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The Catholic Democracy of America, 59
Apostolic supply a vivid record of life in the early days of the
young nation. The hardships of the clergy were severe, their
isolation was intense; how modest their stipends may be
judged from that of their Superior, who received £210 a year.
One privation of the priests, however, which Dr. Carroll
describes to Archbishop Troy of Dublin in an appeal for
laborers, would not, it is to be feared, move to pity the heart
of the Cardinal Archbishop of Westminster of the present day.
" Hardships of every kind," he says, " and particularly great
scarcity of wine, must be borne with. Sobriety in drink is
expected from clergymen to a great degree. That which in
Europe would be esteemed no more than a cheerful enjoyment
of a friendly company would be regarded here in our clergy as
an unbecoming excess."
It became more and more evident that the appointment of
a bishop was of absolute necessity. Refractory priests, men
of indocile mind who chafe under ecclesiastical discipline, took
advantage of the fact that the Superior was a missionary functionary,
subject to the Propaganda at Rome, and appealed to
the new-born patriotism of Americans, which was all-jealous
of foreign jurisdiction. Once again Father Carroll petitioned
the Holy Father, who in 1788 gave directions for the election
of a bishop by the priesthood. The choice fell on the Prefect-
Apostolic, with only one dissentient voice; and, in November,
1789, Pius VI. issued under the seal of the Fisher's ring the
Bull erecting the See of Baltimore, the centenary of which
decree was the occasion of the great celebration last winter.
Once more John Carroll crossed the Atlantic, and in the
summer of 1790, at the hands of the venerable Bishop
Walmesley, the Vicar Apostolic of England, he received episcopal
consecration in the chapel of Lulworth Castle, when the
book of the Gospels was held over his shoulders by the son of
his host, who was later to be known as Cardinal Weld. It
was right and fitting that the great English-speaking branch
of the Catholic Church should in the day of small things be
given its apostolic succession in its mother land. Spain, whose