Vol. 60.] ANNIVERSARY ADDRESS. Ixiii 



looked for in a Jesuit father. His hold on the orthodoxy of the 

 Latin Church grew weaker as his scientific vision increased in 

 strength and breadth. 



The first overt act of renunciation of his ecclesiastical ties 

 appears to have been taken by him in 1884, when he formally 

 left the Society of the Jesuits. I had previously understood from 

 him that he had never taken the final step that would have 

 completed his attachment to that order, and that he was still at 

 liberty to go no farther. In leaving the Jesuits he did not, 

 nevertheless, leave the Church, but became thenceforth one of the 

 secular clergy. In the end, however, the struggle between the 

 influence of all the earlier associations of his life and the claims of 

 what his reason now convinced him to be the truth, became too great 

 to be longer endured, and he determined to sever his connection 

 with Roman Catholicism. Had he gone no farther than a public 

 announcement of this change of religious belief, the outcry against 

 his apostasy would, in such a country as Belgium, have doubtless 

 been loud and long. But, as if to leave no doubt of his secession, 

 he, on March 21st, 1901, married Mile. Henrietta van Gobelschroy. 

 That one who had been all his life a priest should take such a step 

 could not but intensify the persecution that was gathering around 

 him. Many bitter, unworthy, and baseless reproaches were heaped 

 upon him, and many old and intimate friends now shunned him. 

 A man of his kindly nature could not but feel deeply the insinua- 

 tions and misrepresentations to which he was subjected. Perhaps 

 I may be allowed to translate a few lines from the last letter that I 

 received from him, which may show how he himself looked upon 

 the step that he had taken. After thanking me for my good wishes 

 on what he calls 'my act of moral emancipation and my marriage,' 

 he proceeds thus : 



' If I had had an opportunity of seeing you I should have been able to tell 

 you in detail the struggles through which I have passed in order to gain this 

 precious human liberty, which at, last I enjoy. To-day a great calm reigns 

 within me, such as one feels when one has done one's duty, and I have now, 

 moreover, the consolation which only a family-hearth can give. I can enjoy 

 my lot and throw back upon my past such a look as the traveller, arrived near 

 the end of his journey, may cast on the rough and perilous paths which now 

 lie behind him. Different roads lead to the truth, which must be the beacon 

 light towards which we aim, and, how thick soever may be the night of 

 falsehood and error, those who will can reach that goal. I have now the deep 

 happiness of being one of these.' 



A fatal disease, which had been insidiously making progress in 



