A PILGRIMAGE TO THE BIRTHPLACE AND CLOISTERED HOME OF THOMAS À KEMPIS.

Thomas A Kempis; Notes of a Visit to the Scenes in which his Life was spent, with some Account of the Examination of his Relics. By Francis Richard Cruise, M.D. (Univ. Dublin), late President of the King and Queen's College of Physicians in Ireland, etc. Illustrated. London: Kegan Paul, Trench & Co., 1 Pater Noster Square. 1887. 8vo. 332 pp. Maps and plates.

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O the thousands upon thousands of Catholics who find through life so much to console and encourage them in the way of salvation in the pages of the "Following of Christ," it has, occasionally, seemed strange that the Church has never, in any special way, honored such a master of spiritual life as Thomas à Kempis, who is not to be found in the catalogue of the canonized or beatified, nor is even spoken of as venerable. The author of the work which says, " Ama nesciri et pro nihilo reputari-Love to be unknown and esteemed of no account," has certainly been gratified in his wish to be ignored. The ascetic work which outlived hosts of others, which, century by century, exercises its wondrous influence for good, seems entirely sundered from its author. It is one of the wonders of "The Following of Christ," as our old English Catholic name has always been, that it is the only spiritual book which the so-called reformers and their followers carried with them when they went from the Catholic Church into the outer darkness to become children of the mist. True, as they tore out and threw away part of God's revealed word, they tore out and threw away the fourth book of the treatise" De Imitatione Christi," but they retained the rest, and in the Providence of God the work has continued to teach its lessons of perfection in lands and homes where no other light of Catholicity entered.

The little work is extant still, in the handwriting of Thomas à Kempis, and had no question been raised as to the authorship, he would, doubtless, have been venerated as a saint, and even the great apostasy of the sixteenth century would have failed to obliterate devotion to him and lead many to his tomb to implore the intercession with God of one who knew so well how to lead souls to God, and has continued his work as the ages roll on.

But his authorship was disputed. The fact that the oldest known manuscript is acknowledged to be in his handwriting was declared to lack decisive force as evidence of authorship, because he copied

many works of others, and this was probably the work of some one else which he merely copied. The argument is weak, for Thomas à Kempis was not merely a copyist, but an author himself, a master of spiritual life, a director of young religious whom he formed to the true spirit in aiming at perfection. In those days, before the invention of printing, the student was, of necessity, a copyist. Even since the invention of printing, where books are prohibited or rare, a student must often copy not only manuscripts, but printed books which have become so rare that he cannot buy a copy at all or buy it à prix foux.

The first besides Thomas à Kempis to whom the authorship of the "De Imitatione Christi" was ascribed, was John Gerson, Chancellor of the University of Paris, a mighty man in his century, active in matters of state, religion and education, yet one who penned religious treatises which found their way to all pious readers of the times. This was especially the case with his "Meditatio Cordis," or "Meditation of the Heart." And in days when it was common to put several smaller treatises in one bulky volume, the "De Imitatione" and " Meditatio" were frequently bound together, and both were ascribed to the great and well known author of the "Meditatio." At the University of Paris his claim was held as a part of the rights and privileges of that learned institution. The question does not seem to have been critically examined, nor is it certain by whom Gerson's claim to the authorship was first advanced. St. Ignatius of Loyola and his companions in founding the Society of Jesus, were Paris-University men, and, as he used, in his rule, the word "Gerson" to mean the treatise " De Imitatione Christi," the custom of attributing the work to Gerson was disseminated by the order he founded. When the question came to be seriously examined, no authors could be adduced earlier than the founder of the Society of Jesus and his followers, who did not discuss the matter, but used the term common at the University of Paris. In recent times the claim of Gerson has found little favor, as no fresh evidence can be adduced in its support and very positive evidence against it.

Early in the seventeenth century another claim for authorship was put in at the court of public opinion. This was for John Gersen, Benedictine abbot of Vercelli in Piedmont. The theory was started on the finding of a manuscript of the "De Imitatione" in a Jesuit house at Arona on Lago Maggiore in 1604, at the end of which was written: "Explicit liber quartus et ultimus Abbatis Joannis Gersen de sacramento Altaris-Here endeth the fourth and last book of Abbot John Gersen on the Sacrament of the Altar." As the house had once been a Benedictine monastery, it was assumed that he was a Benedictine abbot, and a note in a printed copy at Ven

ice gave him a site for his abbey at Vercelli. The Jesuit Father Rossignoli first put forward this claimant. The Benedictine order was not slow to maintain the theory thus advanced, and thus that ancient order became a champion against Thomas à Kempis. It laid claim to the "Following of Christ," the "Spiritual Exercises" of St. Ignatius Loyola, and the “Spiritual Combat " of Scupoli.

It was to ridicule these claims of the Benedictines that the Jesuit Father Hardouin put forward a work so learned and serious that few people saw the joke or could understand what he was driving at. He set to work to prove that nearly all the writings which are ascribed to classical authors were really written by Benedictine monks in the Middle Ages. He excepted Cicero, but he went into elaborate proofs that Virgil's "Eneid" and the " Odes of Horace" were purely Benedictine. His wit misled, as, in our day, the wit and learning of Father Prout, who translated several of Moore's melodies into Greek, Latin, Old French, etc., and then published in Fraser these pretended originals, charging Moore with arrant plagiarism. Would-be critics, like Mackay, took this as many took Father Hardouin, in sober earnest, and repeated the charge against the Irish poet, to whose genius Mahony really paid a tribute.

An early English edition of the work upholds the claim of Gersen. It is entitled "The Following of Christ, in four books, written by John Gersen, Abbot of Vercelles, of the Holy Order of St. Benedict. Drawn out of ten ancient manuscripts; some written above four hundred years ago, and set forth by the famous Abbot Caietan, Chronologist to Paul V., and dedicated to him and printed at Rome with approbation and general acceptation, 1644. Printed at London, Anno Dom. 1673."

The dispute as to the authorship is not our theme, and we have referred to it only to show why Thomas à Kempis has personally been so much neglected; at the same time it must be remembered that he died in Holland, which soon after the preaching of Luther embraced many of the new heresies, and where the Protestant party turned on the Catholics, who nearly equalled them in numbers, deprived them of religious liberty, and made war on everything Catholic. Of course, under such a persecuting rule, of which the Martyrs of Gorcum are witnesses, Catholic religious houses disappeared, churches were appropriated for Protestant worship, and all honor to great worthies of Catholic times and orthodox religion suppressed.

Men made pilgrimages to the tombs of men who had added treasures to the literature of the world, but few sought the grave of him whose right to the title of author of the "Following of

Christ has been most generally recognized, and from whose manuscript it was given to the world.

An Irish gentleman has just enriched our literature with the result of his pious pilgrimages to the spot where Thomas à Kempis labored and prayed. He calls his work" Thomas à Kempis-Notes of a Visit to the Scenes in which his life was spent, with some account of the Examination of his Relics."

It is in every sense a charming book, and affords English. readers the best account of his life, his writings, the justice of the claim that he really wrote the "De Imitatione Christi," and the present condition of the scenes where his holy life was spent.

"As a pilgrimage to the localities wherein Thomas à Kempis spent his long and holy life may appear a somewhat unusual undertaking," writes Dr. Cruise, "I think it right to preface my account thereof by a short statement of the circumstances which led me to make that most interesting journey.

"From boyhood I was fascinated by the power and beauty of the wondrous book, 'The Imitation of Christ,' and even in my school days at Clongowes Wood my curiosity was roused concerning its authorship. I remember still, as though it were but yesterday, the occasion upon which my beloved master, the Rev. Joseph Lentaigne, S.J., first laid before me the story of the controversy anent its paternity, illustrating with his lucid mind and rich classical lore the main features of the dispute. His studies, always profound and accurate, had led him to believe that Thomas à Kempis was in truth the author of the book. As years went by my interest in the subject never diminished, and in moments of leisure I read all I could find to bear upon it; and I may truthfully add that in the study of the book and of the life of its gifted saintly author I have found many hours of rest and happiness amidst the wearisome labors of a busy, anxious life."

His travels were, therefore, not aimless, nor were they without being mentally equipped; he had a definite purpose, and his mind was so imbued with his subject that every road, and every stock and stone, had an interest and a meaning. What a pity the European trips of the Catholics from this country, amid the gay myriads who yearly cross the ocean, are not similarly motived! What fruit would they not gather for the devotional nourishment of their own hearts, and what might they not do to inflame the hearts of their fellow-countrymen? Some pilgrims reach Lourdes, a few Paray-le-Monial, still fewer the Holy Land; but who goes to visit the places hallowed by the life and labors of St. Teresa, St. Vincent de Paul, St. Bernard, St. Thomas Aquinas? There are localities in London associated with St Vincent Ferrer, St. Ignatius Loyola, as well as with great English saints, including

the recently beatified martyrs, but who seeks them out with pious reverence? Our fellow-countrymen who have no such religious association seek out with interest the very spots whose names are imprinted on their minds by the works of favorite authors. Surely American Catholics can learn a lesson from Dr. Cruise, and do better.

Our author sketches well the wonderful beauty of the "Following of Christ," and the tributes paid to it, not by saints and holy men of the Church only, but by writers in whom faith had almost become extinct. This Protestant appreciation was shown on this side of the Atlantic by the publication of an edition of the three books at Germantown, Pa.,' as early as 1749, and of the "Soliloquy of the Soul" at a later period.

He dwells especially on the characteristic of all the writings of Thomas à Kempis, which is apparent in the "Imitation of Christ," and that is not what can be called quotations from the Holy Scriptures, but the expression of a mind so imbued by devout reading and meditation on the Word of God that almost every idea, every sentence can be traced back to the Bible. You may mark sentence after sentence which seem almost quoted word for word, but you find in those between an echo of a well-remembered passage, which you see the writer had in his mind." The "Three Tabernacles," "The Soliloquy of the Soul," "The Little Garden of Roses," and "The Valley of Lilies" show the same mind. Of these last two little works Catholics in this country fortunately have a translation.

Depicting the condition of Europe after the Great Schism of the West, our author next sketches the life and conversion of Gerard Groot, and his foundation at Deventer, with the aid of Florentius, of the society called at first "The Modern Devotion," but soon after by the name it long retained, “The Congregation of Common Life." The little community, in conformity with his wishes, was placed by his pious successor Florentius under the rule of the Canons Regular of St. Augustine, and the disciples of Gerard took a regular form in the monastery of Windesheim.

It was in this community, full of its pristine fervor, learned, laborious, prayerful and recollected, that Thomas à Kempis was formed to the spiritual life of which he was to be a master instructing the ages.

He was a German, born at Kempen between the Rhine and the Meuse, not far from Düsseldorf. His parents were John Hae

1 Of the Imitation of Jesus Christ, being an Abridgment of the Works of Thomas à Kempis, by a Female Hand. London. Printed 1744. Germantown. Reprinted by Christopher Sower, 1749.

2 Dr. Cruise verifies about six hundred in the "Following of Christ." In an English edition which the present writer revised carefully by the Latin he introduced 459 references.