and more influence in Spain. Towards the end of the century we find D. Blas Aguiriano, a Canon of Calahorra, defending the Jansenist Church of Utrecht. At the death of Pope Pius VI. in 1799, the ministers Urquijo and Caballero put forth a proclamation framing almost a regal national Church; "to many it seemed that the moment had arrived to break with Rome, and to make a schismatic Church, like the English." Even high Church dignitaries, such as Amat, Abbot of St. Ildefonso, cousin of the more celebrated Bishop of Astorga, seemed to approve of the proclamation of Urquijo. The movement continued through the years of the revolution. The house of the Countess of Montijo in Madrid became the headquarters of Jansenism, and was frequented even by Inquisitors. The last echoes of the movement were heard in the Cortes of Cadiz. With the expulsion of the French, and the reaction under Ferdinand VII., the movement for the reform in Spain changes its character and becomes violent and revolutionary in the first Carlist war. Towards the end of the Regency attempts at the independence of Rome were projected, and in 1840-42 it was publicly said that "the Regent himself, dominated by English influence, proposed to break absolutely from Rome, and to establish a schismatic Church more anglicano" (Historia de los Heterodoxos, iii. 628), and except for a timid proposal in 1869, and the endeavour of Don Juan Cabrera at present, the movement has been one mainly from without, and has been the result of the proselytizing efforts 1 Historia de los Heterodoxos, iii. 174-175. i.e. Espartero.

2

of various Protestant bodies. Perhaps the most valuable and permanent result, in a literary point of view at least, has been the careful reprinting of the works of the Spanish Reformers of the sixteenth century, begun by Usoz and Wiffen, and still zealously continued by Böehmer of Strasburg, Betts, and others.

IX

A MODERN SAINT

AN EPILOGUE TO THE LIFE OF SANTA TERESA

MRS. CUNNINGHAME GRAHAM concludes her life of Santa Teresa with the affirmation: "There will be no more Saints." She considers that they have passed away like the dodo, or any other extinct species of animal. There will be no more Saints, as there will be no more priests of Zeus, or of Osiris. This does not mean, of course, that there will be no more individuals distinguished for personal holiness; but that there will be no more Saints, taking the word in its technical sense,-men or women considered to be possessed of præternatural or supernatural powers, whose holiness is above the reach of ordinary humanity; who are deemed Saints during their life, who are beatified and canonized, to be worshipped as Saints after their death, whose wonder-working power in the world continues after death, nay, is enhanced by their removal from this earth. Take the assertion in either of these senses, nothing can be much further from the truth. We will deal only with the last. Not to mention other beatifications and canonizations which have crowded the years of the

pontificate of the present Pope, let us look at the biography of one modern Saint, the Venerable Philomena de Santa Colomba, whose process of canonization is now proceeding at Rome. An examination of her life will, I think, show that the ideal of sanctity which revolted Mrs. Graham in the case of Santa Teresa, instead of having passed away, or lessened, has been developed and intensified, in its most objectionable features, in the modern "Saint."

The preface of the work from which I write is headed with the capitals J.M.J. F.-Jesus, Mary, Joseph, Francis(?)—and is dated Rome, 13 January, 1893.1 The writer gives, as his sources, a Spanish and an Italian life of Philomena, and the summarium of the evidence collected for her beatification and canonization. He has also personal information obtained in conversations with her brother, Felix Ferrer, a Catalan sculptor.

The peculiar characteristics of this Saint of the nineteenth century are well put in a review in the Civilta Cattolica: "The secret of the eminent sanctity of Philomena has been the double devotion, more especially peculiar to our nineteenth century, to Mary Immaculate, and to the divine Heart of the Redeemer."2 And the last paragraph but one of the Preface has this wish: "May these pages excite pious souls to more fervent supplications to the Heart of Jesus, to the Immaculate

1 La Vénérable Philomène de Ste. Colombe, Religieuse Minime Déchaussée; Sa Vie et ses Ecrits, par le P. Pie de Langogne, des Frères Mineurs Capuchins. (Paris, Maison, de la Bonne Presse, 8, Rue François ler. 1893.)

2 Ibid. xiii.

Virgin, to St. Joseph, and to St. Michael, by the intercession of her [Philomena] who, when alive, so strongly recommended us to have recourse to their protection."1

But, after all, it may be said, this is merely an instance of local claustral veneration, of the "mutual admiration" sort. Both the subject of the biography and the writer belonged to the same Order. It is of no importance outside their cloisters. Such an objection is anticipated, and met in the Preface thus: "Since these lines have been written, the name of Sister Philomena, scarcely known in France, has become celebrated in Italy. Even at Rome, monks, prelates, and persons of eminence keep in the secret of their hearts the memory of favours received through her intercession, and in their prayers they hasten the time when, at the conclusion of the process of canonization, they will be able publicly to venerate her who already possesses the private worship of their gratitude." 2

Philomena Ferrer, afterwards Sister Philomena de Santa Colomba, was baptized in the parish church of Mora de Ebro, April 4, 1841. She died August 13, 1868. Her life of twenty-seven years was spent wholly in her native Cataluña. She received her first communion in her thirteenth year, on St. Teresa's day, October 15, 1853; was admitted to her noviciate in the convent of the barefooted Minimes Capuchines at Vals, March 29, 1860; and professed, April 4, 1861, the twentieth anniversary of her baptism. These were the chief outward passages of her life's story.

1 Ibid. p. xvi.

2

p. xiv.