The Father Confessor.

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salt-houses and stables,' appropriated to his use. But first one and then another confessed penitent sounded his praise, until ere long his labours in the confessional became almost continual, enduring sometimes from five o'clock in the morning, with brief intervals of other occupation, until, perhaps, ten or eleven o'clock at night. Shut up in a close box, surrounded by those whose common occupation amongst fish or dirt, and whose poverty, were made painfully manifest not only to the eye but to the nose, fifteen mortal hours per day would the indefatigable Father ofttimes spend; in summer, in stifling heat; in winter, in numbing cold. A fearful tax this on the stamina of the strongest constitution; but Father Mathew never flinched or wearied of the work-always energetic, always punctual.

Considering, thus, how he worked, and what manner of man it was that thus worked, it is no wonder that, as a spiritual director, his reputation spread from parish to parish of the city, and from the city itself to the region round about; so that it came to be said, with truth as well as pleasantry, that if a carman from Kerry brought a firkin of butter into Cork, he would not go back without confessing to Father Mathew.' And in what spirit the good Father performed the work, the following anecdotes will tell :

One Sunday morning, after having heard confessions and celebrated Mass from six o'clock till ten (this following upon similar labours protracted on the previous night till eleven o'clock), he moved to quit the church in order to break his fast. As, hungry and weary, he was about to leave, four sailors rolled in, and asked him to confess them. In a tone of momentary irritation, they were remonstrated with for not having come at a more reasonable hour, and were told that they could not be heard then, and must come again. The sailors turned to go; but a devout poor woman who had been standing by, gently approached, and, touching Father Mathew on the arm, said, in a voice of respectful entreaty, They may not come again, sir.' Running after the sailors, who had left the place, the compunctious priest led them back to the confessional, and remained with them not only until he had administered the sacraments' to each, but had given them a breakfast to boot, and finally dismissed them 'in a happy state of mind.' Afterwards he thanked the poor woman, through whom,' he said impressively, 'the Holy Ghost had spoken to him.'

'Well, Kitty,' said a lady to an elderly servant in her house, how do you like Father Mathew as a director?' 'Wisha, purty well, ma'm,' was the reply. What do you mean by Vol. 7.-No. 25.

E

"purty

"purty well?" inquired the mistress. Well, indeed, ma'm,' said Kitty, he's a beautiful director, not a doubt about it, but,' and hereupon ensued a pause. What do you mean by your "but?" pursued the mistress, whose curiosity was excited by the servant's hesitating manner. Then, ma'm, the way of it is this,' said Kitty, making a clean breast of it, 'the worse you are in the beginning the more he'd like you, and the better he'd use you, but if you didn't improve very soon, there is no usage too bad for you.'

'Day by day,' says Mr. Maguire, did the young friar win his way to the hearts of the poor, and to the respect and con-. fidence of the rich. The people could not think of him without love, or speak of him without enthusiasm. He was so gentle and compassionate to them, so respectful to poverty, in which, as he frequently said, he ever saw the image of the Redeemer; he was so earnest in his desire to rescue the erring from vice, and to raise the fallen to a new life; he was so full of fervour and zeal, and yet without harshness or austerity, that he took captive the affections of all who came within the reach of his influence. This is not the testimony of one, it is that of hundreds.'

In a sketch published in 1826, from the hand of the present Archdeacon of Cork, the personal appearance of Father Mathew is thus described :

:

'He has the advantage (though he appears to make little use of the advantage) of possessing a finely-formed, middle-sized person, of exquisite symmetry; the head, of admirable contour, and from which a finished model of the antique could be cast; the countenance intelligent, animated, and benevolent; its complexion rather sallow, inclining to paleness; eyes of dark lustre, beaming with internal peace, and rich in concentrated sensibility, rather than speaking or kindling with a superabundant fire; the line of his mouth, harmonizing so completely with his nose and chin, is of peculiar grace; the brow, open, pale, broad, and polished, bears upon it the impress not merely of dignified thought, but of nobility itself.'

Like all great workers, Father Mathew was remarkable in his method of economizing time. Take time by the forelock, for he is bald behind,' was one of his favourite proverbs. Rising for the most part about five o'clock, and if necessary still earlier, he did much whilst other men were still in bed, and had ample time for the discharge of all his varied prodigious labours. Punctual to the minute in his appointments, 'he was,' says a brother clergyman, 'never once absent from where his duty called him, whether by a public necessity or a private claim, or where his presence could console the afflicted or give hope to the despairing.' Three or four men of ordinary energy and activity would accomplish less than he did singly in a given time. Asked one day how he contrived to rise so early as he did, he pointed to an adjoining cooperage, and said, 'If I were a cooper, bound to Mr. I should be up as

carly,

His Dignity, His Humility, and His Christian Charity. 67

early, so as to be at my work at the appointed time, and thus become pleasing to my master. But I have a higher calling, and I serve a better Master; and am I to be less desirous of pleasing that Master than I should be to satisfy Mr. ?'

A gentleman by birth and education (for his father was adopted by the family of the Earl of Llandaff, and his own early years were largely spent at their seat, at Thomastown), Father Mathew might have been excused had he preferred the society of members of the higher class; but whilst respectful to those in high position, and deferential to authority, ecclesiastical or civil, there was a sort of unconscious dignity or nobleness in the man, which never allowed him to be tainted with the vice of meanness, or toadying of the great. To all, whether rich or poor, his manner was genial, courteous, considerate, kindly interested, cordially polite; polished, but not artificial; gentlemanly from thorough goodness of disposition as well as from birth and breeding. But to the poor he was especially respectful and tender, almost reverential. It was his frequent remark, 'They will be as high in heaven as the highest in the land."

Of strong feelings and quick emotions, as keenly sensitive. was this man to sorrow as to joy, to wrong and insult as to benefit and kindness. The impulse to retaliate was within him, but he resolutely beat down his rebellious nature, and met wrath with a soft answer, and injury with a kindly word. 'A pint of oil,' he would say, 'is better than a hogshead of vinegar;' a proverb true metaphorically, however false from a grocer's stand-point. An incident related by Mr. Maguire, demonstrates his humility and Christian charity :-A lady, in mistaken friendship, thinking it well to 'put people on their guard,' told him how a certain clergyman had spoken hardly of him. Father Mathew heard her patiently, without betraying the least resentment, then meekly replied, 'My dear madam, I am very sorry, indeed, that my acts have not the approbation of this clergyman, for he is truly a good man, and one whose opinion I value highly; and I only hope that I may merit it in future better than I have hitherto done.' The lady was astounded by the reply, and could not at the moment say whether she was annoyed more with the assailed or the assailant. Some time after, the clergyman thus quoted contracted a fatal fever, and the first priest found at his bedside, and the one most constant in his attentions to the dying man, up to the last hour of life, was Father Mathew.

Devoted to his church, Father Mathew became a powerful propagator of its faith; but this wholly by his carnestness and pathos as a preacher, the charm of his manner in private intercourse,

intercourse, and the excellence of his life. There was about nothing that he was or did, any taint of sectarian bitterness. For controversy he had no liking. In school theology, in canon law, he was not deeply read; but with the Scriptures he was intimately and profoundly conversant. With every line from Genesis to Revelation, Mr. Maguire assures us he was familiar, and had at will, ready for every occasion, the apt quotation. His sermons, it is said, were eminently Scriptural.' His advice to a brother clergyman, who was troubled how to select what would please a cultivated congregation, was excellent:My dear sir, preach to the poor, and your preaching will always serve for the rich.' By poor and rich alike he himself was always heard gladly; and many a time those who came to criticise and find fault, remained to acknowledge with choking voices and tearful eyes the solemn power of his preaching.

As purposely and of his own accord a friar of the poorest order, it was no part of Father Mathew's aim to hoard up money, nor, indeed, of his disposition. His daily duties brought him acquainted with misery in all its earthly varieties, and he never saw distress in any shape without trying to relieve it. Not merely as a duty supposed to be professionally binding upon him, but as a positive pleasure, 'a kind of voluptuous enjoyment,' he gave and was always giving. Regular pensioners he had amongst the very poor. A large number of 'room-keepers' he constantly relieved. Orphans and widows he could not approach without trying to comfort and provide for. For those who had seen better days' in a worldly sense, he had peculiar tenderness and respect. If consideration for their feelings forbade him to give directly, he gave in secret, the hand of the donor unseen, the name unknown. Families in distress who had once been prosperous would be visited by some one in the dark hour, who would hand in a money-letter, and vanish on its delivery; and only in after years, through those who were made the bearers of the bounty, would they, perhaps, be able to trace the source of the timely benefaction. The clerk of Father Mathew's chapel performed many an errand of this nature; and speaking once. of these lavish charities, 'Look, sir,' said the clerk, 'here is my notion on the subject ;-if the streets of Cork were paved with gold, and if Father Mathew had entire control over them, and could do what he liked with them, there would not be a paving-stone in all Cork by the end of the year.'

Many are the anecdotes narrated by Mr. Maguire in proof of the unbounded generosity of this most lovable man. We have, for example, the story of two young and delicately nurtured

His Lavish Generosity.

69

nurtured girls, unaccountably deserted by a heartless father, and exposed to many and grievous hardships, insomuch that one of them, delicate and sensitive, gradually pined away. On her death, the surviving sister, utterly desolate and destitute, unable to defray the funeral expenses, saw no alternative but to allow the remains of the dead girl to be hurried in a parish coffin to a pauper's grave. Bold and brave she was, but this was an intolerably bitter element in the cup of her poverty-a last indignity from which, with all her soul, the poor girl revolted. A thought struck her. Quitting her

mean apartment and the silent corpse, she ran through the streets, wild and breathless, to Father Mathew, the universal friend. Flinging herself on her knees before him, 'Oh, Father Mathew! oh, Father Mathew!' was all that at first, sobbing and panting, she could say. At length, to his entreaties, she was able to reply, 'Oh, Father Mathew, they are going to bury my sister in a parish coffin!' 'No, my dear child,' was his instantaneous answer, 'they shall not do so. Rise up, my poor child, and have no fear. I will have her buried properly.' And he fully redeemed his word; for he went at once to a respectable undertaker, and next morning the poor girl saw a hearse and pair of horses at her door, with a chaise for the officiating priest, whose name, of course, proved to be Father Mathew.

Wherever he might be, in Cork, in Ireland at large, in Scotland, England, or America, his hands,' we are told, were continually in his pocket, giving, giving, giving.' All other luxuries he could deny himself; this he never seemed able to forego. More modestly and quietly than he lived at home in Cork few men could live. His only room, save that in which he slept, measured not more than sixteen feet from wall to wall; and here he took his meals, studied, and received company. No carpet softened the boarded bareness of the floor. What many would consider the merest necessaries constituted the furniture. On a side table was a large bust of Lord Morpeth, one of his friends, and on either side were two enormous volumes, the Old and New Testaments. In season there would be a glass filled with flowers. A few portraits and engravings. broke the bareness of the walls. On a centre table stood a writing-desk, much bespattered with ink, and otherwise not ornamental; except the desk, everything in the room was usually neat and in perfect order. A few chairs and a sideboard completed the list of furniture. In this modest apartment the Apostle of Temperance was visited by many of the great and distinguished of the earth, and here he exercised an hospitality which made guests without number welcome and

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