parochial, liturgical, and charitable ideal. I do not write this in disparagement of that noble soul, that great heart, but because the fact has a bearing on the story which I am telling, which will presently appear.

It was fitting and right for an ardent nature, filled with love for God and man, and seeking the way of complete dedication to our L,ord, to turn to William Augustus Muhlenberg as the one who might be supposed to know more about the ways and means thereto than any other man. It was, above all, natural for a woman like Harriet Starr Cannon to look to him, because he had already taken a new departure in the line of woman's work in the Church. It was a part of the original scheme of St. lake's Hospital, that the sick in its wards should be nursed by women consecrated by a religious motive and special obligations to the performance of that duty. Another jewel in the crown of that good man was that he gave the first impetus to the cause of Sisterhoods in our Church. He had already organized a little band of women for that purpose : regardless of the fears and prejudices of the time, he had boldly called them by the title of Sisters : the ' ' Sisterhood of the Holy Communion. ' ' As the work of the Hospital grew, recruits for these nursing sisters, or as we should now style them, Hospital Nurses, were in demand ; and devout women were readily and gladly admitted to the number. The principal spirit in this little band was Anne Ayres, ' ' Sister Anne," as she was called, a woman as remarkable in her way as the Pastor of the Holy Communion in his. Here then were all that Harriet Cannon needed : a place in the Church, a work to do among the poor and needy ; the supervision of a spiritual father ; the help and animating influence of a woman of undoubted sanctity and larger experience, as guide to the higher life. She made application and was kindly received. After some test she was enrolled in the Sisterhood : she writes (Feby. 7, 1888):

" Yesterday was the 6th of February; the 6th of February, 1856, was also Ash Wednesday. On that day I was received as a candidate for the Sisterhood of the Holy Communion, in the Oratory of the Sisters' House and by Dr. Muhlenberg; just 32 years ago, and I was then thirty-two years old."

On the Feast of the Purification, Feby. 2, 1857, she was admitted into full membership, in the new Sisterhood, and there, in the parish and in St. Luke's Hospital, she worked assiduously and lovingly for nearly seven years.*

The years thus spent brought practice and experience ; they brought something else, the impression, dawning dimly, growing slowly, but attaining finally to full conviction, that what Sister Harriet wanted she had not found, and was not in the way to find. She had, no doubt, from the first her own ideal of life work ; it could not be realized in the position in which she now found

* The following incident is related by Anne Ayres in the Life of Dr. Muhlenberg : it occurred in the Infirmary connected with the Church of the Holy Communion, when a malignant contagious disease had gained a foothold there : referring to Dr. Muhlenberg's frequent visits to the ward, she goes on to say :

"On one of these occasions he found a young probationary Sister, rocking, as he lay wrapped in a blanket within her arms, a little boy very ill with the loathsome disease. She was singing a hymn for him, and the poor child smiled as he looked up to her face, and forgot his pain and restlessness. Dr. Muhlenberg came down from the ward enamoured of the picture — 'The very ideal of a Sister of Charity.' It was Sister Harriet." (See p. 276 of the "Life.")

herself. The works of Christian charity do not lie on the same level, there are grades in that department of human activity as in all others ; ruder forms, and complete organisms towards which the lower naturally lead the way. From the woman of the world, who gives what of time she can spare from its pressing demands to some benevolent institution or charitable society; thence to the Bible reader or parish visitor, who, living on her modest little salary, devotes so many hours per diem to looking up and ministering to the poor of her district ; and on to the Deaconess, or member of the parochial Sisterhood who serves with a fuller consecration and yet with reservations ; step by step may women pass till they reach a point of unreserved surrender when the world and its concerns are left behind as completely as though they were dead to it and it was dead to them. Such progress will be accounted legitimate by the wise ; each grade has its own grace and merit ; yet some are lower and some higher ; there are here, as elsewhere, a first and a last. The highest point of all was that at which Sister Harriet was aiming ; like a dream of good it possessed her mind and soul. The idea of a life of complete and unconditional surrender to our L,ord, led by a number of women in community, bound to God by vow, and to each, other by a Rule, forming a family and a household, governing themselves, under the sanction of Church authority but holding no allegiance to earthly master, board, or trustee, or to any other but the Sovereign Himself ; realised in institutions for carrying on all works of mercy that woman can do, and living a retired, sacramental life, in abstinence, discipline, prayer, and constant worship : this was the end of aspirations and desires which nothing less could satisfy and fill.

Already such organizations could be seen, in England ; the great and growing communities at Clewer, East Grinstead, and elsewhere ; the thing was no dream but an accomplished fact ; why should not fruits of faith like these grow on our American vine ? That this ideal was not to be realized where she was, became year after year distinctly evident. Not that a person was wanting to lead such a movement. The remarkable woman who was known as ' ' First Sister ' ' in the Sisterhood of the Holy Communion had the qualities which fit for headship ; she might have made an Abbess, with iron will and hand. But Sister Anne Ayres had also her limitations ; her sympathies were not with those who desired to reproduce the Anglican, or, let us say, the Catholic, type of the Religious Community in this country and in our Church : her ideal of woman's work was of a less pronounced and more free type. In this respect also she was in accord with the man whom she venerated above all others in this world. Reading what she has written, we see the perfect harmony, the singular unity in view, opinion, and mode of action, between the head of the Sisterhood and the venerable priest who had founded it.* The Sisterhood of the Holy Communion, if it was to continue and grow, must grow on lines which they approved ; no one could serve there unless in accord with the two who had begun and would direct the movement. This was the position in which certain ladies found themselves who had joined it with different aspirations : they saw themselves barred out from the hope of realizing