Letter XXXVIII
TO THE EDITOR OF THE PRECIS HISTORIQUES, BRUSSELS.
Charles Felix Van Quickenborne.
New York, May 16, 1857.
REV. AND DEAR FATHER:
This notice of the Rev. Charles Van Quickenborne has been based on a sketch of his life, in the archives of the vice-province of Missouri, and I have inserted some facts from my own knowledge.
Father Charles Felix Van Quickenborne was the first Jesuit who appeared in the great valley of the Mississippi after the re-establishment of the Society of Jesus. He was a
mail full of zeal for the salvation of souls. The conversion of the Indians was, in particular, the object of his predilection and of his prayers. Long will his name be held in benediction, and his memory celebrated in the places which bad the happiness of receiving the fruits of his numerous labors and of his truly apostolic virtues.
He was born in the diocese of Ghent, at Peteghem, near Deynze, on the 21st of January, 1788. having commenced his studies at Deynze, he went to Ghent to complete them, and there he embraced the ecclesiastical state. Van Quickenborne constantly distinguished himself by his talents and his application. Ordained priest, he was sent to Roulers, to teach belles lettres. He remained there four years ; that is to say, until the moment that the ecclesiastical seminary was closed. A short time after his return to Ghent He was sent as vicar into a parish where he had the singular happiness, as he frequently said with pleasure, of finding Mr. Corselis as Dean. The friendship and the distinguished virtue of this venerated priest exerted a very salutary influence over the mind of the young vicar, and made an impression which was never obliterated.
About this time the Society of Jesus, in the expectation of its approaching re-establishment, had prepared a novitiate at Rumbeke, near Roulers. There, yielding to the impulse of his zeal, Van Quickenborne presented himself, on the 14th of April, 1815. From that moment he sighed for the mission of America.
Scarcely had he finished his novitiate than he obtained from Father Thaddeus Brzozowski, then general, the permission to consecrate himself entirely to the desired mission. He embarked at Amsterdam. After a navigation fraught with perils, he lead the happiness of reaching America, near the close of the year 1817.
At the opening of the year 1819 he was placed at the head of the novitiate of Maryland, at White Marsh. He displayed, in this responsible position, all the means which it furnished him for the salvation of souls. Superior and master of novices, he became, at the same time, farmer, carpenter, and mason. He erected a handsome stone church on the novitiate grounds, and built a brick one at Annapolis. At the same time he attended, as a missionary, a vast district, which, during several years, he was to evangelize alone, before a companion could second his charitable toil.
His labors were precious for Maryland ; but the poverty of that mission was extreme. This led the Rt. Rev. Wm. du Bourg, bishop of both Louisianas, to request that the novitiate be transferred to Missouri. The superior of the mission consented to it. Father Van Quickenborne, therefore, set out with two Fathers, seven scholastic novices, and three co-adjutor brothers. After a journey of 1600 miles, amid the heat of summer, with continual fatigues and privations, he arrived near Florissant, where he commenced the novitiate of Saint Stanislaus. To form this new establishment, he found no other materials than those he drew himself from the forests and the rocky bed of the river. But his ardor for labor was daunted by no difficulty; his inflexible courage was not to be arrested by any obstacle. He was always the first at work. He seemed to multiply himself, going from one workman to another, exciting and encouraging every one by his example far more than by his words. Endowed with an admirable patience, and with a great spirit of mortification, he was never exacting to any one but himself, listened only to the enthusiasm which inspired him to spend himself without reserve, and never knew what it was to spare his own health or strength. He was near becoming a victim to this self-forgetfulness. One day he was working at the squaring of a timber, aided in this labor by a young novice. The latter, not yet versed in the work, used his axe with an eagerness of which he was far from imagining the consequences. Right glad to perceive the wood yielding under
his blows, he only thought of multiplying them. One of them, ill-directed, struck the Father on the foot. Notwithstanding this wound, and the loss of blood, the Father did not give up his labor until he found himself fainting, then only would he take a seat and allow the cut to be bound up with a handkerchief. The laborers, meanwhile, were three miles from the farm, which served them as a common residence. The Father endeavored to return there on foot; but, on the way, the pain arising from the wound became so, violent that he was constrained to yield and suffer himself to be put on the horse that had been sent for him. A burning fever obliged him to keep his bed for several days. As soon as he became a little better he desired to return to his work,
but he must use the horse. Thence arose a new accident. The shores of the river are swampy in certain places ; the horse sunk into one of these mires; the Father needed all his calm and coolness to regain the solid ground ; but all the efforts that he made to extricate his poor animal proved useless ; he was obliged to see him perish. These accidents, instead of shaking his constancy, had the effect of rendering him more firmly determined to accomplish his purposes. It was surrounded by difficulties, which would have appeared insurmountable to a courage less heroic, that he constructed the novitiate of Florissant, aided by his Belgian novices. In 1828 he undertook the construction of a university at St.Louis. He also built, at St. Charles, a stone church and a convent for the religions of the Sacred Heart, as well as a residence. These toilsome undertakings, and all the manifold cares arising from them, seemed but to freshen his activity : he only finished one enterprise to begin a new one.
Florissant and St. Charles became so many rallying-points around which little colonies of Catholics and Protestants formed and multiplied. The missionaries went in every direction to afford spiritual aid for so many abandoned souls, too often more destitute of the riches of grace than of those of earth. Father Van Quickenborne devoted himself to these apostolic courses with real gladness of heart; his consuming zeal found the sweetest consolation in the conversions which he effected. The Protestants testified the greatest respect towards him, although then (in 1824, 1825, etc.), as at present, their ministers spared no means to fetter his proceedings and arrest the effects of his zeal. They depicted our religion as an assemblage of absurd and contemptible doctrines ; they drew the most revolting portrait of the missionary. Among certain of the lower classes, they even went so far as to make him a monster with cloven feet, horns on his head, and armed with claws. Hence, when the Father appeared among them for the first time, these poor people flocked around, scanned him attentively from bead to foot, and finding him like other men, they immediately listened to him, and were converted without the least difficulty.
In one of his rides, there happened to him one of those singular facts in which he recognized more particularly the action of divine Providence. Arrived at a place where the road branched, he intended taking the more beaten road, but his horse resisted. In vain he urged him to obey ; the animal prevailed over the missionary, and darted rapidly into the other and less agreeable way. The route crossed a for est. Night came on, and be found himself obliged to stop at a little cottage, as poor as solitary, and, as it were, lost by its little dimensions in the towering wood. The Father met with a cold reception. As they perceived that he was a missionary priest a great reserve was maintained. Supper was indeed served for him, but they spoke with him in a timid and embarrassed manner. He understood the cause. In a corner of the room lay a child sick with a fever, and in extremities. The missionary asked the distracted mother whether her boy bad received baptism. On being answered in the negative, He began to explain the necessity of this sacrament. " God himself sent me here," added he, " to open to your child the portals of heaven; you must hasten, for soon he will be no more !" The mother replied disdainfully, that she would never suffer a priest to baptize her son; that she did not believe in baptism. It was in vain to insist. As the child was consumed with thirst the Father, feigning to renounce his first idea, very kindly attempted to relieve it from time to time, by giving it a little water, and at a moment when the mother, occupied with other things, turned her attention elsewhere, he baptized the child, who soared to heaven a few moments after.
A short time after this, passing near the same cottage, the Father called again and asked to see the mother of the child. This time be found her affable and obliging. She evinced a very great desire to have some information concerning the Catholic religion. Soon she avowed that all she had beard on the necessity of baptism troubled her, and that she deplored it as a misfortune that she had deprived her son of so great a grace. "Console yourself," said the kind Father, "your son received baptism, and he now enjoys the beatific vision. He now intercedes for you with God. Receive baptism, and you will one day share his happiness." These words produced the desired effect. The woman was converted, and, with her whole family, received baptism. Such were the blessed consequences of the obstinacy of the horse. Strangely enough, on the day after, he followed the other road without any show of resistance.
The salvation of souls was, with this apostolic man, an ever-present thought, desire, and necessity. He had also a wonderful art in seizing occasions and profiting by circumstances. He understood also, by his conversations and narratives, how to communicate to others the zeal with which he was inflamed. They were captivated, so that those who could not assist him by their labors, pledged themselves, at least, to assist him by their prayers. Thus, in order to engage his novices to pray with ardor, he granted them a little feast each time that the conversions attained a certain number.
The Protestants, we have already observed, made efforts to throw obstacles in the path of the man of God, but he had to struggle especially with the Methodists. One day he gave a severe blow to the influence of these noisy sectarians. Being on a mission, he heard that they were to hold a meeting in a place named to him. For a long time he had sought an occasion of coming in contact with them. He, therefore, set out for the appointed locality, and endeavored to attract there all the Protestants that he could find. The Methodists were holding their meeting in the church. The
Father, on his arrival, found an immense concourse. His religious habit and his venerable air, at first excited a profound astonishment in men, most of whom saw a priest for the first time. In their amazement, several cried out "What does that queer man want?" The Father answered modestly, that he was desirous of hearing from their mouths some explanations on certain important points which concern religion, and begged they would allow him to propose a few questions. Then, profiting by the consent which they gave him, be began to interrogate them on the essential points that distinguish the true from the erroneous doctrines. The ministers wish to reply, but no two answer in the same manner. They refute themselves, and contradict each other. The Father insists; they disagree. The confusion only increases, to the great scandal of the auditors, who thus have an evidence that those ministers, so habituated to despise the priests in their absence, are incapable of replying to them when they meet them. The Father left these men disputing (to their shame and confusion), and went to make a discourse in the open air on the unity, sanctity, catholicity, and apostolicity of the Roman Catholic Church, which all sects and all their ministers united can never shake. Such astonishing boldness, the talents of the preacher, and the solidity of his reasonings, conciliated the attention and respect of all. He had gained a signal victory over the ministers of falsehood and calumny. During a long period, their discourses bad no echo in that place. Every time that the Father returned there, they opened the hotel of the town to him, that he might celebrate mass and preach. His sermons, every time, produced numerous conversions.
On entering the apostolical career, Father Van Quickenborne enjoyed a robust health ; but the severe labors and incessant hardships of the apostolate undermined his strength. However, his infirmities never cooled the ardor of his zeal. His charity and his confidence in God seemed to supply the weakness of nature, and God, more than once, seconded his efforts in a marvellous manner. One day, while he was retained in his bed by a severe, and even serious malady, they came to tell him that a poor Catholic, dying, a hundred miles off, implored the comforts of religion. To the amazement of all, he caused a cart to be prepared, ordered his mattress to be laid in it, and taking with him the Blessed Sacrament and the oils he set forth, after giving to them all his blessing. All received it, as though it would be the last. They followed their kind Father with fears and regrets. After a few days he reappeared among them quite triumphant; He had administered to the sick man, and was himself perfectly cured.
His apostolical zeal inclined him above all to those places in which he saw more spiritual privation and more neglect. He ardently desired to go and evangelize the poor Indians, wandering in the wilderness. He made several excursions among the Osages and the Iowas, and each time the most precious fruits met his expectation. In 1836, he succeeded, by soliciting, in collecting some money in the different States. He at once commenced a fixed residence among the Kickapoos; already he had built a house and chapel. He had visited the neighboring tribes, and formed the most extensive and solid designs for their conversion, when he was suddenly arrested in the midst of his enterprises. The Superior of the Missions in Missouri, on paying the visit to his missionaries, found the Father so feeble in health that He judged him incapable of continuing his labors. As soon as the Superior returned to St. Louis he recalled him.
Faithful to the voice of obedience, Father Van Quickenborne quitted his cherished mission. He reappeared at St. Louis with a cheerful countenance, reposed there some days, went to make his annual retreat at the novitiate, and then set out for St. Charles, so as to go thence to the little parish of St. Francis in the Portage des Sioux. There, he was to lead a quiet life, assisted by one coadjutor brother, and only bestowing his cares on this little flock. But is there any hope of limiting his zealous efforts. He set himself at once to build a church in the neighborhood, and he was desirous of converting a certain number of Protestant families. These labors were absorbing his whole attention, when He was attacked by a bilious fever which carried him off in some days, resisting all the cares of an experienced physician.
Father Pallaison assisted him in the hour of death. The man of God was calm until the end, and filled with devout resignation. He received the last sacraments with a deep and touching piety, and saw death approaching without fear. About twenty minutes before expiring, perceiving his last moment, "Pray for me," said he to the Father and Brother who were near him. These were his last words. He expired without agony. His death took place on the 17th of August, 1857. His body, followed by crowds, was borne to St. Charles, and interred with much pomp in the middle of the graveyard, at the foot of the cross. Catholics and Protestants assisted at his funeral, for he was beloved by all.
The lengthened labors of this apostolic man, and the churches which he built, suffice to perpetuate his memory, were it not already deeply engraven in the hearts of all who knew him.
Accept, etc.,
P.J. DE SMET, S.J.