James Alphonsus McMaster

...John died in Chicago in 1915...

...The Bible was equally familiar to him at this time...

...He died in the same year, on December 29...

...During the forty years of McMaster's editorship, Archbishop Hughes, Cardinal McCloskey and Archr bishop Corrigan in turn occupied the see of New York...

...He found in the beautiful and gifted Gertrude, daughter of Gilbert Fetterman of Pittsburg, a truly valiant woman whose rare talents and perfect culture made her the idol of his household, and a true helpmate...

...Then mastering himself by an effort that caused him to break out into a profuse perspiration, he cried—"I will 1" From that moment he never hesitated, and afterwards always called himself "Our Lady's bad boy...

...A life of James Alphonsus McMaster could not be written without compiling a history of the Catholic Church during the forty years in which he edited the Freeman's Journal...

...He called his home "my hermitage...

...September 23, 1925 THE COMMONWEAL 475 JAMES ALPHONSUS McMASTER By ANNE EASBY-SMITH A MAN of whom Maurice Francis Egan, looking back over forty years, could write—"My chief had been a veritable thunderer," and on the same page could add—"the most sympathetic husband and father possible...

...This was overcome at last by what McMaster always considered a special grace obtained for him by the Mother of God...

...at least in the 'fifties and 'sixties and far into the 'seventies— and this alert, aggressive editor, like a skilful pilot, detected far or near the slightest danger to the faith he loved, and too often careless of the feelings of others, sent out trenchant warnings to every point of the compass...

...McMaster's death was a fitting close to his life...

...She is the only surviving daughter...

...No wonder he had enemies...

...When McMaster edited the Freeman's Journal it was not so...

...Born at Duanesburg, New York, in 1820, Benjamin Brown James MacMaster was named for two grandfathers...

...Pride alone held him back from joining the Church...

...Editorials were a really influential factor in those days...

...On the feast of the Annunciation, 1886, he had made a solemn consecration of himself to the Mother of God, at Carmel in Baltimore...

...Like all impetuous and generous natures, the end desired was so impelling that the means, provided they were legitimate, mattered little...

...The three girls were educated at the Convent of the Holy Child, Sharon Hill, Pennsylvania, where their father was a constant visitor, for he never considered himself exempt from a parent's responsibility...

...I have often thought that was a sacrifice that cost him much—for his people were proud of their ancestors...

...All three trusted McMaster entirely...

...He and Mr...

...His father promptly disinherited him...

...whom Cardinal Gibbons called "brave defender of the Faith," and Archbishop Ryan—"the truest man I have ever known," is a character interesting alike to the students of history and of psychology...

...Old Saint Peter's on Barclay Street today is thronged with worshippers, especially at the noon hour, when the Most Holy Sacrament is exposed...

...Helen, the youngest, became a Carmelite in Baltimore...

...he adored his children and they returned his adoration...

...A gentle and tender mother added the needed human touch which made the home perfect...

...but this was not to be...

...There are few people who are aware of the fact that McMaster changed the spelling of his name when he entered the Church, because he thought the Irish more Catholic than the Scotch...

...In spite of the fact that he had written some remarkable things about her greatness and glory, he had never been able to bring himself to pray to a woman...

...In spite of this, the greatness of the man was recognized by those who understood his nobility of character...

...True to his practice of thoroughness, McMaster devoured Saint Thomas's Summa and the Catena Aurea, until the tone of his mind became more and more Catholic...

...While the fervent convert was reading his profession of faith, candle in hand, he set fire to the hair of Father Tschenhen, one of the assisting priests...

...The sweetness of that day seemed to permeate the remaining months of his life...

...He never wavered but was always ready to sacrifice all to the cause of religion...

...John Alphonsus, the only son who grew to manhood, did not share McMaster's literary gifts, but they were good comrades, and it was affecting to see the loving manner in which this son nursed his dying father...

...Soon after his conversion, with Clarence Walworth and Isaac Hecker he set out for the Redemptorist novitiate in Belgium, hoping to join that order to which all his after-life he was devoted...

...All the children seem to have responded to their father's ideas of education, but the youngest surpassed them all...

...Monthly visits to his daughters in their respective convents were his greatest joys, and nothing can exceed in spiritual beauty his letters to them...

...Last of all, Gertrude who had hesitated to leave her father alone and had kept her secret until he, divining it, insisted on her following the call of God, entered Carmel...

...In later years his daughters attributed their happiness and the success of their lives to the early training and influence of their father...

...To him, fearless and loyal by temperament, hesitation and diplomacy seemed weakness, and too often the strong epithet left an open wound where more tactful means might have produced beneficial results...

...One by one, his daughters heard the Divine call, and embraced the religious life...

...When McMaster came back with the entire book learned by heart over night, he received the answer—"What you learn so quickly, you will forget as quickly...

...The cold tenets of the religion of his fathers became intolerable to this ardent spirit, and he became an Episcopalian...

...and he began to study Greek at eight...

...Perhaps Monsignor Edwards's words best sum up McMaster's work—"I consider that J. A. McMaster was the best champion of the Church in this country...

...This was clear to all when the old warrior died From every corner not only of the United States, but of the world of letters, poured into the offices of the Freeman's Journal, letters containing amazing tributes to the memory of the dead editor—letters which proved that age had not dimmed his prestige...

...He loved to think of himself as a knight of Our Lady...

...Other incidents reveal the characteristic traits of the man...

...He was a fine, ripe scholar and a writer of rare force and clearness...

...The history of the Oxford Movement in this seminary is interesting...

...The Reverend Gilbert MacMaster, proud descendent of Scotch Covenanters, gave his children every educational and cultural advantage...

...Their lifelong loyal devotedness best shows how he succeeded...

...These stories account in part for the well-trained memory, the wealth of vocabulary, the rich and wide background so evident to the readers of McMaster's mature work...

...It is doubtful if he would have been ordained even if he had insisted, for he had not the tact nor the patience which enabled Arthur Carey to pass the rigorous examination to which he was subjected before his ordination...

...Only the privileged inner circle knew of the wealth of affection in that vigorous soul, a tenderness undreamed of by the crowd who saw only his vehemence and strength...

...Mary, the eldest, entered the Holy Child Society in 1877...

...come back next week...

...The former, fifty years later, wrote of McMaster as of one "born to command...

...Farrelly and others paid pious old women to remain all day in the church so that it could safely be left open and they be able to visit their Eucharistic King...

...McMaster's powerful intellect, his profound erudition, and the happy faculty he possessed of saying the right word in the right place were the despair of his opponents...

...at five he was the happy possessor of a Latin grammar...

...If you are not in earnest, stay where you are, for you will be worst damned as a bad Catholic...

...Daily Mass became a necessity to him, and his charity to the poor increased...

...Her father accompanied her to the door of the convent, and to show his desire to participate in her sacrifice, lifted her over the threshold...

...Once convinced, however, that this was true, he set out to prepare methodically and zealously for his life's work...

...His sense of honesty became alarmed...

...and besides, McMaster's logic was impregnable and his courage unquestioned...

...Archbishop Corrigan said that McMaster was the father of the parochial school system...

...He was impatient of compromise, intolerant of ignorance, indifferent to consequences...

...None of McMaster's children married...

...The Journal gave its fullest support to all movements of interest to Church and country...

...476 THE COMMONWEAL September 23, 1925 Such was the man who broke with kith and kin and all the friends of his youth for the sake of the faith he so passionately loved...

...We find McMaster at the Protestant Episcopal Seminary, in New York City, in the early 'forties, w.ith Clarence Walworth and Arthur Carey...

...Few out of the millions who knew McMaster had any idea of his antecedents or of his inner self...

...A dart hurled at the Church brought down on the offender unmeasured denunciation...

...One day he read an unusually beautiful passage in one of Saint Ephrem's treatises, and he exclaimed—"Oh, if I could only pray to you...

...The leading papers contained articles of a similar nature...

...McMaster took his disappointment regarding his vocation with characteristic impetuosity...

...He remarked afterwards—"It will be a pity if I don't set fire to something more...

...Admitted to the bar, a brilliant future seemed to await him, when he suddenly gave it up because he won a case in which he had become convinced that his client was guilty...

...Maurice F. Egan said that the secret charities of McMaster kept him always poor...

...When the quondam theological student asked to be received into the Church, Father Rumpler presented him with the penny catechism, saying—"If you are in earnest, I will instruct you...

...Few men of his age had more enemies—few more admirers—and in each group were to be found men of power...

...McMaster later found himself a widower with five children, and devoted himself to the task of being father and mother to these bereaved ones...

...When the far-seeing master of novices told him that his calling was not to the religious life nor yet to the priesthood, but that his talents pointed unmistakably to a career of great usefulness to the Church as a journalist, he cried—"I would rather pick rags...

...Father Rumpler, the rector of the Redemptorist convent on Third Street, was a man after McMaster's own heart...

...I have never been in this church without thinking of the "brave old Catholic warrior," as Doctor Moriarty called him...

...He was an insatiable reader at ten, and his sister Helen tried in vain to find a passage from Shakespeare that he could not place...

...Doubtless McMaster's visits to the old church became more frequent as his life became more lonely...

...He was the youngest of seven children...

...At the age of four he earned the reward of "something nice," promised by his mother, by learning by rote the Sermon on the Mount...

...Maurice Francis Egan, after McMaster's death, writing of the many who would mourn his loss, said—"They know him as the soldier of the Cross, as a Godfrey de Bouillon, the knight without fear and without reproach, always ready to strike for the honor of Our Lord and His Immaculate Mother, Mary...

...James McMaster was a source of anxiety to the authorities...