BACON
191
BACON
■were Ihang at that time and nearly all were well
advanced in years. The castle of Halmale near
Antwerp was rented, and the first novice, Peter
Hubert Backx, received the white habit and with it
the name in religion of Evermode. Three more
young priests and others who had finished their
classical studies followed his example. In 1839
Evermode Backx was chosen superior of the revived
community.
At the death of one of the proprietors one-half of the dilapidated Abbey of Tongerloo was bought at a public auction and Abbot Back.x led, amidst the rejoicings of the villagers, the young community to Tongerloo, 1 July, 1840. That very afternoon, the Divine Office was resumed with the first Vespers of the Feast of Our Lady's Visitation. On the lollowing day, the venerable Chrysostom Raemakers, who had celebrated the last Mass on the day of tEe suppression, 6 December, 1796, sang a solemn Mass in one of the rooms improvised as a temporary oratory, the abbey church and other buildings having been pulled down.
Evermode Backx's first work was to repair what was left of the former abbey and to erect new build- ings for the growing community. In 1819 the second part of the confiscated abbey was bought and in 1852 the first stone of a large church was .solemnly laid by the papal nuncio, so that the abbey began to have the appearance of a large and well-ordained monastery. After a strenuous go\-ernment of twenty- eight years Evermode Backx died, regretted by his spiritual children. The work was carried on with equal zeal by his successors, the Right Rev. Abbot Chrysostom De Swert (d. 1887) who sent some of his religious to found the priories of Crowle and Spalding, England; the Right Rev. Thomas Heylen, afterwards Bishop of Namur. Belgium, the founder of Corpus Christi Priory, Manchester, and of the Norbertine missions in the Independent State of Congo, Africa; and the Right Rev. .\drian Deckers, formerly Prefect Apostolic in the Congo. The cata- logue of the Abbey of Tongerloo for 1907 gives the names of 78 priests, 8 professed scholastics, i novices, and 23 lay brothers, or a total of 113 religious, several of whom are engaged in parish work, 14 working in England, and 16 in the Congo missions.
Van- Spilbeeck, De Abdij van Tongerloo in Annates Pro?m.; Notices from various sources.
M.\KTIN GeUDENS.
Bacon, David Willi.^m, first Bishop of Portland,
Maine, U. S. A., b. in New York City. 15 Sept., 1813; d. in New York, 5 Nov., 1874. He made his clasi?ical studies at the Sulpician College at Montreal and his theological course at Mount St. Mary's Seminary, Emmitsburg, Marj-land, and was ordained a priest in Baltimore, 13 December, 1838. Returning to New York he served on tlie mission at Utica and Ogdens- burg, and then in New York City and at Belleville, New Jersey. In 1S41 he was sent to establish the third parish in Brooklyn, and for this bought the unfin- ished building begun in November, 1831, as the "In- dependent Catholic Church " by the Rev. John Farnan, who had been suspended by Bishop Dubois. It was completed and dedicated, 10 June, 1S42, under the patronage of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin. Here he remained until 1855, when he was named first Bishop of Portland, and con.secrated in St. Pat- rick's Cathedral, New York, on the 22d of April of that year. There were only six priests and eight churclies in his diocese, which at that time included the entire State of Maine. His zeal, tact, and energy overcame the many obstacles which Know-Nothing bigotry, the Civil War, and the great fire that des- troyed most of the city of Portland on the 4th of July, 1866, put in the way of the progress of the Faith in that .section. He had the consolation, at his death, of leaving to his successor the care of 63
churches, 52 priests, 23 parish schools, and a Cath-
olic population of aljout 80,000. In the summer of
1874 he started for Rome with Archbishop JlcCloskey,
but having fallen ill on ship-board was forced to re-
main in the Naval Hospital at Brest until tlie Arch-
bishop returned, on his way home. Bishop Bacon
was carried on board the steamer and barely reached
New York alive. He was taken to a hospital on
shore, where he died a few hours later. The bronze
altar of the Sacred Heart, in St. Patrick's Cathedral,
New York, was erected by Archbishop McCloskey
in thanksgiving because the life of his old friend was
spared until he got back to his native land.
U. S. Calh. Hist. Hoc. Records and Studies (New York, 1900), II. pts. I-II; Mitchell. Golden Jubilee of Bishop Loughhn- (Brooklyn, 1891); Mulrenam, .4 Brief Historical Sketch of the Catholic Church on Long Island (New York. 1871): Reuss, Biog. Ci/cl. of the Cath. Hierarchy (Milwaukee, Wis., 1898); Shea, Hist. Cath. Ch. in U. S. (New York, 1904).
Thom.\s F. Meehan. Bacon, John (Johannes Anglicus, Johannes de Baconthorpe), an English Carmelite and theologian, b. towards the end of the thirteenth century at the place in the county of Norfolk whence he derives his name; d. in London, 1346. He is not to be con- founded with Francis de Bachone, the Spanish Carmelite, reader of divinity in Paris from 1362, Procurator General, 1366, doctor, 1369, Provincial of Catalonia (d. circa 1390), doctor siiblimis. John Bacon, surnamed doctor resolutus, entered the order at Snitterley, Norfolk, studied at Oxford and Paris, was bachelor pre\-ious to 1321, and master in 1325. From 1329 till 1333 he was Pro\'incial of England; the remainder of his life was consecrated to study. He possessed a penetrating mind, and wTote on all the suljjects belonging to the ordinary course of studies. His uTitings comprised more than one hundred and twenty volumes, but are for the greater part lost. The most celebrated among them were those on the Gospels, especially St. Mat- thew, on St. Paul, and the commentary on the "Sentences", which was printed in 1510 at Milan, and for a time became the textbook in the Car- melite Order. Bacon follows Averroes in preference to St. Thomas with whom he disagrees on many points. He adopted a system of Realism according to which the universals do not follow but precede the act of the intellect. Truth is materially and causally in the external object, formally in the intellect; in the order of generation and perfection the first subject is the individual substance; although the external object is in itself intelligible, the active intel- lect is required to render it idtimately intelligiljle; the conformity of the thing thought with the external object constitutes truth. The final cause of all things is God; but although the first object of our knowledge be the Divine essence Bacon does not admit that this knowledge comes to us by the light of our natural reason; it is, in his opinion, a super- natural gift of grace.
Crassous, Prolusiones theologicce (Rome, 1710): Zagaglia, Cursus theologici (Parma and Ferrara, 1671-92), 6 vols; Zimmer- man, Monumenta hist. Carm. (Li5rins, 1907). I, 379; Haureau, Hist, de la philos. scol, s. v.; StOckl, Gesch. der Phil, des Mit- telalters, II, 1044.
B. Zimmerman.
Bacon, Nath.^niel, better known under the as- sumed name of Southwell, a Jesuit priest and bib- liographer, b. in the county of Norfolk, England, in 1598; d. at Rome, 2 Dec, 1676. He received his early training at St. Omers, entered the English College at Rome in 1617, and after his ordination to the priesthood in 1622 was sent to labour on the English mission. Two years later he entered the Jesuit novitiate, but shortly after was transferred to the Roman Province, where he discharged the duties of procurator and minister of the English College. Appointed in 1647 Secretary to the General of the Society of Jesus, Father Vincent Caraffa, be dis-
