Horatio Alger and Arthur M. Winfield - "Young Captain Jack"

Various - "The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 16, No. 97, November, 1865"

Richard Runciman Terry - "The Shanty Book, Part I, Sailor Shanties"

Various - "Notes and Queries, Number 186, May 21, 1853"

Editorial
This article examines the wide range of anonymous and pseudonymous naming practices to be found in West African newspapers between the 1880s and 1930s, and asks about the shape of a West African history of anonymity as compared with recent histories of anonymity in European literature. The article also discusses the ways in which colonial West African uses of anonymity and pseudonyms challenge postcolonial scholarship on agency, subjectivity, resistance, authenticity and identity.

The Lives of the Fathers, Martyrs, and Principal Saints

A >> Alban Butler >> The Lives of the Fathers, Martyrs, and Principal Saints




* * * * *

Divine Providence moved one Renauld, a physician, to join Albert, a
little before the death of the saint. They buried St. William's body in
his little garden, and studied to live according to his maxims and
example. Some time after, their number increasing, they built a chapel
over their founder's grave, with a little hermitage. This was the origin
of the Gulielmites, or Hermits of St. William, spread in the next age
over Italy, France, Flanders, and Germany. They went barefoot, and their
fasts were almost continual: but pope Gregory IX. mitigated their
austerities, and gave them the rule of St. Benedict, which they still
observe. The order is now become a congregation united to the hermits of
St. Austin, except twelve houses to the Low Countries, which still
retain the rule of the Gulielmites, which is that of St. Benedict, with
a white habit like that of the Cistercians.

The feast of St. William is kept at Paris in the Abbey of
Blancs-Manteaux, so called from certain religious men for whom it was
founded, who wore white cloaks, and were of a mendicant Order, called of
the Servants of the Virgin Mary: founded at Marseilles, and approved by
Alexander IV., in 1257. This order being extinguished, by virtue of the
decree of the second council of Lyons, in 1274, by which all mendicants,
except the four great Orders of Dominicans, Franciscans, Carmelites, and
Austin friars, were abolished, this monastery was bestowed on the
Gulielmites, who removed hither from Montrouge, near Paris, in 1297. The
prior and monks embraced the order of St. Bennet, and the reformation of
the Congregation of St. Vanne of Verdun, soon after called in France, of
St. Maur, in 1618, and this is in order the fifth house of that
Congregation in France, before the abbeys of St. Germany-des-Prez, and
St. Denys.[1]

Footnotes:
1. Villefore confounds this saint with St. William, founder of the
hermits of Monte Virgine in the kingdom of Naples, who lived in
great repute with king Roger, and is commemorated in the Roman
Martyrology, June 25. Others confound him with St. William, duke of
Aquitaine, a monk of Gellone. He was a great general, and often
vanquished the Saracens who invaded Languedoc. In recompense,
Charlemagne made him duke or governor of Aquitaine, and appointed
Toulouse for his residence. Some years after, in 806, having
obtained the consent of his duchess, (who also renounced the world,)
and or Charlemagne, though with great difficulty, he made his
monastic profession at Gellone, a monastery which he had founded in
a valley of that name, a league distant from Aniane, in the diocese
of Lodeve. St. William received the habit at the hands of St.
Benedict of Aniane, was directed by him in the exercises of a
religious life, and sanctified himself with great fervor, embracing
the most humbling and laborious employments, and practising
extraordinary austerities, till his happy death in 812, on the 28th
of May, on which day his festival is kept in the monastery of
Gellone, (now called St. Guillem de Desert, founded by this saint in
804,) and in the neighboring churches. See, on him, Mabillon, Saec.
Ben. 4, p. 88. Henschenius, diss, p. 488. Bultea p. 367. and Hist.
Gen. du Languedoc par deux Benedictins, l. 9. Many have also
confounded our saint with William, the last duke of Guienne, who,
after a licentious youth, and having been an abettor of the
anti-pope, Peter Leonis, was wonderfully converted by St. Bernard,
sent to him by pope Innocent II., in the year 1135. The year
following he renounced his estates, which his eldest daughter
brought in marriage to Louis the Young, king of France; and clothed
with hair-cloth next his skin, end in a tattered garment expressive
of the sincerity of his repentance and contrition, undertook a
pilgrimage to Compostella, and died in that journey, in 1137. See
Ordericus Vitalis, Hist. Norman. et Armoldus Bonae-Vallis, in vita
Bernardi; with the Historical Dissert. of Henschenius on the 10th of
February; and Abrege Chronol. des Grands Fiefs, p. 223.

{395}

SAINT ERLULPH, BISHOP AND MARTYR.

SEVERAL Scottish missionaries passed into the northwestern parts of
Germany, to sow there the seeds of the faith, at the time when
Charlemagne subdued the Saxons. In imitation of these apostolic men, St.
Erlulph, a holy Scotchman, went thither, and after employing many years
with great success in that arduous mission, was chosen the tenth bishop
of Verdun. His zeal in propagating the faith enraged the barbarous
infidels, and he was slain by them at a place called Eppokstorp, in 830.
See Krantzius, l. 3. Metrop. c. 30. Democh. Gatal. episc. Verd.
Pantaleon, &c.[1]

Footnotes:
1. This saint must not be confounded with Ernulph, a most holy man, the
apostle of Iceland, who flourished in the year 890; on whom see
Jonas, Histor. Islandiae.


FEBRUARY XI.

SS. SATURNINUS, DATIVUS,

AND MANY OTHER MARTYRS, OF AFRICA.

From their contemporary acts, received as authentic by St. Austin,
Brevic. Coll. die 3, c. 17. The Donatists added a preface to them and a
few glosses, in which condition they are published by Baluzius, t. 2.
But Bollandus and Ruinart give them genuine.

A.D. 304

THE emperor Dioclesian had commanded all Christians, under pain of
death, to deliver up the holy scriptures to be burnt. This persecution
had raged a whole year in Africa; some had betrayed the cause of
religion, but many more had defended it with their blood, when these
saints were apprehended. Abitina, a city of the proconsular province of
Africa, was the theatre of their triumph. Saturninus, priest of that
city, celebrated the divine mysteries on a Sunday, in the house of
Octavius Felix. The magistrates having notice of it, came with a troop
of soldiers, and seized forty-nine persons of both sexes. The principal
among them were the priest Saturninus, with his four children, viz.:
young Saturninus and Felix, both Lectors, Mary, who had consecrated her
virginity to God, and Hilarianus, yet a child; also, Dativus, a noble
senator, Ampelius, Rogatianus, and Victoria. Dativus, the ornament of
the senate of Abitina, whom God destined to be one of the principal
senators of heaven, marched at the head of this holy troop. Saturninus
walked by his side, surrounded by his illustrious family. The others
followed in silence. Being brought before the magistrates, they
confessed Jesus Christ so resolutely, that their very judges applauded
their courage, which repaired the infamous sacrilege committed there a
little before by Fundanus, the bishop of Abitina, who in that same place
had given up to the magistrates the sacred books to be burnt: but a
violent shower suddenly falling, put out the fire, and a prodigious hail
ravaged the whole country.

{396}

The confessors were shackled and sent to Carthage, the residence of the
proconsul. They rejoiced to see themselves in chains for Christ, and
sung hymns and canticles during their whole journey to Carthage,
praising and thanking God. The proconsul, Anulinus, addressing himself
first to Dativus, asked him of what condition he was, and if he had
assisted at the collect or assembly of the Christians. He answered, that
he was a Christian, and had been present at it. The proconsul bid him
discover who presided, and in whose house those religious assemblies
were held: but without waiting for his answer, commanded him to be put
on the rack and torn with iron hooks, to oblige him to a discovery. They
underwent severally the tortures of the rack, iron hooks, and cudgels.
The weaker sex fought no less gloriously, particularly the illustrious
Victoria; who, being converted to Christ in her tender years, had
signified a desire of leading a single life, which her pagan parents
would not agree to, having promised her in marriage to a rich young
nobleman. Victoria, on the day appointed for the wedding, full of
confidence in the protection of Him, whom she had chosen for the only
spouse of her soul, leaped out of a window, and was miraculously
preserved from hurt. Having made her escape, she took shelter in a
church; after which she consecrated her virginity to God, with the
ceremonies then used on such occasions at Carthage, in Italy, Gaul, and
all over the West.[1] To the crown of virginity, she earnestly desired
to join that of martyrdom. The proconsul, on account of her quality, and
for the sake of her brother, a pagan, tried all means to prevail with
her to renounce her faith. He inquired what was her religion. Her answer
was: "I am a Christian." Her brother, Fortunatianus, undertook her
defence, and endeavored to prove her lunatic. The saint, fearing his
plea might be the means of her losing the crown of martyrdom, made it
appear by her wise confutations of it, that she was in her perfect
senses, and protested that she had not been brought over to Christianity
against her will. The proconsul asked her if she would return with her
brother? She said: "She could not, being a Christian, and acknowledging
none as brethren but those who kept the law of God." The proconsul then
laid aside the quality of judge to become her humble suppliant, and
entreated her not to throw away her life. But she rejected his
entreaties with disdain, and said to him: "I have already told you my
mind. I am a Christian, and I assisted at the collect." Anulinus,
provoked at this constancy, reassumed his rage, and ordered her to
prison with the rest, to wait the sentence of death which he not long
after pronounced upon them all.

The proconsul would yet try to gain Hilarianus, Saturninus's youngest
son, not doubting to vanquish one of his tender age. But the child
showed more contempt than fear of the tyrant's threats, and answered his
interrogatories: "I am a Christian: I have been at the collect, and it
was of my own voluntary choice, without any compulsion." The proconsul
threatened him with those little punishments with which children are
accustomed to be chastised, little knowing that God himself fights in
his martyrs. The child only laughed at him. The governor then said to
him: "I will cut off your nose and ears." Hilarianus replied: "You may
do it; but I am a Christian." The proconsul, dissembling his confusion,
ordered him to prison. Upon which the child said: "Lord, I give thee
thanks." These martyrs ended their lives under the hardships of their
confinement, and are honored in the ancient calendar of Carthage, and
the Roman Martyrology, on the 11th of February, though only two (of the
name of Felix) died on that day of their wounds.

{397}

* * * * *

The example of these martyrs condemns the sloth with which many
Christians in this age celebrate the Lord's Day. When the judge asked
them, how they durst presume to hold their assembly against the imperial
orders, they always repeated, even on the rack: "The obligation of the
Sunday is indispensable. It is not lawful for us to omit the duty of
that day. We celebrated it as well as we could. We never passed a Sunday
without meeting at our assembly. We will keep the commandments of God at
the expense of our lives." No dangers nor torments could deter them from
this duty. A rare example of fervor in keeping that holy precept, from
which too many, upon lame pretences, seek to excuse themselves. As the
Jew was known by the religious observance of the Sabbath, so is the true
Christian by his manner of celebrating the Sunday. And as our law is
more holy and more perfect than the Jewish, so must be our manner of
sanctifying the Lord's Day. This is the proof of our religion, and of
our piety towards God. The primitive Christians kept this day in the
most holy manner, assembling to public prayer in dens and caves, knowing
that, "without this religious observance, a man cannot be a Christian,"
to use the expression of an ancient father.

Footnotes:
1. These were, by laying her head on the altar to offer it to God, and
all her life after wearing her hair long as the ancient Nazarenes
did: (Act. p. 417. St. Optatas, l. 6. S. Ambr. ad Virg. c. 8.)
Whereas the ceremony of this consecration in Egypt and Syria was for
the virgin to cut off her hair in the presence of a priest.
(Bulteau, Hist. Mon. p. 170.)

ST. SEVERINUS, ABBOT OF AGAUNUM.

From his ancient short life, in Mabillon App. Saec. l. Ben. The additions
in Surius and Bollandus are too modern. See Chatelain, Notes on the
Martyrol., p. 618.

A.D. 507.

ST. SEVERINUS, of a noble family in Burgundy, was educated in the
Catholic faith, at a time when the Arian heresy reigned in that country.
He forsook the world in his youth, and dedicated himself to God in the
monastery of Agaunum, which then only consisted of scattered cells, till
the Catholic king Sigismund, son and successor to the Arian Gondebald,
who then reigned in Burgundy, built there the great abbey of St.
Maurice. St. Severinus was the holy abbot of that place, and had
governed his community many years in the exercise of penance and
charity, when, in 504, Clovis, the first Christian kin; of France, lying
ill of a fever, which his physicians had for two years ineffectually
endeavored to remove, sent his chamberlain to conduct him to court; for
he heard how the sick from all parts recovered their health by his
prayers. St. Severinus took leave of his monks, telling them he should
never see them more in this world. On his journey he healed Eulalius,
bishop of Nevers, who had been for some time deaf and dumb, also a leper
at the gates of Paris; and coming to the palace, he immediately restored
the king to perfect health, by putting on him his own cloak. The king in
gratitude distributed large alms to the poor, and released all his
prisoners.[1] St. Severinus returning towards Agaunum, stopped at
Chateau-Landon, in Gatinois, where two priests served God in a solitary
chapel, among whom he was admitted, at his request, as a stranger, and
was soon greatly admired by them for his sanctity. He foresaw his death,
which happened shortly after, in 507. The place is now an abbey of
reformed canons regular of St. Austin. The Huguenots scattered the
greatest part of his relics, when they plundered this church. He is
mentioned in the Roman Martyrology, and a large parish in Paris takes
its name from this saint, not from the hermit who was St. Cloud's
master.

Footnotes:
1. {Footnote not in text} See Le Boeuf, Hist. du Diocese de Paris, t.
1, p. 151, 157, and Le Fevre, Calend. Hist de Paris, p. 40{}.

{398}

THE EMPRESS THEODORA.

WHOM THE GREEKS RANK AMONG THE SAINTS.

BY her mildness and patience she often softened the cruel temper of her
brutish husband, Theophilus, and protected the defenders of holy images
from the fury of his persecution. Being left by his death regent of the
empire during the minority of her son, Michael III., she put an end to
the Iconoclast heresy, one hundred and twenty years after the first
establishment of it by Leo the Isaurian: and the patriarch Methodius
with great solemnity restored holy images in the great church in
Constantinople, on the first Sunday of Lent, which we call the second,
of which event the Greeks make an annual commemoration, calling it the
feast of Orthodoxy. After she had governed the empire with great glory
twelve years, she was banished by her unnatural son and his impious
uncle, Bardas. She prepared herself for death by spending the last eight
years of her life in a monastery, where she gave up her soul to God in
867. She is ranked among the saints in the Menology of the emperor
Basil, in the Menaea, and other calendars of the Greeks. See the
compilations of Bollandus from the authors of the Byzantine history.


FEBRUARY XII.

ST. BENEDICT, OF ANIAN, ABBOT.

From his life, written with great piety, gravity, and erudition, by St.
Ardo Smaragdus, his disciple, to whom he committed the government of his
monastery of Anian, when he was called by the emperor near the court.
Ardo died March the 7th, in 843, and is honored at Anian among the
saints. He is not to be confounded with Smaragdus, abbot in the diocese
of Verdun, author of a commentary on the rules of St. Bennet. This
excellent life is published by Dom Menard, at the head of St. Bennet's
Concordia Regularum; by Henschenius, 12 Feb., and by Dom Mabillon, Acta
SS. Ben., vol. 5, pp. 191, 817. See Helyot, Hist. des Ord. Relig. t. 5,
p. 139. See also Bulteau, Hist. de l'Ord. de S. Benoit, l. 5, c. 2, p.
342. Eckart. de Reb. Fran. t. 2, pp. 117, 163.

A.D. 821.

HE was the son of Aigulf, count or governor of Languedoc, and served
king Pepin and his son Charlemagne in quality of cupbearer, enjoying
under them great honors and possessions. Grace made him sensible of the
vanity of all perishable goods, and at twenty years of age he took a
resolution of seeking the kingdom of God with his whole heart. From that
time he led a most mortified life in the court itself for three years,
eating very sparingly and of the coarsest fare, allowing himself very
little sleep, and mortifying all his senses. In 774, having narrowly
escaped being drowned in the Tesin, near Pavia, in endeavoring to save
his brother, he made a vow to quit the world entirely. Returning to
Languedoc, he was confirmed in his resolution by the pious advice of a
hermit of great merit and virtue, called Widmar; and under a pretext of
going to the court at Aix-la-Chapelle, he went to the abbey of St.
Seine, five leagues from Dijon, and having sent back all his attendants,
became a monk there. He spent two years and a half in wonderful
abstinence, treating his body as a furious wild beast, to {399} which he
would show no other mercy than barely not to kill it. He took no other
sustenance on any account but bread and water; and when overcome with
weariness, he allowed himself nothing softer than the bare ground
whereon to take a short rest; thus making even his repose a continuation
of penance. He frequently passed the whole night in prayer, and stood
barefoot on the ground in the sharpest cold. He studied to make himself
contemptible by all manner of humiliations, and received all insults
with joy, so perfectly was he dead to himself. God bestowed on him an
extraordinary spirit of compunction, and the gift of tears, with an
infused knowledge of spiritual things to an eminent degree. Not content
to fulfil the rule of St. Benedict in its full rigor, he practised all
the severest observances prescribed by the rules of St. Pachomius and
St. Basil. Being made cellarist, he was very solicitous to provide for
others whatever St. Benedict's rule allowed, and had a particular care
of the poor and of the guests.

His brethren, upon the abbot's death, were disposed to choose our saint,
but he, being unwilling to accept of the charge on account of their
known aversion to a reformation, left them, and returned to his own
country, Languedoc, in 780, where he built a small hermitage, near a
chapel of St. Saturninus, on the brook Anian, near the river Eraud, upon
his own estate. Here he lived some years in extreme poverty, praying
continually that God would teach him to do his will, and make him
faithfully correspond with his eternal designs. Some solitaries, and
with them the holy man Widmar, put themselves under his direction,
though he long excused himself. They earned their livelihood by their
labor, and lived on bread and water, except on Sundays and solemn
festivals, on which they added a little wine and milk when it was given
them in alms. The holy superior did not exempt himself from working with
the rest in the fields, either carrying wood or plugging; and sometimes
he copied good books. The number of his disciples increasing, he quitted
the valley, and built a monastery in a more spacious place, in that
neighborhood. He showed his love of poverty by his rigorous practice of
it: for he long used wooden, and afterwards glass or pewter chalices at
the altar; and if any presents of silk ornaments were made him, he gave
them to other churches. However, he some time after changed his way of
thinking with respect to the church; built a cloister, and a stately
church adorned with marble pillars, furnished it with silver chalices,
and rich ornaments, and bought a great number of books. He had in a
short time three hundred religious under his direction, and also
exercised a general inspection over all the monasteries of Provence,
Languedoc, and Gascony, which respected him as their common parent and
master. At last he remitted something in the austerities of the
reformation he had introduced among them. Felix, bishop of Urgel, had
advanced that Christ was not the natural, but only the adoptive son of
the eternal Father. St. Benedict most learnedly opposed this heresy, and
assisted, in 794, at the council assembled against it at Frankfort. He
employed his pen to confute the same, in four treatises, published in
the miscellanies of Clausius.

Benedict was become the oracle of the whole kingdom, and he established
his reformation in many great monasteries with little or no opposition.
His most illustrious colony was the monastery of Gellone, founded in
804, by William, duke of Aquitaine, who retired into it himself, whence
it was called St. Guillem du Desert. By the councils held under
Charlemagne, in 813, and by the Capitulars of that prince, published the
same year, it was ordained that the canons should live according to the
canons and laws of the church, and the monks according to the rule of
St. Bennet: by which regulation a uniformity was introduced in the
monastic order in the West. The emperor Louis Debonnaire, who succeeded
his father on the 28th of {400} January, 814, committed to the saint the
inspection of all the abbeys in his kingdom. To have him nearer his own
person, the emperor obliged him to live in the abbey of Marmunster, in
Alsace; and as this was still too remote, desirous of his constant
assistance in his councils, he built the monastery of Inde, two leagues
from Aix-la-Chapelle, the residence of the emperor and court.
Notwithstanding St. Benedict's constant abode in this monastery, he had
still a hand in restoring monastic discipline throughout France and
Germany; as he also was the chief instrument in drawing up the canons
for the reformation of prebendaries and monks in the council of
Aix-la-Chapelle, in 817, and presided in the assembly of abbots the same
year, to enforce restoration of discipline. His statutes were adopted by
the order, and annexed to the rule of St. Benedict, the founder. He
wrote, while a private monk at Seine, the Code of Rules, being a
collection of all the monastic regulations which he found extant; as
also a book of homilies for the use of monks, collected, according to
the custom of that age, from the works of the fathers: likewise a
Penitential, printed in the additions to the Capitulars. In his Concord
of Rules he gives that of St. Benedict, with those of other patriarchs
of the monastic order, to show their uniformity in the exercises which
they prescribe.[1] This great restorer of the monastic order in the
West, worn out at length with mortification and fatigues, suffered much
from continual sickness the latter years of his life. He died at Inde,
with extraordinary tranquillity and cheerfulness, on the 11th of
February, 821, being then about seventy-one years of age, and was buried
in the same monastery, since called St. Cornelius's, the church being
dedicated to that holy pope and martyr. At Anian his festival is kept on
the 11th, but by most other Martyrologies on the 12th of February, the
day of his burial. His relics remain in the monastery of St. Cornelius,
or of Inde, in the duchy of Cleves, and have been honored with miracles.

* * * * *

St. Bennet, by the earnestness with which he set himself to study the
spirit of his holy rule and state, gave a proof of the ardor with which
he aspired to Christian perfection. The experienced masters of a
spiritual life, and the holy legislators of monastic institutes, have in
view the great principles of an interior life, which the gospel lays
down: for in the exercises which they prescribe, powerful means are
offered by which a soul may learn perfectly to die to herself, and be
united in all her powers to God. This dying to, and profound
annihilation of ourselves, is of such importance, that so long as a soul
remains in this state, though all the devils in hell were leagued
together, they can never hurt her. All their efforts will only make her
sink more deeply in this feeling knowledge of herself, in which she
finds her strength, her repose, and her joy, because by it she is
prepared to receive the divine grace: and if self-love be destroyed, the
devil can have no power over us; for he never makes any successful
attacks upon us but by the secret intelligence which he holds with this
domestic enemy. The crucifixion of the old man, and perfect
disengagement of the heart, by the practice of universal self-denial, is
absolutely necessary before a soul can ascend the mountain of the God of
Jacob, on which his infinite majesty is seen, separated from all
creatures; as Blosius,[2] and all other directors in the paths of an
interior life, strongly inculcate.

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