The Catholic World, Vol. 09, April, 1869-September, 1869 — John Shaqi
The Catholic World, Vol. 09, April, 1869-September, 1869Various
Religion
The Catholic World, Vol. 09, April, 1869-September, 1869
Various
Catholic Church -- Periodicals
to be driven out of the kingdom, the government must face the
responsibility, and do it openly. A few days after the appearance
of the book, Lacordaire, being present at a meeting of the
Catholic Club under the presidency of the Archbishop of Paris,
exclaimed, "If we were in England, I should propose three cheers
for Father de Ravignan." The cheers were given with a will.
We have no space to follow Father de Ravignan in the varied
occupations of the next ten years. His health, always precarious,
broke down completely in 1847, and for the rest of his life he
was condemned to alternations of intense suffering, and of forced
inaction which was worse to him than pain. He was tormented with
chronic neuralgia, with dropsy on the chest, and a severe
affection of the larynx, that for long periods deprived him
entirely of the power of preaching. During these ten years of
suffering, he wrote his history of "Clement XIII. and Clement
XIV," a book which under the guise of an apology for the course
of the latter pontiff in the suppression of the Jesuits was in
reality an apology for the society, and a reply to the recently
published work of Father Theiner on the same subject. He founded
the sodality known as the Children of Mary, assisted in the
establishment of the Congregation of the Oratory, and was
zealously and constantly employed in the direction of souls and
the guidance of converts--gathering up, as Father de Ponlevoy
well expresses it, the fruit of his ten years' preaching. There
is hardly a distinguished name in the history of France at that
day which does not appear in connection with his. Madame
Swetchine was one of his co-laborers. Madame de la Ferronnays,
whose charming life has recently been told under the title of
_A Sister's Story_, was his devoted friend. Chateaubriand,
Count Molé, Walckenaër, Camper the celebrated navigator, Marshal
St. Arnaud, General Cavaignac, Prince Demidoff, Montalembert, De
Falloux, and Bishop Dupanloup--these are some of the illustrious
names which occur most frequently in his correspondence. A
celebrity of a very different sort with whom he had some
intercourse is thus alluded to in Father de Ponlevoy's Life:
"We cannot conclude this chapter without making some mention of
that well-known American _Medium_, who possessed the
unfortunate talent of turning other things besides tables, and
of calling up the dead for the amusement of the living. Much
has been said, even in the newspapers, about his close and
pious intimacy with F. de Ravignan; and it seems that an
attempt has been made to use an honored name as a passport to
introduce into France, and establish there, these wonderful
discoveries of the new world.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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