University of Santa Clara - Redwood Yearbook (Santa Clara, CA)

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THE REDWOOD and in spite of unhealthy surroundings, his piety waxed strong, and he ap- proached the Sacraments every week. His success in philosophy was so great, that out of a class of several hundred, he was always chosen for the public dispu- tations. His memory was extraordinary. Twice a day he called out the roll of his class in order, without looking at his list, and without making a mistake. His success in all branches of learning exceeded even his ardor, and how great this was may be judged from the fact that, not to waste his time in social amusements during vacations, he shaved his hair like a monk. iVt this period, his only defect was a rather hot temper, which however he brought under con- trol by diligent examinations of con- science. When he was 23 years old, he was called to the bar, where his career was soon marked by exceptional energy and fidelity to duty. Once a Judge asked him to defend a murderer. I would rather shoot him was the characteristic reply. About this time, Ecuador was in a critical state, being overrun with ban- detti, while the Government was weak, and unable to cope with the revolution- ary Liberals. Under the titles of The Whip, or The Devil, the ardent Moreno published journals which so irritated the Liberals that he thought it best to quit the country and go to Europe. On his return a few years later, when the revolution had subsided, he met at Pan- ama a band of Jesuits, exiled from New Granada. Moreno induced them to ac- company him to Quito, where through his diplomacy the laws against them were revoked. However, the Liberals, though baffled for the moment, became only more rabid than ever. A high official of Granada wrote against the Jesuits, attacking their doctrines, morals, and even the personal conduct of some of their mem- bers. Their bright prospects were clouded, and exile seemed again await- ing them, when Moreno came forward as their champion in a remarkably pow- erful Defensa de los Jesuitas, in which he refuted all the calumnies against them. I shall be called for this, he wrote, a fanatic and a Jesuit, but I care little. I am a Catholic, and proud of it, though not so fervent as I ought to be. I love my country with a passionate love, and as a Christian and a patriot, I cannot keep silence on a question involving her welfare. I must take up the cause of the weak. Tyranny disgusts me, and I abhor the cold barbarity which will not interfere between the murderer and his victim. You say you banish the Jesuits through love of the Church. It is a lie. All the enemies of the Church abhor the Society of Jesus. You say with Calvin: We must either kill our worst foes the Jesuits, or banish them, or ruin them by calumny. . . . War is declared, but we shall march to battle under the guidance of God, and if we pass through the Red Sea, God will open the way for us. This saved the Jesuits until the year 1853, when they were again expelled. Moreno scored the President in his caustic paper, La Nacion. For this he

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THE REDWOOD GARCIA MORENO Who is Garcia Moreno, anyway? I fear some of my readers are tempted to exclaim. It is a strange as well as a sad thing that so few are acquainted with this truly great man, whom no one can know without being the better tor it. Stranger still is it that we may look in vain for any decent account of him in any of our encyclopaedias. Per- haps there is no room in encyclo- paedias for men of his stamp, for after all, he was only the savior of Ecuador; he was only the greatest Christian poli- tician of the nineteenth century; he was only a Catholic statesman who, while enriching his people with the temporal blessings of peace, moulded, with incomparable skill, their hearts to the observance of God ' s law. Any adequate account of a life of fifty singularly active years is of course impossible in these pages. All I aim at is to draw an outline of the man, which, distorted as it shall be, may yet, I trust, awaken in some the desire of studying more fully in his biography a character whom to know is to love and revere. Garcia Moreno was born in Guaya- quil, December 24, 1821, of Spanish parents, noble by birth and more noble by their piety and high character. His early schooling he received from his mother, and so fond did he become of his teacher that, in later life, he was wont to say: I know of only two good things in Guayaquil, my mother and — bananas. Under her care, his piety and his studies advanced at equal pace. Strange to say, he, who was yet to as- tound the world by his courage, was as a boy unusually timid. To cure him, his father used heroic treatment. Fear- ful of lightning, the boy was shut out all alone on a balcony during a furious thunder storm. Dreading death in all its forms, he was sent to light the tapers around a corpse. This severe medicine proved eminently successful. He him- self appreciated the allopathic method so much that whenever he felt any fear, he trained himself to embrace, as it were, the object of his dread. One day while swimming, he noticed that like everybody else he had unconsciously avoided the neighborhood of a frightful rock that hung over the water, threat- ening to fall at any instant. At once, he resolved to overcome himself, and swimming to the place of danger, he there to the horror of his companions disported himself to his heart ' s content. Not only that — to uproot all fear com- pletely, he came day after day to study, sitting in the very paws, as it seemed, of the monster near which no one dared to pass. At the age of fifteen, he entered the University of Quito, which at that time was unsound in its philosophy, St. Thomas having been discarded for Des- cartes. But Moreno ' s mind was too broad and too acute to be misled by falsehood,

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THE REDWOOD w as arrested and sent to prison, as he bad foreseen. One dark night how- ever, he managed to escape. The alarm was raised, and three of the guards started in pursuit. Moreno saw that they were overtaking him, and he made his plans to overcome them as Horatius did the Curiatii of old. Making a sud- den turn he disunited his pursuers. Then turning on the foremost, he at- tacked him fierce!} ' , at the same time shouting Strike him. The guard, taken unawares, turned round to see the pretended second assailant, when he received Moreno ' s dagger in his heart. The second he slew by his superior dex- terity, and the third fled. After many privations, our hero managed to cross the border, and soon after set sail for Paris. During those days of trial, an incident occurred which may serve as a rebuke to some of us whose bodily health is more vigorous than our faith. One evening, he arrived very hungry and tired at a small cottage. A cold chicken was placed before him, but as it was Friday, he made his meal off the sole remaining choice, some weak por- ridge. In Paris, where he awaited a favor- able moment to return, he studied every- thing, politics especially. Amid all the pleasures and attractions of the gayest of cities, he set to work to develop his mental powers to their utmost. He took room in an out-of-the-way street far from the din and hurry of the gay boule- vards, and gave himself to his work with an intensity which only a constitution of iron could have borne. I study sixteen hours a day, he said, and if there were forty eight hours in the day, I could spend forty at my desk. Not an instant was lost; he had no time even to smoke, and though very fond of this luxury, he pressed all his choice Amer- ican cigars upon a friend on the plea that he had no time to light those mis- erable cigars. He studied in company with a young man from the United States, but the Professor suggested to the latter that he might find it difficult to keep pace with his class-mate. We shall see he replied, and for some weeks he did manage to keep up. But Moreno finding he was going too slow- ly, roused himself to greater effort. The unfortunate Yankee swore he would fol- low him or die in the attempt. In less than a year the Yankee was dead. Besides politics, Moreno studied law, history, science, mathematics, and by way of relaxation, literature, in all of which his progress was almost miracu- lous. He became conversant with all the literary, political, industrial, and military questions which then agitated France. He visited all the lyceums and colleges in Paris and was versed in their methods of education. Paris was in fact, to him a great school of universal learning, and by the grace of God, it proved for him also a school of christian piety. For some years, his studies and political struggles had somewhat cooled his devotion, but a singular incident re- called him to himself. He was com- menting one day with some friends on a man who had died refusing the Sacra- ments. Some of the party applauded