The reign of Charles I. opens with the deeply interesting life of Francis Slingsby, showing how, even amid all the terrible persecutions of the church, God called his own elect to the light of his truth, and endowed them with firmness. He was a son of Sir Francis Slingsby, an English knight settled in Ireland, and was born in 1611. After being educated at Oxford, he travelled on the continent, and at Rome was converted to the faith ; and, at the tomb of St. Aloysius, firmly resolved to enter the Society of Jesus.
At the earnest entreaty of his father and mother, he returned to Ireland ; but after an interview with Archbishop Usher and Lord Strafford, he was thrown into prison. Cardinal Barberini exerted his influence with the queen of England, and, in May, 1635, he was admitted to bail. His stay in Ireland was not fruitless; for he converted his mother, his younger brother, his sister, and several others. This increased his dangers, and, the General of the Society urging him to come at once to Rome, he proceeded thither in 1636 ; but learning that his friend Spreul, whom he had converted, and won to the order he himself had chosen, had been struck down by disease, he returned to Ire
land, tended him in his illness, and then both reached Rome in 1639. Renouncing all his worldly prospects in favor of his brother, he began his studies, and, after his ordination, entered the novitiate of the Society of Jesus in 1641 ; but died at Naples before he could return to Ireland to labor in the field where his words, example, and fetters had preached so eloquently. The sketch of this heroic young man, and that of
Maurice Eustace, son of Sir John Eustace, and a novice in the Society of Jesus, who, returning to his family by permission of his superiors, was seized, tried, hung, drawn, and quartered, on the 9th of June, 1588,
form a most interesting addition to our biographies, and show us in Ireland two young imitators of St. Aloysius Gonzaga and St. Stanislaus Kostka,'whose virtues and example can be held up to the young with the power that flows from the fact that they lived among scenes and trials so familiar to us.
Link (here) to Catholic World published 1868
Photo of the Tomb of St. Aloysius Gonzaga, S.J. at the Church of Gesu in Rome.
"I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in me will live, even though he dies; and whoever lives and believes in me will never die." "Lazarus, come out!" St. Aloysius, pray for us, to carry all illnesses, diseases and infirmities in my son, nieces, nephews, godchild (parents, grandparents, greatgrandparents (step)) for cleansing, healing, deliverance.
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