Books and Religious Devotion - Allan F. Westphall Penn State Series in the History of the Book

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of your paper.”26

      Worthy of note is the diverse nature of Connary’s newspaper and journal subscriptions, which included papers from both sides of the sectarian divide as well as widely disseminated New England papers and more local, parochial periodicals. Connary might well have been heeding advice such as that in Rev. John O’Hanlon’s Irish Emigrant’s Guide for the United States (published by Donahoe in 1851 and in Connary’s library) concerning household reading and newspaper subscription: “The trifling expense of a dollar to two or three a year, will not be an object with most men, and the amount of intelligence communicated both to himself and the members of his family, will amply compensate him for the outlay. It should be observed that if this paper be a religious one, he should subscribe for that published in or near his own diocese, if only to encourage the efforts of a local Catholic press.”27 Connary reads periodicals as someone with the responsibility for the practical and spiritual management of a household, but also, it appears, as someone who strives towards some balance in the loyalties and affiliations of his subscriptions. The appendix provides a fuller list of the newspapers, periodicals, and other miscellaneous papers referred to and purchased by Connary.

      When we turn our attention from Connary’s use of newspapers and periodicals to the range of books acquired by him, we notice the predominance of what we may tentatively categorize as a literature of religious guidance and practical guidance on matters such as farming and household management. Needless to say, any distinction between practical and religious guidance is not an absolute one: in fact, much of the interest of this archive of reading material stems from precisely the way in which the categories overlap, and are understood by the owner to overlap, within his extensive reading program.

      In the area of practical guidance, we find writing useful to someone with responsibility for the moral and corporeal welfare of a household. Titles referred to by Connary as Youth’s Director and The Duties of Young Men would have guided the instruction of adolescent and young adult family members.28 Equally practical, if rather more mundanely so, is a selection of books on agriculture and livestock, including The Farmer’s Treasure: A Practical Treatise on the Nature and Value of Manures, by Frederic Falkner, and two titles referred to as The Farmer’s Own Book and The Complete Farmer.29 In addition, we find in Connary’s library an array of titles that would have provided broader guidance to life in America and the immigrant experience. Among these are a number of introductions to American history and society, as well as the voluminous New Hampshire as It Is, comprising information on geography, demographics, and industrial and humanitarian assets, together with numerous biographical sketches of distinguished individuals.30

      The volume referred to as “O’Hanlon’s ’Guide,’” in all probability John O’Hanlon’s Irish Emigrant’s Guide, would have provided detailed and practical guidance for life, work, and social participation in the adopted country. As Hanlon equips his fellow Irishman with a realistic and pragmatic manual for survival, he urges both the acknowledgment of the “most noted and objectionable traits of Irish character” (a certain “want of determination,” some “intemperance,” an occasional “lack of sober reflection,” and “a tendency to crowd into cities and be engaged in large bodies on public works”), as well as the “preservation of religious principles and independence.”31 The self-reliant and industrious Irish expatriate is encouraged to participate in American life while preserving his religious character and maintaining his sacred rootedness in the family. This ideal of peaceful assimilation is embodied in the life of Thomas Connary, and it is framed by O’Hanlon in terms of purposefulness and a predetermined naturalization. Recalling Haskins in his Travels, O’Hanlon opines that

      of all other strangers, the educated Irishman finds himself most at home in the United States,—he seems to have been destined by nature for a participation in the active and business pursuits of the country, and in the benefits and advantages derived from its laws and institutions. His innate feelings and disposition, moreover, seem to be almost congenial to the habits and general character of the people amongst whom he is called upon to reside; and no man takes a deeper and more abiding interest in the honor, prosperity and institutions of the country of his adoption. Even the uneducated classes of Irishmen are actuated by like motives and impulses.32

      When we turn to Connary’s collection of religious guidance literature—the overwhelming majority of his books and clearly where he invested most of his efforts as a book collector and annotator—we find a body of complex and diversified discourses that cuts across literary genres. Predominant are texts of didactic, catechetical instruction and Bible history. Connary refers several times to “my little illustrated Catechism of 183 pages” and “Catechism of the Council of Trent.”33 James O’Leary’s A History of the Bible, Its Origin, Object and Structure, printed by D. & J. Sadlier in New York in 1873, provides a compendious 483-page introduction to the scriptures. These are all titles that would have strengthened Connary’s religious knowledge and aided him in the religious instruction of his household: they reflect the didactic and catechetic priorities of someone functioning as a kind of estate manager with a degree of pastoral responsibility within his tight-knit family unit. O’Hanlon, in his Irish Emigrant’s Guide, envisages precisely such a role for the head of the household: “It will be the duty of all heads of families to place those under their charge within the rank of religious instruction, to see that they are careful in discharging the duties of religion required of them, to keep them from the contamination of evil influences, particularly those that might endanger or weaken the ties that bind them to our Holy Church” (178).

      Two other texts in Connary’s library that would help construe such domestic religious instruction are Bourdaloue’s Sermons and Moral Discourses in the Important Duties of Christianity and Comtesse Elizabeth de Bodenham’s Mrs. Herbert and the Villagers: or, Familiar Conversations on the Principal Duties of Christianity. The latter two-volume work was praised in 1824 by the English Catholic Spectator as likely to “commence a new era in the History of British Catholic Literature” and as an important contribution to the “art of dramatising instruction.”34 Structured according to the sacraments and the Ten Commandments, Bodenham’s text consists of a series of dialogues in which the maternal figure of Mrs. Herbert addresses the confusion and misunderstandings of villagers with her exemplary Christian learning, humility, and patience. It is not difficult to imagine how the extended didactic counsels in the text could serve as applicable models for religious instruction within the household.

      Another significant portion of Connary’s works of religious guidance consists of devotional works, hagiographic works, and prayer books. These varied literary forms were designed to enhance pious sentiment and structure a life of prayer. Classic titles such as Julian of Norwich’s Revelations, St. Francis of Sales’s Spiritual Conferences, Thomas à Kempis’s Imitation of Christ, and The Life and Revelations of Saint Gertrude lend themselves to private concentrated reading, as evidenced by the rich annotation and many inserted pages of religious reflections. The book entitled Memories of a Guardian Angel, translated from the French of Guillaume Chardon, provides another interesting example of Connary’s devotional literature. Consisting of eighty-eight brief ruminations on themes from the Christian life and its spiritual tribulations, the work draws on a range of patristic writings, saints’ revelations, and “the safest mystical writers” to expound Catholic teaching on the ministry of guardian angels. Inserted handwritten pages in this volume indicate that it provided Connary with much consolation and reassurance. A note from 1875 on the first page of the text offers interesting clues to the possible shared use of the book in the Connary household; it also indicates that Connary purchased the book, originally published in Baltimore by John Murphy, from the well-stocked bookshop of Patrick Donahoe.

      Thomas Connary’s Book.

      Stratford, Coös County, New Hampshire, October 5, 1875, Received this day from Mr. Patrick Donahoe of Boston, Massachusetts, which I wish to use and have the member of my family circle use as a pure blessed

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