Golden bells in convent towers; the story of Father Samuel and Saint Clara, 1854-1904.

Preface

The first chapters of Father Mazzuchelli's Life Story, those recounting its incidents up to the time of his departure from Sinsinawa, are taken from his Memoirs. The succeeding chapters contain information gathered from note-books and documents preserved in the archives of St. Clara Convent.

To keep within the bounds of Hmited space, the compiler of this work has been forced to omit much interesting matter, but such as appears, either in Father Samuel's Story or that of St. Clara's Community, bears the stamp of truth and every statement can be authenticated.

" It is not what people say of me, but what I am, that counts," was the utterance of one of America's noblemen, under the stress of adverse public opinion irrationally expressed.

We may say of him whose biography is here given, it is what he was that counts, and hence we have made it our earnest aim and effort to modify even our natural and lawful enthusiasm, to exaggerate no event, to magnify no ability or virtue, but to portray the man of God as he really was, in so far as his words and deeds revealed him.

In the midst of his lonely labors among the Indians, of his pleasanter activities among the people of the Dubuque diocese, of his responsible duties as president of a college, the thoughtful reader will behold him displaying the sturdy greatness of the true man, the holy greatness of the true priest.

In his fidelity to the simple duties of parish priest in the little town of Benton, and in his unselfish devotedness to the Dominican Community he had instituted, the sympathetic reader will discover the nobility and tenderness of the true pastor of souls, and the high-mindedness of the true religious founder.

In whatever aspect any chapter of this book may present him, or in whatever light it may cause the reader to look upon

8 PREFACE

him, Father Samuel Mazzuchelli will be recognizable as a most interesting, admirable and lovable personality.

As for the brief history of the Dominican Community at Sinsinawa, which is here given, its most interesting parts must be read between the lines. Many a thrilling incident, many a weary struggle, many bitter trials and rigorous hardships, have not been mentioned, because cold print distorts such life-pictures and gives them a false perspective. And yet, it is just those parts of religious history that will be found inscribed on eternity's great record by an angel's hand, and that will be read by the Eternal Father through the crimson haze of the Precious Blood.

S. C. B.

St. Clara Convent,

Sinsinawa Mound, Wisconsin,

March 19, 1904. Feast of St. Joseph.

Introduction

THE SIGNIFICANCE OF THE TITLE

Since that dread hour when his intercourse with God in the Garden of Paradise ceased, and he lost his power of perfect expression, man has striven to multiply and to improve his methods of communication with his fellow-beings. Nature's mightiest forces have become the slaves of his impelling desire to convey his ideas and express his emotions to another, speedily and effectively.

It is man's craving for sympathy that creates the wish that what he feels shall be as readily and as impressively expressed as what he thinks. Language serves to conceal, rather than to express his thoughts, and fails altogether to manifest his stronger and deeper emotions.

Genius meets the difficulty in part by using other means of expression in place of language. The artist makes his emotional appeals to humanity through the medium of the canvas, the colors, and the brush, as the poet does by means of the lo INTRODUCTION

pen, while the musician accomplishes his purpose with the instrument which responds to his touch.

Of the three, the last is the most effective, for there is no emotion that music cannot excite, and none to which it cannot give, very nearly, an adequate expression. Hence it is that musical sounds, by whatever means produced, dominate the finer impulses and loftier powers of our emotional nature to a greater extent than does any other influence, aside from religion.

Among the instruments that give forth musical vibrations, for the delight of the ear and the awakening of the soul, we may include the bell ; but being possessed of neither the organ's quivering columns of air, nor the harp's trembling strings of varied quality, it is narrowed in the range of its appeal, and restrained as to the possibilities of its expression. For it there are no notes admitting of a multitude of harmonious combinations, and making possible a myriad of tone-effects, and yet, among the material forms wherein music is held captive, there is none having so great a range of associations as the bell. Its chief function, indeed, is to suggest to the mind that association of ideas which revives and recalls, reanimates and reincarnates, the fading, the forgotten, the dead and the ghostly things of memory's realm.

For centuries the tones of the bell^ as heard in song and in story, have thrilled the human heart with varied emotions. The tiny, tinkling bells of Oriental adornment, the chiming bells of tall minarets calling multitudes to prayer, the silver bells of my lady's bower, in palace gay or castle grim, and the golden bells of her steed's housings, or her falcon's hood, tell strange tales of dancing slave-girls, of wild fanatics, of stately lords and haughty dames. The solemn bells of cathedral spires and abbey towers tell nobler stories of the Church's sway ; of religion's benign mission; of the victories of faith; of virtue's triumph in kingly courts and on bloody battle-fields ; of glorious heroism on the throne and of sweet saintliness within the sanctuary.

Not only in story and in song have the bells their noted

INTRODUCTION ii

part, history likewise preserves their memory. In Mediaeval Ages, the bells announced the Truce of God, and called together the warriors of Europe to join the Crusades. In modern times, the tocsin of a massacre has pealed forth at the midnight hour, and bells have proclaimed the birthday of a great nation, the liberty of a brave people.

In the events of civil history and in political strife, the bell has taken its part with dignity and efficiency, but it is in the domain of religion that it has always had its noblest mission and its greatest power. Sadly, joyously, solemnly, has it made, from stately towers and lofty spires, its announcements of deaths, of weddings, of holiday services and feast-day celebrations; sweetly, for many centuries^ and in many lands, has it preserved the memory and declared the glory of the Incarnation by the tri-daily summons of the Angelus ; and as an invitation to piety or to the service of charity, it has never ceased to ring from magnificent city edifices, from humble village chapels, from lonely mountain shrines and from monastic hospices on Alpine heights.

Oh, the bells! the wondrous bells! How their music pleads, entreats, commands ! How truly it expresses reverent worship and ecstatic joy, holy triumph and sacred exultation!

For the shelter of these many, many bells — with tones so varied, with missions and meanings so diverse, with histories and stories so strange and unlike — the great, the powerful, and the good have built graceful spires and majestic towers. Architecture, that kingly art, with a science for its soul, has ever been zealous in aiding man to give proper housing to the queenly bell; for without a tower the bell is a soul deprived, as it were, of its opportunities, and the tower without a bell is aspiration and ambition without an animating soul.

And now — but hark ! the Convent bell is tolling ; a novice lies sleeping before God's Altar, her sweet young life of eighteen years suddenly merged into a glad eternity. " The tower bell " has called together a household of three hundred persons to witness before God's altar to the loveliness of this dear soul, a priceless gem, crystal clear, cut and polished, ready

12 INTRODUCTION

for its place in the virginal crown that rests upon the Sacred Heart of our Blessed Lord.

Often, very often, has the great bell, during the twenty years of its service, called together such assemblies to plead for the blessed dead, more strange in their heedlessness of the bells than in aught else pertaining to their dreamless sleep. For the bells have no subjects so loyal and so prompt to obey as the true religious, to whom the community bell is " the voice of God."

The Convent bell tells of lofty aspiration, with its minor tones of homely deeds well done; of noble intention, with its solemn chords, the harmonious doing of life's greater deeds ; of loving advancement in the interior and contemplative life, a sweet accompaniment to the solemn hymns and triumphal psalms of the consecrated, exterior, active life. All these Godlike things are found portrayed in " The Story of Father Samuel and Saint Clara," and are symbolized by the expression " Golden Bells in Convent Towers." For in every truly consecrated heart is suspended the " Golden Bell " of holy recollection, chiming the call to unbroken converse with God. And in the solid massive " Tower " of true community life are hung the great " Bells " of the community spirit, the spirit of the Rule.

Throughout this sacred year the " Golden Bells " of St. Clara's " Convent Towers " have been one while tolling the solemn nocturnes of life's stern discipline; and again, ringing the stately measures of a great overture to the noble oratorio of the Community's Golden Jubilee.

St. Clara's religious children, their loyal hearts bowed in hushed thankfulness and holy awe before the throne of God, catch to-day faint echoes of heavenly music, for the protecting angels of St. Clara's wide domain are joining with the Jubilee Bells, and, in bursts of ecstatic song, are expressing the tumultuous gladness of their exultant joy.

And when the Jubilee Year is past and the Jubilee Bells are hushed, St. Clara's mystic bells will still peal forth, from

INTRODUCTION 13

Sinsinawa's mystic towers : " Golden Bells," symbols of sacred ideas ; " Convent Towers," symbolic of holy ideals ; " Golden Bells," inverted chalices of life's daily sacrifice, whence we pour upon the altar of our high vocation the sacred libations of our faith and hope and love !

THE LIFE-STORY

OF

Rev. Samuel Charles Mazzuchelli, O.P.

Chapter I Father Mazzuchelli, Missionary To The

INDIANS

Milan, the home of the wondrous Cathedral, the city of palaces and of libraries, the Episcopal See of St. Ambrose and of St. Charles Borromeo, is intimately associated with the name of Father Mazzuchelli, not only as the place of his noble birth, but as the environment that gave him his princely manners and elegant tastes, that awakened his love for learning and his spirit of piety, that inspired his dauntless courage on fields of difficulty and of danger, and that enkindled his ardent zeal for the spread of faith and religion. His forefathers, rich bankers for generations back, had prided themselves less upon their wealth, and the power it gave them, than upon their scholarly attainments and their fidelity to the Church. From them Father Mazzuchelli received that best of heritages, a fine mind, a good heart, and a noble character.

Milan had unfolded his natural gifts, America was to develop, exercise and perfect them, by taxing to their utmost the great powers of his intellect, by constantly testing the strength of his character and the nobility of his heart. In Milan, gratifying his father's natural pride in him, he would have become a successful business man, an influential member of the best society, an edifying figure at religious functions in the great Cathedral.

In America, he became the humble, unselfish religious, the zealous, high-minded priest, the eloquent, persuasive preacher, a fearless missionary among strange tribes and peoples, a suci6 GOLDEN BELLS IN CONVENT TOWERS

cessful builder of many churches, an inspired apostle to the ignorant and the unbelieving.

In Milan, his sphere would have been small, his labor limited, his influence circumscribed. In America, his sphere was the great Northwest, and there he became the saintly guide, father and friend of multitudes, savage and civilized. Catholic and non-Catholic. His influence became boundless, his fame almost national. The youth of twenty had chosen well, for time and for eternity, when he responded to the call for missionaries to America.

Father Mazzuchelli's childhood had been passed at his mother's knee, in accordance with the law of old-time Catholic households, and the wisdom of old-country Catholic mothers, and his youth had been spent with various tutors, under the daily and intimate supervision of his worthy father. Nor can we say, with the picture of his after life before us, that such training had been injudicious. In the sphere that awaited him, to be innocent was to be strong ; to be pure minded was to be powerful. Inexperience in youthful w!orldliness became the grandest element of his later manliness. His eye was always clear and dauntless ; it never wavered before savage, or sage, or sinner.

The call of the divine Master has never been regardful of the tenderness of family ties. Obedience to that call, whether it be the soldier of the commonwealth or the soldier of the Church who hears it, means the abandonment of all that the human heart holds dear. And so the youthful Mazzuchelli, with that mingling of joy and sorrow that ever fills the soul, when the divine comes in touch with the human, disappointed his proud father's hopes and grieved his fond mother's heart, first by choosing to be a Dominican religious in his own country, and then by electing to become a missionary priest in faraway America. He was young to make so brave a choice, requiring, as it did, fortitude to renounce what he loved, and courage to embrace what he well might fear.

But quietly, firmly, devoutly, he resolved to leave riches for poverty; plenty for scarcity; congenial society for solitude and loneliness ; the great city for the wilderness ; palaces for wigwams ; cathedrals of marble and altars of silver for chapels of logs and altars of bark.

For five years he had been studying as a Dominican Friar, in Faenza and in Rome, when his superiors, in response to the request of Rt. Rev. Edward Fenwick, O. P., Bishop of Cincinnati, selected him for the American missions. With their approval he set out, in June, 1828, to visit his home in Milan, that he might take leave of his relatives and friends.

With a prophetic feeling that the separation would be long, that time's changes in his home would be many and serious, and that nothing there would ever again be quite the same, he received the benediction of his parents, the tearful embrace of his brothers and sisters, the sorrowful farewells of the old servants, and departed from his father's roof, his strong soul fired with noble resolves, and his brave, tender heart filled with nature's bitter pain.

Having returned to his convent, after his farewell to Milan. he left Rome for Lyons, France, in the company of the Vicar General of Cincinnati. Circumstances required him to prolong his stay in France, so he took up his abode in the " Little Seminary of Saint Nicholas," and there he acquired that knowledge of the French language which, after his ordination in America, he found indispensable in the exercise of his ministry among the Canadian French who inhabited northern Wisconsin.

It was on the 5th of October, 1828, when he finally set sail from Havre for a new country, vast and strange, there to find his new home. He took passage on the American ship Edward Quesnel, bound for New York. The voyage was long and stormy, but he was not disturbed, for his health was excellent and his heart was fearless. With characteristic courage. he had himself bound to the main mast during a most violent storm, that he might see the ship '* at the mercy of contrary winds, tossed from wave to wave of the foaming waters, a helpless victim of the imperious billows." (Memoirs.)

On November 7th land was in sight, but another storm, which succeeded a brief calm, raged for five days. The ship was delayed and did not enter the harbor of New York until November 14th. The young stranger was not favorably impressed by what he saw during his brief stay in the American metropolis. While admiring its material progress, he deplored its moral retrogression, and found in the conditions that prevailed, a proof that '' the grandeurs of this world, whether in monarchies or in republics, are always in strict relationship with a general corruption of manners." (Memoirs.)

Leaving New York he visited, to use his own expressions, '' the beautiful city of Philadelphia " and " the venerable city of Baltimore," on his way to Cincinnati, Bishop Fenwick's episcopal city, which was the place of his destination. The journey of eight hundred miles, which was to be made partly by land, partly by water, presented many difficulties incident to his ignorance of the country and of the language. He made part of it . by stage, and with insufficient funds, but with a perfect trust in God who had called him, and would be sure to help him in an hour of need.

This trust was not betrayed ; an American gentleman, also traveling by stage, had noticed the young foreigner's embarrassment, at the offices and inns, and by signs gave the information that he would make all the arrangements, and pay all the bills, until the journey's end, when the sum expended could be returned to him. On arriving at their destination, the courteous gentleman perceiving at a glance that the young man had not sufficient money to reimburse his unknown friend, hastened to tell him that the sum lacking could be given later towards the building of the new church, the framework of which they could see from where they stood. With musical Italian words, that the gentleman could not understand, the stranger endeavored to express his gratitude to the kind friend sent to him by God, in response to his sincere trust.

Bishop Fenwick was a Dominican ; moreover, he had been the secondary cause of the young foreigner's exile from his sunny, native land to the inhospitable western territories of the United States, hence he made his confrere doubly welcome, and With great cordiality and sweetness, interested himself in all that concerned him. The good Bishop desired the young Missionary to devote himself particularly to the study of the English language, and its acquirement occupied his mind much of the time until Christmas of that year.

In accordance with the Bishop's suggestion, he then made arrangements to visit the Dominican Convent of St. Rose, at Springfield, Kentucky. From Cincinnati to Louisville, by water, was a pleasant trip, but the ride on horseback, from Louisville to Bardstown, thirty-eight miles without rest, was very wearisome for one unaccustomed to such a mode of travel. It is not surprising that his fatigue forced him, after reaching the residence of Bishop Flaget, to take two days' rest before he pursued his way to the Convent, fifteen miles distant from the town.

Early in February, 1829, he desired to return to Cincinnati, but was forced, by the breaking up of the ice in the Ohio River, to delay for a week or more at Bardstown, where he passed many pleasant and profitable hours in the company of Bishop Flaget. In March he was able to resume his journey. Having arrived at his destination, he returned to the Bishop's house, where he made his home, and until September, he fulfilled the duties of sacristan at the cathedral. Then he took up his abode in the Dominican Convent of St. Joseph, Perry County, Ohio, to prepare for ordination to the priesthood. There he enjoyed not only the quiet and the retirement suited to that preparation, but also many favorable opportunities for the assiduous study of the English language. About the first of the year, 1830, he began to give catechetical instructions in St. Joseph's Church ; this afforded him excellent practice in the use of correct English, and was a most beneficial exercise in preparation for his chosen work of preaching.

In July, Bishop Fenwick ordained him deacon, and on September 5, he was ordained priest, in the cathedral at Cincinnati, after Pontifical High Mass. The sermon on that occasion was preached by Rev. J. J. Mullen, who took for his text the words ** Ajs the Father hath sent Me, so do I send you." No expression could have been more appropriate, since the newly ordained priest was to become a missionary to the red men and an apostle to the white men of the wilds of Wisconsin.

The Diocese of Cincinnati was at that time of such vast extent, and priests were needed in so many places, the Bishop was, for a time, undecided in what direction to send his zealous new helper. Then came an urgent demand from the Catholics of the northern part of the diocese, that a priest might be sent to them without delay. In response to their request the Bishop desired Father Mazzuchelli to depart immediately for the Island of Mackinac, to labor among the Canadian French, the mixed race, and the Indian tribes of Michigan and Wisconsin.

Having crossed the entire state of Ohio, navigated along the western coast of Lake Erie, passed the city of Detroit, and traveled two hundred and fifty miles on Lake Huron, a journey of eight hundred miles in all, the Missionary reached the sought-for island. In a little village of about five hundred souls, the greater number of them Catholics of Canadian origin, he took up his abode. At least two-thirds of the Canadian- French of the place were of mixed race, part Indian, part French. Great was the delight of these people to have a priest in their midst, and eagerly did they flock to hear him, on the first Sunday after his arrival. Heretofore they had been , attended occasionally by a priest from Detroit, but now they were happy in having a resident pastor, though they knew that he would be obliged to leave them frequently, in order to visit the distant parts of his charge.

In November of that same year, 1830, he made the first of his many journeys to the village of Green Bay, two hundred miles distant from the island. Its population comprised one thousand souls, and among them he found a Catholic people of the same races as those on the island, and equally ignorant of religion. There being no other place large enough for his congregation, he celebrated the Holy Sacrifice in a granary. Only a few of the long-neglected and ill-instructed people were inclined to receive the sacraments. Long and earnestly did

"There's no Fun in March"

A Corner in the Sheepfold at Sinsinawa Mound he work among them, and many a weary mile did he travel to reach them, before he had the comfort and the joy of seeing them reform their lives and begin to practice the sacred obligations imposed by the Catholic Church. He was not disheartened, however, but quietly planted the seed of the Word, and left it to God to give the increase.

Gathering around him the Indians of the locality, he spoke to them, through an interpreter, words which bore good fruit at a later time. God does not use the methods of the revivalist. As the vegetable seed in the ground, so the word-seed in the human heart requires time, warmth, moisture and sunlight — the moisture of repentant tears, the warmth of charity, the sunlight of divine grace, and time for germination and growth. Father Mazzuchelli was always content to continue his arduous labors, however gloomy the outlook, and to wait for the fruit and the grain till God's appointed harvest time.

He returned to Mackinac on November i6th, and busied himself untiringly with the instruction and spiritual progress of his little flock. They came with commendable regularity to hear him preach, but it was difficult to win them from their long-continued indifference to the sacraments. Though he devoted all his taste, skill and zeal to the proper celebration of Christmas, but few received Holy Communion on that great feast.

During the winter, he had occasion, repeatedly, to defend the Church against persons who openly and offensively attacked her. For this work he was singularly well fitted, and by his forcible and logical treatment of disputed subjects, not only won many souls from erroneous belief, but caused an increase of piety and devotion among Catholics. The change for the better among his own people was manifested in their greater interest in parish affairs. They not only enlarged their little frame church, but they built a small residence for the priest, and took pains to keep both in repair.

On the occasion of his second visit, in May, 1831, he reached Green Bay by means of a trading boat. Having no church, he celebrated Mass in private houses, sometimes in the living-rooms, sometimes in the attic; and always he preached: exhorting and instructing; making religious practice attractive ; and enforcing the idea that duty to one's soul is of paramount importance. As a consequence, the number of those who received the sacraments steadily increased.

His labors among the Indians, at the time of this visit, were singularly blest; and he had the happiness, before returning to Mackinac, of baptizing twienty-three of the Menominee tribe. This meant an assurance of a far greater number of converts at his next visit, for each Christian Indian would, in the mean time, devote himself, with untiring zeal, to the conversion of others in the tribe. In the autumn of this same year, the Missionary returned to the Menominee village, ^.nd spent two months instructing the Christian Indians for the reception of Holy Communion. He also opened a school for them, under a master who could speak their language perfectly, besides English and French.

Soon after this, Father Mazzuchelli began, with the erection of a small edifice in Green Bay, that remarkable work of church building, which, for many years, formed an important part of his missionary labors. He visited the people in their scattered homes, personally allotting to each individual, in accordance with his circumstances, the kind and quantity of materials he was expected to contribute to the construction of a small frame church. The response to an appeal so moderate in its requirements was prompt and generous, and thus, in 1831, came into existence the first church in that village which has since become a city with several Catholic churches and a cathedral. In his Memoirs Father Mazzuchelli mentions, in referring to this work, many interesting details, for which we have not space in this little book.

The summer of that year was spent in visiting, in the vicinity of Mackinac, his numerous flock of mixed race, so widely scattered and so difficult to reach. These people soon learned to value their immortal souls, by seeing so many proofs of the value the holy priest set upon them. These men of the wilderness and the wild lake shores were wonderfully clear-headed;

their ideas were few, but they were definite, and when they saw this poHshed, educated gentleman enduring every kind of physical hardship, and an unutterable mental loneliness, not for material gain for himself, but for the spiritual gain of others, utter strangers to him, and often his enemies, they were all profoundly impressed, and many of them were effectively attracted to the faith and practice of the Church.

In August we find him, in a fragile bark canoe, following, for ninety miles, the northern shore of Lake Huron, and the course of the majestic St. Mary River, as far as Sault Sainte Marie. Here he landed, and, standing under the shade of a stately oak, he preached, as did the apostles of old, under the blue sky, to the people seated upon the grass. Many times, in the few days he spent there, did he thus address the people in this, " one of God's first temples." A few confessions, several marriages, and many baptisms of children made up the slender harvest of this first visit to a people long deprived of the ministrations of a priest. The non-Catholics of the place showed him many courtesies. The commandant of the American fort invited him to dine, and a soldier gave him the use of his apartment in the fort, that he might preach to the officers and their families, though there was but one Catholic among them. The scholarly dignity of his appearance, the singular charm of his manner, and the wise graciousness of his words always won for him, all through life, not the mere toleration, but the sincere respect and friendliness of non- Catholics.

When the brief, cool summer was over, he returned with pleasure to his little home beside the church in ]\Iackinac. There he felt a longing to receive the Sacrament of Penance, and to hold intercourse once more with a congenial mind, and so he departed for Arbe Croche, on an inlet of the extreme northern part of Lake Michigan. Arrived there, he held converse for a few short days with the saintly Father Baraga, missionary to the Ottawa Indians. These devoted men, both lonely and isolated, and both leading lives of heroic sacrifice, far from kindred and friends, met each other with inexpressible emotions of joy and consolation. In his Memoirs, Father Mazzuchelli describes his journey over the ice-bound waters of the lake, in company with a few Indians, and tells how they passed the bitter January nights on beds of pine twigs, beside a fire that gave most of its heat to space. The Priest said his beads ; the Indians sang hymns ; and then, in spite of much physical discomfort, all slept the sleep of peace.