Three Bishops of Acanthus.

II.

IN 1856 M. Theurel was placed at the head of the College of Hoang-Nguyen, which, under his management, soon in some degree replaced that of Ké-Vinh. It included two European and two Annamite priests, twelve catechists, and more than a hundred students, who lived in small bamboo huts, clustered round the dwelling of their Superiors. Occupied as he was in teaching rhetoric, managing the establishment, and again starting the printing-press, he found time to translate into the language a description of the world and the liturgical manual of Falise. Meanwhile M. Venard translated part of the New Testament, and the Harmony of the Gospels. Père Néron compiled manuals of arithmetic, algebra, and geometry, and all promised well for the future education of the young Annamites. From Cochin China at this time came the joyful news that M. de Montigny, the Consul-General of France, had been commissioned to enter into a solemn contract with the Emperor of Annam for the lasting peace and freedom of the Church at Tongkin. In this year the most beautiful part of the mission was devastated by an inundation, which carried away Mgr. Retord's house, threw down many others, and destroyed the harvest. Famine followed the flood, and to fill up the measure of their trials the village of Ké Vinh was attacked and destroyed, and the missionaries had to fly to the mountains. The sending of Montigny had not the effect anticipated; on the contrary, the government was filled with fresh suspicion and hatred of the Faith, the flame of persecution was again

enkindled, and preparations were made for a war of annihilation against Christianity. In 1857 Mgr. Diaz, a Dominican, Vicar-Apostolic of Central Tongkin, was beheaded, and the following year his successor, Mgr. Melchior, hacked to pieces alive. The blood of martyrs flowed in streams.

That the mission might not be left without a head, should he himself fall into the pursuer's hands, Mgr. Retord named as Vicars-General M. Theurel and Père Charbonnier. Hoang-Nguyen for a time was spared, which M. Theurel attributed to St. Joseph's protection. In the meantime all the letters he had written to Hong Kong from the spring of 1858 had been seized by the mandarins, and led to the destruction of the College during the summer. The letter-carrier was stretched on the rack, and in his torture gave up the names of the villages where Mgrs. Retord and Jeantet and the missioners Venard and Theurel lived.

On June 11, 1858, a force of about three thousand five hundred men, under an apostate Christian and several mandarins, attacked the peaceful College of Nguyen. The little colony was very quickly surrounded, the road cut off, and the houses taken by the soldiers. To their astonishment no one was to be found within the enclosure but the grey-headed porter, an old woman and her daughter, who took care of the church, and two boys, who were just about to make their escape. All the rest had fled. News had arrived the evening before of the threatened attack, and a second messenger removed all doubt. In three hours all the furniture and everything moveable were hidden underground. Teachers and scholars then made their escape, taking what was absolutely necessary. M. Theurel, like a brave general, directed the retreat, and remained until he thought all were in safety. In the hurry and darkness these two boys were overlooked.

The assailants vented their rage on the empty buildings, and set church, college, and houses on fire. The whole

bamboo erection was levelled to the earth, and the few persons they found seized and carried off. The woman and her daughter were soon set at liberty. When the mandarin required her to tread upon the Cross: "A likely thing," she replied, "who would be such a wretch as to tread on his father or mother?" So much sympathy for her was elicited by this answer that the man of law thought it wiser to let her and her daughter go free.

The failure of this attempt excited to the highest pitch the rage of the mandarins. A regular administration of the parishes was impossible. The houses of the Christians were watched, and only with the well-disposed heathens could the priests reckon upon safe concealment. As the united French and Spanish fleet had not been able to land so as to receive on board Mgr. Retord and his missionaries, they had no resource but to escape to the mountains. Here Mgr. Retord wrote his last account of the mission, a review of the devastation caused by the persecution in Annam. On October 22, 1858, he died of fever, deeply lamented by the Church of Tongkin, honoured by the heathens as the "great king of religion," and feared by the enemies of Christianity as their most powerful adversary. At the same time that this heavy blow fell on the Church of Tongkin, an order from the Superiors of the Mission in Paris recalled M. Theurel to Europe to be one of the directors of the great seminary. The case was difficult, and at the unanimous request of the clergy Mgr. Jeantet, Mgr. Retord's successor, judged it expedient to retain this excellent priest, who had been one of the strongest supports of the mission, until he had made some representations to the Superiors. At the desire of the clergy Mgr. Jeantet, who, at the age of sixty-seven, thought himself in need of assistance, named him as his coadjutor. The young Vicar-General pleaded his age, he was only twenty-nine, as a reason for escaping the burden of the Episcopacy, but the order was confirmed, and M. Theurel consecrated Bishop of Acanthus. He

thus writes to a friend: "When the bishop saw the peace of religion passing away from us like a shadow, he judged it expedient to have a coadjutor. When I was lodging in a buffalo-stable I received an order to make the Exercises, and then go at once to the bishop. After I had made them, I travelled in two nights to the place appointed. The election took place the next day, and on the third the consecration. In place of our European confrères, who durst not leave their hiding-places, two Annamite priests supplied for the assistant bishops. My crozier was a bamboo cane, cut from the wood close by, and covered with gold paper. I had no stockings or gloves; not a word was said. The ceremony was ended two hours before sunrise. Thus is made in Tongkin a Bishop of Acanthus! You will doubtless think me somewhat bold to submit to the imposition of hands over me. Indeed, I think so, and I had ample reasons to deter me from it, but in the present terrible state of things a longer delay on my part would only have created greater confusion, and I was obliged to allow myself to be consecrated. Pray, however, to GOD, none the less for forgiveness for the facility with which I yielded to the views of others, and ask for me greater wisdom and courage, that I may not sink in this sea of troubles, but may sooner or later enter the haven of that peace which the world cannot give."

At the same time he wrote to his sister, "What gives me courage in taking upon myself this burden is that at the same time I espouse poverty and suffering." As in his consecration he received Mgr. Retord's pectoral cross and ring, he also took his title of Bishop of Acanthus, and his motto, Fac me cruce inebriari, and indeed his exercise of the Episcopal office was only a sharper and more severe continuance of the trials and sufferings endured by his predecessors.

The taking of the fortress of Turanne and the occupation of Saigon by the French had more than ever infuriated the Emperor Tu Duc and his adherents, and the cruising

along the coast of the European fleet had no effect but to excite greater vigilance, and thus cut off from the missionaries every means of escape. Besides the mountain forests, where death and fever stared them in the face, nothing remained for them but to hide by day in holes and caves underground, and at night to seek out the Christians, to console and strengthen them with the sacraments, and then return to these unhealthy abodes, or seek other hiding-places. In his first flight Mgr. Jeantet had narrowly escaped drowning, and on account of his age and dignity the missioners held it as a sacred duty to give him the safest place of concealment, and go themselves from place to place. At their head, the bravest of all, Mgr. Theurel directed the whole mission, kept the priests united, and with Mgr. Jeantet, gave the necessary orders, watched over the isolated congregations, provided for their wants, looked after the prisoners and confessors of the Faith, and lastly, wrote himself the Acts of the Martyrs. Everywhere and always, like St. Athanasius in former times, with the visible protection of Providence, he put to shame the power and cunning of the heathen, and preserved in the unity of faith, charity, and heroic steadfastness the severely persecuted Church of Tongkin.