The Saint of Tours

...Yet, bishop or no bishop, a man of prayer Martin remained...

...that from the lips of no man have I heard tell of so great knowledge, clothed in speech so goodly and so pure...

...At the same time, it should end the theory that these invest- ments, which we regard so lightly, are part of some vast design to enslave the helpless inhabitants of less favored areas to a novel system of imperial economics...

...It is for this simple act of a devoted catechumen that men in general still remember the Saint of Tours...

...Herein lies a miracle ever true, more rarely realized...

...The Church in her Office for Saint Martin's Day makes no mention of this or that wondrous deed...

...their food was frugal, their clothing of camel's hide...

...and blew him away with the breath of his mouth, as others have done before and since his day...

...Had he not rejoiced in the anchoress who refused to admit a bishop and his blessing to the window of her cell ? But he relented once far enough to allow the matron queen to serve with her own happy hands a meal to himself and Maximus...

...Perhaps the Harford declaration was in Jefferson's thought when he penned the closing words of that passage that has thrilled schoolboys and girls in America for a century and a half, that lingers pleasantly in many an adult mind when the rest of Jefferson's masterpiece is vague or forgotten : "And for the support of this declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our lives, our fortunes, and our sacred honor...

...For from Caesar's camp with the joyous words flung down at feet of Julian's legate: "Thus far have I fought for the emperor...

...Yet among Martin's virtues how little a thing for praise would it be, were it not passing strange that in a man unskilled in letters not even this grace should fail...

...the younger members worked at script, the elder gave to prayer all their strength...

...Thomas Jefferson doubtless knew of it before long...

...As holy Teresa saw the fiend perched upon her Office book, so Martin descried an evil spirit of monstrous size sitting upon the shoulder of Avltian, the tyrant governor of Tours...

...THE FIRST DECLARATION By THOMAS J. MALONE r _ . . do most solemnly pledge ourselves to each her, and to our country, and engage ourselves by every tie held sacred among mankind, to perform the same at the risque of our lives and fortunes...

...We may doubt that Martin raised the dead body...

...When then, as it happened, tile words of the sacred Office rang out through the Church: "That Thou mayest still the enemy and the avenger"--"Ut destruas inimicum et defensorem"--the people clamored that God had declared with this voice His will and carried their desire by force of multitude...

...The usurping Emperor Maximus craves indeed Martin's presence in his court...

...For we read of the emperor offering the jeweled loving-cup first in due reverence to his guest, and of Martin, in preference of holy order before worldly privilege, horrifying the assembled court as he quietly hands it next to his chaplain-priest...

...However, when we start on the most dramatic phase of our tariff policy--which is regarded as the causa causans of all this sinfulness--by cutting the umbilical cord which ties $ i,ooo,ooo,ooo of our capital in Cuba from the American market, something is wrong with the picture...

...When the apple farmer demands a duty on bananas, even though he fails to deliver this blow to the solar plexus of the United Fruit Com-pany, the latter's hypothetic r61e as an instrument of American aggrandizement looks rather empty...

...for this, Thrones and Dominations and Powers received him with triumphant joy as in this month, fifteen centuries ago, he fell asleep...

...and Martin must perforce be dragged by pious strategy from his cell to assume the high office his heart refused...

...The haughty Valentinlan the elder refuses to rise to greet this intruder who comes to seek a boon for some low thrall...

...Sulpicius might well know whereof he spoke...

...How many a one shall tend in secret from day to day that guardian hearth that never fails to minister to the near and to the far, that the whole and strong may be made glad by its warmth, that the sick and palsied may unwittingly feel its power and regain their strength...

...Breeze that brings the charm6d scent Of the tasseled locust tree Wakes a sadness in me blent With ecstasy ] JESSIE E. WILLIAMS...

...It is an exact quotation from an earlier declaration of independence, the first to be made by a representative group in America, antedating that of the Con- tinental Congress by more than fifteen months and by at least four weeks that attributed to the people of Mecklenburg County, North Carolina...

...This theory is attractive and, in view of the histori- cal conduct of some nations, it is entirely plausible...

...This declaration was adopted March 22, I775, by a com-mittee which had been elected by the IO,OOO white peoople of Harford County, Maryland, and was signed by its full mem-bership of thirty-four...

...As bishop he meekly accepts the challenge of reviling pagans, kisses the leper with healing sympathy, strips the very clothing from his back that he may succor the hopeless and the despised...

...What is there here in traffic's flow Of freighted blooms and leafy lace That their immortal scent should blow Across my face...

...It was the first monastery in western lands which he founded at Ligug6 near Poitiers, under Hilary its visitor...

...We catch a glimpse of him in the refuge he found and fash- ioned for himself and some eighty followers two miles without the city of Tours: a lonely spot guarded on one side by preci- pice, on the others by the River Loire, only to be approached by a single narrow path...

...This monastic home of Marmoutier won great renown as a seminary for future bishops...

...In his cathedral church he would sit on no throne, but a little stool ; no beggar, no outcast was too foul or too greatly scorned for his charity and aid...

...There for some ten years he prayed and wrought works of mercy in retreat till his fame spread far and wide...

...When we regard Fords and Buicks manufactured across the line in Canada as foreign cars and subject them to a duty, the bottom simply falls out of the whole silly theory that the American investment in Canada is an "entering wedge" for that annexation which we are supposed to desire so frantically, and which would be met with shrieks of protest from every major pro-ducing interest in this country, led by the farm bloc...

...4n@oda...

...In her wisdom she points to the root of the whole matter, the mystery of this man of strange and surpassing power among his fellow-men: "Oculis ac manibus in coelum semper intentus, invictus ab oratione spiritum non relaxabat, Alleluia...

...And now shall hungry wolves devour thy fold...

...Little wonder that the devil should levy all his arts for the confounding of this formidable soldier of the Cross...

...Like them, he often stopped to exchange news and talk politics with its citizens...

...Here dwelt the brethren in cells built of timber, in caves of the mountain rock...

...It is not difficult to imagine behind the story's framing the conflicts in which the saint cast out the enemy from presence of himself and his spiritual sons...

...On his way between his Virginia home and the northern centres, Philadelphia and New York, he, like Washington and other Virginia leaders, regularly passed through Harford Town, or Bush, the seat of Harford county...

...For did not Martin eschew the conversation of all womankind, true to the ascetic spirit of his age...

...Whereat the Pharisees were shocked...

...No great aristocrat was this in purple and fine linen, no man of form or comeliness...

...for his narrative is among the best which his century gave the world...

...YVe are told by Sulpicius Severus, his devoted friend and biographer, that one of the worthy citizens of Tours, by name Rusticius, lured the holy man forth by entreaty to save his wife in dire sickness...

...Of miracle and marvel we may indeed read at length in this beautifully clear Latin of Sulpicius, in the French of Paul Monceaux, in the English of Alexander Robert and of Mary Caroline Watt...

...And thereupon a grievous scandal...

...for, as it was said, "she ministered as Martha, and as Mary she hearkened to his words...

...Disciples vie with one another as they recall their superior's mighty deeds: of idols and temples that fell prone, of demons that forsook their human homes, of the dead that arose at his word...

...It shows that we are quite willing to destroy the value of our own investments if at any time they conflict with our major interests...

...A misquoting of the Declaration of Independence of July 4, I776...

...Terrifying tales are told of personal encounters in the secrecy of Martin's cell, of the detecting of diabolic cunning at work among the brethren and the peasants of the countryside...

...It was this same Maximus of whom Martin sought grace for Priscillian and his disciples, condemned for heresy...

...And ever he tended not only the bodies of his children, but also their minds: "I call Jesus and our common hope to witness," writes Sulpicius...

...His queen adored the bishop, and her humble veneration brought her great reward...

...They were the culmination of ten years of blundering by George III's govern- ment in its effort to expel the home rule idea from the minds of the colonists...

...Did he not teach that a woman's crowning glory and triumph is to abide unseen...

...For it springs from a vessel filled with quickening fire, the fire that comes down from heaven and is daily renewed upon the altar of sacrifice...

...From thence he journeyed here and there on missions of instruction, of healing, of championship of the Faith against Arian enemies, among ignorant and superstitious pagans, in z76 THE COMMONWEAL July IO, I9z 9 the presence of proud kings and ministers...

...yet for long time no petitions can persuade the bishop to dine in the imperial house, and only by lowly deprecation is his con- sent at last obtained...

...for "every oty and church desired for itself one of Martin's priests...

...It matters not...

...Not so hard, perhaps, to keep burning a little flame for one's own well-being and nurture in grace...

...but fire bursts out in the seat of his throne, and brings him with a rush to his unwilling feet...

...July IO, 1929 T H E C O M M O N W E A L 275 from us...

...For this, Martin "refused not to dwell on earth, nor feared to die...

...When Oklahoma clamors for a protec-tive tariff on oil produced in American-owned wells in Mexico and Venezuela, the theory that we are out to capture and exploit the world's oil supply subsides like a wet rag...

...yet the far journey of his life gives year by year to the Church at lauds on his day the more excellent memory, the cry of his priests gathered round their shepherd and bishop as he lay dying on that bed of ashes strewn upon the ground: "Why, Father, dost thou forsake us, to whom dost thou leave us desolate...

...From secular labor for the Church he had withdrawn to the solitude of monastic life, his shelter and peace amid all tlle stress of future days...

...A mean-faced creature," mut-tered the dignified prelates who attended this strange congress, "of ragged cassock and untrimmed hair--how could such grace a chapter-house...

...The attack on Boston impelled the meeting...

...Once in the streets of Tours, a thronging crowd from all the region round about acclaimed Martin their spiritual head...

...In I774 the British Parliament passed the "Intolerable Acts," directed against the American colonies, among them the act closing the port of Boston until that town should have paid for certain tea dumped into the harbor...

...Some of the pic- tures Sulpicius gives show Martin as Lord Bishop of the Church...

...THE SAINT OF TOURS By ELEANOR SHIPLEY DUCKETT S IN England to Tudor Elizabeth Walter Raleigh made reverent salutation...

...henceforth I fight for Christ," he had hastened to serve Hilary of Poitiers as exorcist, refusing higher rank...

...By no means...

...Circumstances beyond our control have forced upon us the r61e of creditor...

...Many will scan a pleasant tale and smile at the simple fervor which wove the halo of legend around the bishop's head...

...Yet none could surpass the father in inward lowliness of heart...

...al-though his plea was of no avail...

...Then we used our profits on this one-sided transaction to buy up the countrymlock, stock and barrel--as against the day when the wicked American financiers would whistle for the White House to annex the country which they had thus purchased...

...The present tariff discussion has had the fortunate effect of compelling attention to this phase of our national attitude...

...But the subtlety and craft of the devil and man, of heretics and barbarians, was calling aloud in the Western Church of this time for strong and single-minded leaders...

...we may not doubt that through his spirit white-hot with the electric force of prayer souls long dead knew life and hope once more, and demons fled from their anguished prey...

...so in France of the fourth century the young soldier Martin to Our Lord in the semblance of His least child, the shivering beggar of Amiens...

...Especially incensed was the great Bishop Defensor, under whom the strife continued hot t111 the hour of prayer...

...The bishopric of Tours fell vacant...

...We do not like it in theory, and in practice we have no intention of permitting our altered status to injure our basic national inter-ests, even if the theory demands that we should do so...

...Why should an image at my feet Of some shaft or fretted spire Plant swaying boughs on city street-My heart afire...