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05 - Blessed Edmund Campion by Louise Imogen Guiney · Blessed Edmund Campion

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  Speaker 1: Chapter five of Blessed Edmund Campion. This is a LibriVox recording.
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  Speaker 1: All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more
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  Speaker 1: information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox dot org. Recording
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  Speaker 1: by Christopher Orum Blessed Edmund Campion by Louise Imogen Guyney.
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  Speaker 1: The Call to Come Up Higher Duet Prague, fifteen seventy
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  Speaker 1: one to fifteen seventy three. In Allan's Apology for Seminarians,
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  Speaker 1: there is a beautiful account of the ideals of Duet quote.
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  Speaker 1: The first thought of the founders of the College had
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  Speaker 1: been to attract the young English exiles who were living
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  Speaker 1: in Flanders from their solitary and self guided study to
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  Speaker 1: a more exact method, and to collegiate obedience and their
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  Speaker 1: next to provide for the rising generation in England a
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  Speaker 1: succession of learned Catholics, especially of clergy, to take the
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  Speaker 1: place of those removed by old age, imprisonment and persecution.
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  Speaker 1: Their design then was to draw together out of England
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  Speaker 1: the best wits from the following classes, those inclined to Catholicism,
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  Speaker 1: those who desired a more exact education than could be
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  Speaker 1: obtained at Oxford or Cambridge, where no art wholly or
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  Speaker 1: profane was thoroughly studied, and some not touched at all.
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  Speaker 1: Those who were scrupulous about taking the oath of the
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  Speaker 1: queen's supremacy, those who disliked to be forced, as they
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  Speaker 1: were in some colleges of the English universities, to enter
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  Speaker 1: the ministry, and those who were doubtful which religion was
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  Speaker 1: the true one, and were disgusted that they were forced
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  Speaker 1: into one without being allowed opportunity of inquiring into the other.
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  Speaker 1: The spirit of Dewet was not reactionary, but the best
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  Speaker 1: spirit of the English Renaissance. It had besides a character
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  Speaker 1: or atmosphere wholly and bright, not formed by mere human culture.
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  Speaker 1: It was as a garden enclosed and a fountain sealed.
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  Speaker 1: Campion found there a piece such as he had never known.
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  Speaker 1: He had already at Oxford given seven years to philosophy
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  Speaker 1: and six more to Aristotle, positive theology and the Fathers.
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  Speaker 1: The study of Scholastic theology was dead in Oxford. Campion
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  Speaker 1: now first took up the teachings of Saint Thomas Aquinas.
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  Speaker 1: He arrived in June, and in August he bought a
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  Speaker 1: noble edition of the Suma for his own use. In
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  Speaker 1: three volumes folio. This was discovered in eighteen eighty seven
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  Speaker 1: by Canandidio of Lille and is now at the Roehampton Novitiate.
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  Speaker 1: Several features make it a particularly interesting relic, Campion's signature
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  Speaker 1: with the date of his purchase on the fly leaf,
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  Speaker 1: various beautifully executed little drawings, underlinings, and a host of
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  Speaker 1: marginal notes in Latin. By far, the most touching of
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  Speaker 1: these relates to what Saint Thomas quotes from Genetius on
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  Speaker 1: the baptism of blood blessed Edmund. Campion wrote in a tall,
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  Speaker 1: bold hand over against the passage the one using word martyrdom. Canondidio,
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  Speaker 1: with that intimate touch of French sympathy, calls it MoU
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  Speaker 1: redeue e prophetique. For nearly two years Campion followed the
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  Speaker 1: course of scholastic theology, taking his degree of Bachelor in
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  Speaker 1: January fifteen seventy three. He then received minor orders and
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  Speaker 1: was ordained a subdeacon. All went happily for him. At
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  Speaker 1: Deuay he was again at his old work, and as
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  Speaker 1: ever he won the highest opinions from those among whom
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  Speaker 1: he moved In his Oxford days, he had always held
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  Speaker 1: lofty standards before his pupils. Quote, never to deliquess into sloth,
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  Speaker 1: nor to dance away your time, nor to live for
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  Speaker 1: rioting and pleasure, but to give yourselves up to virtue
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  Speaker 1: and learning, and to reckon this the one great, glorious
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  Speaker 1: and royal road. End quote. But the feeling in the
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  Speaker 1: exhortations of his later life is tenfold deeper, and strikes
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  Speaker 1: a far more haunting note of duty toward England and
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  Speaker 1: toward the Church. This is a passage from the revised
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  Speaker 1: De Juvenat Academico, which had first been sketched out years
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  Speaker 1: before in Dublin. Quote, listen to our heavenly Father asking
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  Speaker 1: back his talent with usury. Behold by the wickedness of
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  Speaker 1: the wicked. The House of God is devoted to flames
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  Speaker 1: and to destruction. Numberless souls are being deceived, are being shaken,
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  Speaker 1: are being lost, any one of which is worth more
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  Speaker 1: than the empire of the whole world. Sleep not while
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  Speaker 1: the enemy watches play, not while he devours his prey.
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  Speaker 1: Sink not into idleness and folly, while his bangs are
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  Speaker 1: wet with your brother's blood. It is not wealth, nor liberty,
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  Speaker 1: nor station, but the eternal inheritance of each of us,
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  Speaker 1: the very life blood of our souls, our spirits, and
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  Speaker 1: our lives that suffers. See, then, my deares, young scholars
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  Speaker 1: and friends, that we lose none of this precious time,
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  Speaker 1: but carry hence a plentiful and rich crop, enough to
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  Speaker 1: supply the public want and to gain for ourselves the
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  Speaker 1: reward of dutiful sons. And one of those who listened
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  Speaker 1: to these words was destined to become the pro martyr
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  Speaker 1: of the English Continental Seminarians. Kutbert Maine, a dear pupil
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  Speaker 1: of Campion's, who, as a devon lad had come up
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  Speaker 1: to Oxford and Saint John's had first conformed to the
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  Speaker 1: new regulations and served as college chaplain. Then awakened from
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  Speaker 1: his delusion and fled overseas for conscience sake, not to
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  Speaker 1: escape danger, but to be prepared for it. In response
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  Speaker 1: to one of Campion's burning letters. This letter was intercepted,
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  Speaker 1: but its purport had reached him and decided him. In
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  Speaker 1: the spring of fifteen seventy three, Campion found himself driven
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  Speaker 1: to a course he had not contemplated on coming to Douay.
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  Speaker 1: As he slowly saw his way, he followed it to
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  Speaker 1: horizon beyond horizon. He had many steps to take, because
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  Speaker 1: in his thirst for perfection he had far to travel.
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  Speaker 1: He told Doctor Allan he wished to leave his present life,
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  Speaker 1: go on pilgrimage in the spirit of Penance to the
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  Speaker 1: tomb of the Apostles at Rome, and there seek admission
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  Speaker 1: into the society of Jesus. The medieval orders would have
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  Speaker 1: less attraction for Campion. He was an intensely modern man.
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  Speaker 1: Now this was a severe blow to Allan, hardly less
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  Speaker 1: so to others of Campion's circle. Campion the pride, the example,
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  Speaker 1: the hope of the seminary to quit it for good,
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  Speaker 1: and to quit it in order to join the most
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  Speaker 1: recent of religious communities, one which as yet had few
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  Speaker 1: English members. It was inexplicable, but Allan, like the great
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  Speaker 1: hearted and broad minded commander in chief, he was, let
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  Speaker 1: him go without protest. He little foresaw that far from
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  Speaker 1: losing his most promising Champion, he was but lending him
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  Speaker 1: to better masters of the interior life than himself, and
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  Speaker 1: would receive his trained strength again in the English Mission's
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  Speaker 1: spiritual day of battle. Campion set out on foot across
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  Speaker 1: the continent for Rome, along that road trodden by many
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  Speaker 1: a Saxon King and English saint to the Apostles Shrine.
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  Speaker 1: His companions walked with him all the first day, but
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  Speaker 1: the next morning he sent them back and pushed on alone.
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  Speaker 1: Solitude was henceforth his choice whenever duty permitted. He must
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  Speaker 1: have had many strange adventures during that spring journey. We
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  Speaker 1: know of one of them, though not from him. At
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  Speaker 1: some point of the route, probably on the northern Italian border,
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  Speaker 1: he came face to face with an old friend, an Oxonian,
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  Speaker 1: and a Protestant. The horseman first rode past the poor
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  Speaker 1: medicant on the highway, and then was prompted by some
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  Speaker 1: dim sense of recognition to return and speak to him.
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  Speaker 1: On realizing that it was really Edmund Campion, whom he
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  Speaker 1: used to know in great pomp of prosperity, he showed
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  Speaker 1: much concern, proffered his good will and his purse, and
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  Speaker 1: begged to hear how Campion had fallen into that ill plight.
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  Speaker 1: But the pilgrim refused aid, and the other traveler heard
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  Speaker 1: something than there of the quote contempt of this world
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  Speaker 1: and the eminent dignity of serving Christ in poverty end,
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  Speaker 1: quote which greatly moved him and us also adds Robert
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  Speaker 1: Parsons of Balliol, that remained yet in Oxford when the
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  Speaker 1: report came to our ears. A strange tale, it must
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  Speaker 1: have seemed to those who knew their master of arts
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  Speaker 1: and all of his old pastidiousness. He was by now
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  Speaker 1: a saint in the making, and they were fast losing
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  Speaker 1: touch with him. Personal holiness is, so to speak, a
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  Speaker 1: mining country, its progress and its wealth are underground, unguessed
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  Speaker 1: at by the careless Passerby a saint is a mystery,
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  Speaker 1: because he walked so closely in the shadow of God,
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  Speaker 1: who is the great mystery. When Campion reached Rome and
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  Speaker 1: had paid his devotions to the holy places, he went
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  Speaker 1: to call upon Cardinal Gusualdi, who, as he stated afterwards,
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  Speaker 1: quote having some liking of me, would have been the
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  Speaker 1: means to prefer me. But I resolved what course to take,
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  Speaker 1: answered that I meant not to serve any man, but
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  Speaker 1: to enter into the Society of Jesus thereof to vow
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  Speaker 1: and to be professed. And with this intention Campion sought
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  Speaker 1: out the newly elected head of that society, Father Edward
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  Speaker 1: of Liege, whose surname was generally latinised into Mercurianus from Mercia.
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  Speaker 1: His native village. He was fourth in his office, having
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  Speaker 1: succeeded that great personality Saint Francis Borgia on Saint George's Day,
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  Speaker 1: April twenty third, fifteen seventy three. Biographers have represented that
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  Speaker 1: Campion had half years delay in Rome before he was
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  Speaker 1: able to apply for admission to the Society, but such
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  Speaker 1: was not the case. He promptly presented himself and was
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  Speaker 1: received as Mercia's first recruit, and received not as a
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  Speaker 1: postulant but as a novice. As Anthony Wood tells us quote,
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  Speaker 1: he was esteemed by the general of that order to
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  Speaker 1: be a person every way complete end quote. Four years later,
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  Speaker 1: Campion most affectionately thanked his own old tutor, John Beavand,
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  Speaker 1: for unasked introductions, help and money which had been supplied
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  Speaker 1: since he came to Rome. He speaks of himself as
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  Speaker 1: one whom you never knew could repay you, but who
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  Speaker 1: was at the point so to speak of death. You
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  Speaker 1: were munificent to me when I was going to enter
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  Speaker 1: the suppulical rest of religion. The aid he would not
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  Speaker 1: accept for himself on his journey from one friend he
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  Speaker 1: had accepted in the city, and spent no doubt in
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  Speaker 1: almsgiving from another, perhaps beavand was abroad and heard of
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  Speaker 1: that incident which came to pass on the road. Certainly
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  Speaker 1: he was one from whom Campion could not, in chivalry
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  Speaker 1: refuse whatever he chose to share with him. The Society
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  Speaker 1: of Jesus had been founded only six years before Campion
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  Speaker 1: was born. It had as yet no English province, that is,
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  Speaker 1: no members living under the English flag, with the domestic
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  Speaker 1: government of their own. But Edmund Campion was already well
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  Speaker 1: known to the provincials on the continent, who had a
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  Speaker 1: warm contest over him, every one of them wishing to
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  Speaker 1: add such a promising soldier to his own wing of
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  Speaker 1: the army of the Lord. As it fell out, Bohemia won,
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  Speaker 1: Campion was sent as one of a company to Vienna,
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  Speaker 1: and then from Vienna to Prague, where the novitiate was
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  Speaker 1: with Father avel Nendo, confessor to the Empress. A man
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  Speaker 1: of wide experience, he was so deeply edified by his
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  Speaker 1: companion that he told Father Parsons long after it had
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  Speaker 1: kept him all his life much affectioned toward England and englishmen.
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  Speaker 1: Prague was in a miserable, godless state. The Catholics were
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  Speaker 1: poor and view, the great University had perished, and all
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  Speaker 1: this was due to the ruin moral and material produced
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  Speaker 1: by the preaching at the dawn of the fifteenth century
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  Speaker 1: of Jan Huss. That Huss got his socialistic ideas from
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  Speaker 1: Wycliffe was a fact never out of Campion's mind while
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  Speaker 1: in Bohemia, for he thought that England owed some reparation
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  Speaker 1: to a country which she had helped to spoil, and
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  Speaker 1: he was more than willing to pay his part of
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  Speaker 1: that debt. End of Chapter five, recording by Christopher Orum