Lamy of Santa Fe (8 page)

So it went, in all his missions, in much the same set of problems, ingenuities, endurances. There were always the Widow McCarthys, the Squire Colopys, the Mr Brophys, to give support and help lead others in the itinerant pastor's plans. Machebeuf, in the north, was moved from Tiffin to Lower Sandusky, and later given Upper Sandusky, and eventually the two parishes met and merged simply as Sandusky. In his turn, he kept Purcell informed and asked him for money. His first church was a vacant storeroom. The one he built as soon as possible was called after the Holy Angels. Its timber and stone were brought from across Sandusky Bay where a curving peninsula reached out into Lake Erie. Even before it was finished, it was too small for the congregation—a mixed success. He had benches sitting back to back to accommodate whom he could. It was a rudely Gothic church, forty by seventy feet in dimensions, with a steeple 117 feet high. The cross at the top, said Machebeuf, was “made by an English Anabaptist, gilded by an American infidel, and placed upon a Catholic church to be seen shining by mariners far out upon the lake.”

Throughout their labors in separated places, Lamy and Machebeuf kept up their comradeship as well as they could. Despite their infrequent visits to each other, they never lost the strong root of their friendship. Each knew what the other was accomplishing at every step, and both kept in touch with their fellow Auvergnats. Each reported news of all the others in writing to France. Lamy went to see Machebeuf begin his stone church, Machebeuf reported Lamy's growing number of conversions, including a highly placed English family now
reduced to poverty, and referred to him as “my dear colleague,” and “neighbor,” despite the ninety miles which divided them. The grave charm of the younger man and the spritely wits of the older still complemented each other like nourishment. Machebeuf regarded himself at moments with some accuracy, noting the “liveliness and inconstancy of my character.” He told his brother that “even if the Devil is often in my purse, I am happy.” As for his formidable tasks, “when will we finish them? This question I ignore.”

Lamy's self-searchings were of a somewhat different character. Purcell had become not only his lord, but his confidant. “… If I was a priest or minister according to the heart of God,” he wrote the bishop in 1841, from Danville, “the Divine seed would bring forth fruit, though sown by a pour [sic] sower. I beseech you that you pray God that he may enable me to be a good priest, and to persevere in that state, that I may procure the glory of God, and the salvation of those souls which he has redeemed at so great a price.” Was momentary discouragement to be read in this? Or such temptations as might threaten his vows? Or perhaps a simple humility which—as he was a meditative man—let him see human weakness as an inescapable state? It took a certain stalwartness to know oneself in honesty and still go forward with affairs in the world for the sake of others.

Most distasteful, as always, was the unending quest for money with which to do a job. To the utmost extent possible, the parishes had to support themselves, appealing to Cincinnati only as a last resort. Machebeuf went to French Canada in search of funds in 1843 to pay for building debts of his new church. Surely there would be some inevitable appeal in a common ancestry? He travelled by what he called “clerical post,” putting up at rectories wherever possible. Lamy went to see him on his return in April, and the news was both good and bad. Machebeuf had managed to raise money for most of his debts. But he had had a disagreeable adventure on the way, which was reported in the press:

We regret to hear that the Rev. Machebeuf, the pastor of Lower Sandusky, was shipwrecked on Lake Ontario, whilst on the way to Quebec. The crew and passengers saved their lives with difficulty and landed on an Island. They applied for shelter where all were kindly received until the owner discovered that a “Popish Priest” was among his guests. Our Rev. friend after much solicitation was graciously permitted to sleep
on the floor!
Such
Christian charity
deserves to be remembered. Even the Heathens of old were more merciful.

The newspaper went on to cite the Acts of the Apostles, Chapter 28: “And when we had escaped, then we knew that the Island was called
Melita. But the Barbarians showed us no small courtesy. For having kindled a fire, they refreshed us all, because of the rain falling, and of the cold.…” If there was any satisfaction for the two friends in the episode, it was that of entering into such an experience as had come to St Paul himself.

Lamy now had four churches and was making arrangements for two more, and though the parishioners were generous, times were still hard and means limited. He must turn to Purcell. “If you give me permission I will go on a begging expedition, though I am not very bold.… I am willing to go and beg, but before could you not send me a little help to settle some of the more urging affairs.” He went to St Louis, and thought of going to New Orleans from there, and a letter from the bishop would be helpful. “I hope that difficulties will only enlarge my courage.

He had heard of a woman of means at St Louis, a Mrs Biddle, called upon her, and was at once involved in an absurd financial tangle. “I proposed to borrow 300 dollars from her if she would let me have that sum without interest for some years. She consented but would not give me the money until a certain priest from Illinois would return to her a sum which he had borrowed from her for some years. She was to send it to me after my departure from St Louis, but I never received the money, I didn't think she sent it at all.” But evidently she considered that she had Lamy's note for the amount, and later queried the bishop about it. Explaining further, Lamy said, “I left the management of it to Father Glaizal but this father will not write me a word about it. She could not then by no means have my note it must be a misunderstanding.” As the sole result of his interview with the prudent matron of St Louis, he came away with ten dollars she had given him. The bishop was not to pay off any such note, though Lamy was grateful to him for cancelling another held by a “young man Mr Creighton for the 5 dollars he gives me.” Five dollars—it was hard to ask even for that.

He tried to see both sides of the financial difficulty of the parishes—what was needed, and what could be given. But there were moments when he was tempted to use his priestly powers, even if unworthily, to force money troubles toward some resolution. He once put it to the bishop this way:

… There are times which goes very hard with some people of those settlements to help toward the church when some thing is to be done, and also to contribute a little according to their abilities for the support of the clergyman, in regard to this last point I do not know what to do with a number of them. I wish you would advise me some means to make them do. Could I not tell them, that if they do not help [a] little, even if they are not able to do
much, they have no right to the services of the priest? could I not try to scare some of them refuse to hear their confessions once or twice? you will oblige me very much if you suggest what I could do in such a case.…

It was a harsher thought than he usually expressed. Whatever Purcell told him in reply—there is no record—Lamy was more like himself a few years later, when, still struggling with issues of discipline, he appealed to the bishop for a decision about how to respond to renewed sick calls from lapsed Catholics who when they recovered decided to return to their sinful comforts. Should he go? Or should an example be made of such persons? His own character was clear when he wrote, “I know the way of mildness is the best.…” The Church had her conditions to be met, people were weak, authority was often puzzled, the material and the spiritual met at odd boundaries on occasion. Perhaps his qualms did him as much credit as his strictness.

He was still more like himself when he reported to Purcell on certain other sick calls. “These last two months I had some sick calls, for some people who were not Catholic, two men married, and a boy of twenty years. They were very low, they have got well; and the poor innocent creatures think that my visit did them more good than all the medicines; they now come to church regularly, and I hope, they will be good Catholics.…” There he spoke as the shrewd peasant, the faithful mystic, and the pragmatic Frenchman, together.

But if problems never ended, neither did they end in frustration. He was still young, comradely, energetic, and comely. On one of his infrequent visits to Machebeuf in the north, they always traded troubles and surmounted them with high spirits, saying to each other in their old Auvergnese saw,
“Latsin pas!”
and in 1843, Machebeuf wrote to his sister the nun in Riom that his friend was
“toujours gaie [sic], grand, gros, et gras”
—”always happy, hearty, huge, and hefty,”

vi
.

The Materials

I
NCREASINGLY
, L
AMY TURNED TO
P
URCELL
in friendship. At the outset struggling to learn English he asked the bishop's pardon if he ventured to write him in the new language—
”Monseigneur, je prie votre
grandeur
*
de vouloir bien me pardonnant la liberté que j'ai prise de vous écrire quelques lignes en mauvais Anglais
—
”
and went on to another language difficulty, for there were so many Germans swarming into his territory that he said, “one thing is wanted for me, it is the german language, and though I speak but very little English, could I speak the dutch so well, it would be very good.” He was then boarding at the house of George Sapp's son, where they gave him a room. He longed to see the bishop, “could I be so happy as to see you, I would have it for the greatest blessing; I have so many things to tell you.…”

Through the years there were “so many things,” and also so many requests and needs. He needed altar stones—one for his home church, others for the missions. They could be broken. He had broken one. He needed vestments, a ciborium, a cheque, for the hard times continued, though to be sure the churches were flourishing, and even in its first year St Luke's at Danville saw a thousand persons present at the Feast of the Resurrection, most of whom were not even Catholics, and the sermon, in imperfect English, was a challenge. “However,” he said, “I did not get scared; and as I had before prepared mon petit mot, I did my best to deliver it.” At about the same time, he could report, “Great many in Danville have joined the temperance Society, and some in Newark”—a national movement whose earnest power had reached the forest frontier.

In 1842 he had “yet another thing” to ask the bishop. What was to be done if a Catholic girl would insist on marrying a man who was not baptized? In the small community of Danville such a case of relentless love, before which man or woman was often helpless, was now Lamy's concern. He told the girl she ought not to think of marrying her lover, and seemed at first able to turn her mind in the righteous direction. But he was “afraid that she will have the man,” who, he declared, had “lost his moral character.” But “suppose the marriage must take place?”—in other words, what if she should be with child? What then should he do? Would it be better to let them go to the Squire—the Justice of the Peace—or to marry them himself after all? The matter might, for reasons hinted at, be urgent. “Answer as soon as possible, what I can do …” So an ancient blind power spoke through his own concern, in the little grassy town with its new spire and its cemetery hill. It was not always simple to be the mediator between what these monuments represented.

In 1844 Newark, his second mission, demanded increasingly of Lamy more than he reasonably could give to it from Danville. The town was growing faster than Danville, yet the church at Newark had not even yet been plastered. Had he been overambitious in building? “Perhaps I ought to be blamed to do so much in these hard times, in this case I beg your pardon but I do hope good intention will be some excuse”—for he had gone ahead too with a modest rectory and by summer the first payment on it would be due—a hundred dollars. Perhaps he should move to Newark from Danville, though he still had “great many places to attend,” and was almost “constantly on horse-back.” He was not complaining of the labor and the fatigue, for he was “as hearty and strong as ever.”

*
Votre grandeur
—the English usage is “Your Excellency.”

Action was urged upon him from many directions—the newest one was the “already contracted” plan to build a railroad from Mansfield, Ohio, to Lake Erie. Mansfield would grow much faster than either Danville or Newark, and yet—he thought it important—”there is no regular clergyman who attends Mansfield regularly.” He had been there four times, it was only twenty-nine miles from Danville, yet he had hardly any time to go there. The matter was urgent—”Many protestants, I have no doubt would help to put up a church for this very circumstance of the railroad coming there.”

If he was “very thankful for … the particular kindness you have showed to me,” the bishop, in his turn, must have been grateful to have a man in the field so alert to all the implications of a fast-growing society. Lamy was not only a good priest, he was also a reliable manager and observer of the hard facts all about. It was a quality to be kept in mind by Cincinnati for what the future might bring.

It was satisfying to report in the midsummer of 1845 that the burned-out church at Mt Vernon was under roof again. To rebuild it, everyone had “struggled very hard, but especially our warm friend little Mr Brophy. his zeal which he proves ‘by the act' cannot be praised enough.” But the problems at Newark were still nagging, and a priest with whom he alternated one Sunday a month proved to be disinterested in “the temporal concerns of the church,” such as building, care for the property, the finances. Possibly the Dominicans, who had many priests, might take over the place, if he might make a suggestion? After all, they had once controlled Newark, and would probably be glad to assume even Louisville. But of course, “Bishop, you know yourself what is best to be done.” He still blamed himself for perhaps assuming more at Newark than could be redeemed, and he felt so unhappy about it, and so responsible, that he would gladly pledge a substantial portion of his inheritance in France, whenever it should come to him, to help with the problem. It was a comfort, however, to be able to be frank with Purcell. “It is to you, Revd Bishop
that I must open my heart. You have always been a father to me, and I bless the divine providence that I am in this diocese” and “I have the honour to be your devoted child, J. Lamy.”