A Martyr of Our Own Times Life of Rev Just De Bretenieres

THE biographical sketch which we present to the Christian public is a work of piety in the two acceptations of the term-piety towards God, which finds its aliment in the example of a holy life and a heroic death, and the piety of affectionate remembrance, which induced us to accept the mission that we were offered, more than ten years ago, by the venerable parents of the young martyr.Incessantly interrupted by other labors, and resumed oftentimes only at long inten-als, our task was not accomplished ere the death of M. and Mme. de Bretellieres. Whilst regretting deeply that this we could not give to their tenderness a supreme consolation, and to their generous sacrifice a first recompense, in making them witnesses of the honors accorded the memory of their holy child, we have felt more at our case, on the other hand, in revealing the fact that the son's virtue was inherited from his parents.More than one touching page of this little book had been very difficult to write under the eye of those whose eulogiums were inseparable from the narration of their actions. Comprised within the narrow limits of an existence of twenty-eight years, twenty-six of which ,yere spent in his own family and in the novitiate of the Missions, the life of Just de Bretenieres offers nothing to attract men's attention save the glorious immolation through which he entered into rest. All the beauty of this life is within; and under penalty of travestying the reality, we must needs give our little book the character of an ascetic work. The history of the saints is that of asceticism in action; and without departing from the rules imposed upon biographers by the wisdom of the Church, without forgetting that it belongs to the Holy See alone to decide the titles and the honors of sanctity, we believe we may safely assert that the soul of Just was of the race of saints. Hence, only those will find pleasure in our pages who are interested in the work of grace in a soul, and the progress of that soul by fidelity thereto.As the last months of Just's life were spent in the mission of Corea, and as his precious death inaugurated a long series of persecutions and catastrophes for the Church there, we have belie,'ed it our duty to give an abridged account of those circumstances and events which, in a measure, were naturally connected with the young missionary's history. All this has been recounted elsewhere, and in a more complete form than by ourseh'es. The historian of the Church in Corea, the biographers of Mgr. Berneux, of Mgr. Daveluy, of Mm. Beaulieu and Doric,-Just's companions in martyrdom,-have already giren such information to the public, and their narration is doubtless far superior to ours. But as a biography should suftice of itself, and as it is not to be supposed that the reader of this book should have always before him other works treating of the same events, necessity has led us, towards the end of this volume, into some historical digressions-a fault against art perhaps, but pardonable because of our desire thereby to enlighten our readers on points intimately connected with the life we are narrating.Whilst tracing these lines, we learn that the missionaries now established in Corea have finished the apostolic process of the martyrs (Corean )of 1839, and that the process of the Ordinary is about to commence for the martyrs of 1866. The cause of their beatification thus enters upon its first phase, and it will end, we doubt not, by the act declaring them Venerable. The time, then, is well chosen in which to add a portrait to the gallery of heroes illustrating the Corean Church. moreover, the era of liberty and peace which appears, at last, to have commenced for this portion of Christianity is also propitious to the publication of our narration recalling the days of trial.