Collections Illustrating the History of the Catholic Religion in the Counties of Cornwall, Devon, Dorset, Somerset, Wilts, and Gloucester; In the Counties of Cornwall, Devon, Dorset, Somerset, Wilts, and Gloucester (Paperback)

Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER III. THE ACTUAL STATE OF RELIGION IN DEVONSHIRE AHD CORNWALL. In forming the comparison and contrast of the state of religion within the diocese of Exeter (which includes Devonshire and Cornwall), between the former and the present times, we have to mourn over the pillage and destruction of the records and memorials of Catholic affairs, which perished irrecoverably in June, 1780, when the rioters attacked and burnt Bishop Walmesley's house in Bell-tree Lane, Bath. After Lanherne, the oldest mission in Cornwall, and Arlington, the oldest in Devonshire, we believe that Tor Abbey and Ugbrooke must take precedence in point of time. Formerly the missionary priests were fortunate to find an asylum where to rest their heads,?they were contented with a bare subsistence. Most of them had no fixed abode; the conveniences of licensed places of worship, with contiguous residences and regular stipends, and schools for instructing their poor, were unknown. In order to elude the vigilance of scouts and persecutors, they had to make their rounds to the houses of the faithful under the cover of the midnight darkness; they were necessitated to assume different names, to disguise their persons, to submit to irksome solitude, to many slights, frequent denials of admission,?" proptcr metum Judseorum,"?in fine, they were doomed to live in perpetual hazard of life and liberty. Though their course was splendid in the sight of God and His angels, it was abject and contemptible in the eyes of worldlings. These industrious labourers in the vineyard of souls died neglected and forgotten; we rarely meet with a grave-stone to record where they rested from their earthly labours; but their names are written in heaven. The charitable zeal of these pastors?the fervour and spirit of sacrifice in th...