THE JUBILEE OF MILL HILL

New Zealand Tablet, 29 June 1916, Page 20

THE JUBILEE OF MILL HILL

ST. JOSEPH'S FOREIGN MISSIONARY SOCIETY. ' I feel an inexpressible confidence in the power and goodness of God that He will prosper the work, such as I have never perhaps felt in any other.' So wrote Cardinal Wiseman to Father Herbert Vaughan on the eve of his departure in 1863 on a tour in South America to beg tor funds wherewith to start his projected society lor the conversion of the heathen. The thought of the countless souls who lived and died without the knowledge of God had long gnawed at Herbert Vaughan's apostolic heart (says the London Tablet), and it gave him no rest till at length, after many misgivings and negotiations and prayers, he found the way to do something for the conversion of the heathen clear before him. One answer to his prayers told him that he must begin humbly and quietly way which was art once the path of prudence, and rendered necessary by the lack of financial resources. Fired with zeal for souls and the example of St. Francis Xavier and Blessed Peter Claver, he had desired to devote himself to the conversion of the heathen, but he later came to see that to found a society for that work would achieve greater things than he, in his own person, could ever hope to accomplish. And so, once assured of ecclesiastical approval, he faced the work with a comparatively light heart. He begged through the Americas, and came back with a sum sufficient to provide a beginning of burses. Other moneys obtained her at home enabled him to buy a little property at Mill Hill. Here with one student he began on March 1, 1866, under St. Joseph's patronage; and on St. Joseph's Day was able to have a formal opening, with full security that the house could be devoted to the purpose for which he had bought it, all legal difficulties having been removed. Two years later, at a public meeting of Catholics in London, the work of foreign missions and the "new society were accepted, and support promised to such effect that on June 29, 1869, the foundation stone of the present St. Joseph's College was laid by Archbishop Manning, and opened free of debt on March 1, 1871. A few days afterwards the chapel was begun, and consecrated three years later by the founder and Superior, who had in the interval been raised to the see of Salford. Such were the humble beginnings of St. Joseph's Foreign Missionary Society and the College in which its work was first housed. Tribulations beset its cradle, but they were encountered with prayer and steadfastness, and in spite of many subsequent difficulties, we can say with thankful hearts that the work never really looked back. Its history has abundantly justified Cardinal Wiseman's confidence. The work has prospered both in the mission field abroad and in the development of educational machinery at home. By 1871, when the Holy See assigned the Negro Mission of the United States to its care, the society was able to send forth its first batch of four missionaries to the United States. The best evidence of the success which attended the work of these men and their successors is that in just over twenty years it was found expedient to turn the American Province into an independent Society. Other invitations to the society were not long delayed. In 1875 Bishop Fennelly, of Madras, assigned to the society the. Guntur Mission, an area of 5000 square miles, which has since been extended. Progress in the Madras Presidency has been wonderful; the Fathers have given a Bishop Auxiliary, a Bishop Coadjutor, and an Archbishop to the diocese, and at present no fewer than 47 priests of the society are at work there. In 1879 four- Fathers, including Father Jackson, who died a week or two ago, were sent out to act as military chaplains in Afghanistan, and in 1887 the Prefecture of Kashmir and Kafiristan and the part of the Punjab were assigned to the society, which is now represented in Northern India by fifteen priests. Meanwhile, a

fresh field of work has been opened out in Labuan and North Borneo, which was entrusted entirely to the Society. The work here was difficult in. the extreme. The natives include tribes of head hunters, and the climate lays a heavy toll on white lives. But the supply of Fathers has not only been maintained, but increased, until the number now stands at twentyeight. The next invitation Came From New Zealand, whither in 1886 a small band oi : missionaries was sent to take charge of the Maori Mission. From the outset the Fatiiers won the good-will and assistance of the natives, and the work of evangelisation has ever since proceeded apace. Twenty-one priests of the society form the present staff of the mission. Even more important was the next extension of the work of the society by the assignment to it of the Upper Nile Vicariate, comprising Uganda and British East Africa. Bishop Hanlon and four companions tramped the 800 miles from the coast to the interior in 1895. How greatly the work here prospered, let the simple figures tell:—Two years ago, there were 26,000 Catholics in the vicariate, and over 25,000 people under instruction, under the charge of Bishop Biermans and 58 Fathers. In 1905 the society sent a band of seven Fathers to work in the Belgian Congo, at the special invitation of King Leopold, who was anxious that the truth concerning the alleged atrocities should be available for England from English-speaking priests. Here, too, success has attended the Society's efforts, though the mission has suffered heavily from death and the hardships incident to the present war. Another signal mark of confidence came in 1906, when Bishop Booker, of Jaro, invited the society to assist him in the Philippine Islands. There the Aglipayan schism has had to be fought, but good headway has been made. The eight Fathers first sent out have grown to thirty-one, and a year's Baptisms nearly touch a thousand. -The society's latest mission is that of Old Providence, which includes three islands in the Caribbean Sea, and was entered upon in 1912. This continuous extension of work abroad, with its increasing demands for men, inevitably called for the multiplication of educational machinery at home. The college at Mill Hill soon proved too small to give a complete course to the number of candidates required. An apostolic school to prepare boys for philosophy was accordingly started in 1880, and in 1884 given a permanent home at Freshfield, in St. Peter's College, which began the present year with 57 students. Then, to enlarge the supply of candidates, houses were opened at Roosendaal in Holland in 1890, at Brixen in the Tyrol in 1891, and a little later Mill Hill was made exclusively theological, where the students from the other colleges could meet for their final studies and ordination. In 1912 another house of studies was opened at Til burg, in Holland, where seventy boys are now assembled, and where already extensions are in contemplation. Such growth is surely a sign that . God's Blessing Has Gone With the Work. It seems evident that it could not have been so maintained and increased if it had been left dependent upon casual charity. True, the society has ever had good and generous friends, like Lady Herbert of Lea and Miss Hanmer, but it needed also an organised system for the collection of funds. This was secured through the Council of St. Joseph's Society, which was formed in 1877, with the Marquis of Ripon as its first and the Duke of Norfolk as its present president. From this council sprang the organisation of ' Zelators,' who by the regular collection of small sums in their several districts form what is perhaps the main support of the society by ensuring it a more or less stable income, whilst other help is obtained through the cooperation of the clergy by appeals in the churches. All this is surely no mean record for fifty years of work from the smallest of beginnings. Besides good friends, it has also had the advantage of unfailing loyal service from its members. Herbert Vaughan and his first Rector of the College, Canon Benoit, laid the

foundations deep and broad,, and on them the present Superior-General, Father Henry, who was elected in 19U4, has been able by wise administration not only to meet the current demands for men, but also to accept and staff new fields of labor. The society can now look to its 216 Fathers in its mission fields and to an annual total of nearly 20,000 baptisms. For the future, too, there is hope, but hope not untinged with some anxiety. The mission field under the British flag is expanding, and the war has brought its own difficulties at home. But the work must go on, for it is that of the kingdom of God. Men and money will be needed, but we rely on the spirit of our people that the second fifty years of Herbert Vaughan’s great society shall not be less glorious than the first.