FATHER BERNARD VAUGHAN.

Auckland Star, Volume LIII, Issue 300, 19 December 1922, Page 3

FATHER BERNARD VAUGHAN.

"MORALS OF MAYFAIR."

JEREMIADS OF A JESUIT. * (From Our Special Correspondent.) LONDON, October I. In the death yesterday of Father Bernard Vaughan, the Roman Catholic Church loses one of its outstanding characters, second only in world-wide repute to 'his late (brother Cardinal Vaughan. They were of a family predestined to follow their own Church, for out of fourteen in the family seven boys became priests and all the five girls nuns—as well become the grand children of the founder of Stoneyhurst. After going through the severe training of a Jesuit novice, he took the vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience: became a professor at Stonyhurst, where "he had .been educated, and after four years of theological studies (became a Jesuit priest. His first definite appointment was to the ChuTch of the Holy Name, at Manchester, where his elder brother, afterwards Cardinal Vaughan, was then Roman Catholic Bishop. Here for nearly twenty years his passionate eloquence drew congregations that numbered upwards of two thousand.

But it was when on the threshold of the twentieth century he was sent to the Jesuit Church in London—'Farm Street—that his fame reached beyond the confines of this island. There in the very midst of Mayfair he set himself to castigate the follies of society as it was then, in its maddest and most reckless mood. His Jeremiads did not drive fashionables from church.' On the contrary, they flocked the more eagerly to hear themselves denounced, and the "•shallow, hollow, and unnatural" life of Mayfair, the cult of "a good time," the grasping after money, 'bridge, "Mayfair Magdalens," horseplay at country houses, the system of bribes for introductions; and a hundred other follies. But there was another side to Father Bernard's character, for the while he had a humble lodging in the East End where, too, he carried on his ministrations. Two nights a -week he slept in a Ibasement room of a house in Lucas Street, Commercial Road. And many a caller there has found him cooking liver and bacon—a portion of his own dinner —for one of the lodgers, a poor woman of 70, who walked too miles a day to wort, and of her hard-earned 6/ paid 1/6 a week in rent. Father Vaughan was truly "Catholic," and at one time ihe spoke to a congregation composed entirely of Nonconformist ministers, and, taking for his subject "Why I am a Jesuit," thoroughly interested and delighted his hearers. He did not confine himself to. the pulpit. On one occasion he addressed a large audience at a musichall on "The men who man the life boat." It was indeed the reproach levelled at him that he was all things to all men.

Father Bernard Vaughan, says one biographer, had a striking appearance. He was aibove the average in height, and his head was massive and well shaped. As compared with his Ibrother, Cardinal Vaughan, there was less of delicacy and more of 'boldness in liis mein. The contrast of looks between the brothers was not greater than the contrast of temperaments. The Cardinal really hated public life; Father Bernard gloried in it. There was ever in him more than a trace of the born actor. The Cardinal fought, when he must, but disliked it: Father Bernard ran to the fray as to a feast. He played himself for all he was worth. He was the born orator. It is related that after he had preached in Borae, eome cardinals remarked to the Pope that he preached like an Italian. "A!h," exclaimed the Holy Fpther, "but vou must know that he is an Italian. He was born on Vesuvius, and we only aent him to England to cool." His humour was perfectly spontaneous, as hundreds of stories which are told albout him show.

At Trinity, Cambridge, when the guest of the master, he was standing before Holbein's famous .painting of Henry VIII.

"What would you, Father, as a Jesuit, do if his Majesty were to step from the canvas?" asked the master.

Promptly he answered, "Request the ladies to leave tha,room." During the lastAears of his life lie has visited of the world, and has distinguished himself by his •".ownright views on war. "Our business," he iboldly proclaimed in 1916, "is to keep on killing Germans. If Prussianised Germany would play the game according to the rules of international law, they would command our admiration as well as our respect. But they have failed to play the game."

When criticised for this utterance, he replied: "I am not a quick change artist, 'but a Catholic Englishman. . .

Some oddities seem to be under the delusion tbat our.troops have gone to the front not to kill but to be killed. They have to be undeceived."