Page:Catholic Encyclopedia, volume 10.djvu/623

 MORELL

565

MORELOS

pression." Though Morel may not rank among the princes of verse, still his modest nmse produced many a poem of enduring worth. But Morel also proved himself a scholar of great versatility. Under his oare the library of Einsiedeln was enriched in thirty- seven years by more than 26,000 volumes; many of these are most valuable, especially the manuscripts, which include a tenth-century MS. of Horace, rescued by Morel from the bindings of books, and named after him "Codex Morellianus". Dra%%'ing on these liter- ary treasures, Morel published the "Lateinische Hymnen des Mittelalters", " Offenbarungen der Schwester Mechtild von Magdeburg", and other works. Another publication was the "Regesten der Archive der schweizerischen Eidgenossenschaf t " ; and he also compiled the Regesta of the Benedictine Abbey of Einsiedeln. Morel's compilations and cat- alogues are models of accuracy and arrangement. He was associate founder of the Swiss Society for Historical Research (1S40), and wrote many valuable contributions for its "Archiv". He likewise as.sisted in the formation of "Verein der fiinf alten Orte", and was a contributor to its organ, the "Geschichts- freund".

In a"sthetics. Morel became an authority by pains- taking study and repeated art journeys to Munich, Vienna, Venice, Milan, Rome, and Paris. His con- ception of iEsthetics was concisely expressed in the ■words that he considers it the prime object of esthet- ics to reconstruct creation: the Divine ideas by the understanding in philosophy, the Divinely picturesque by our fancy in art, and God's creation by our will in our lives. An accomplished violinist. Morel criti- cally treated music as an important branch of aesthet- ics. Morel's services as an educationist for nearly fifty years are easier to estimate than to describe. His energy and his quickening influence over teachers and scholars raised the humble Klosierschule to ahigh rank among institutions of learning. In this connexion special mention must be made of his efforts to foster school drama, including the publication of two vol- umes entitled "Jugend- und Schultheater". In the apt words of Bishop Greith of St. Gall, "Father Gall Morel was a living vindication of the monastic and cloistered life against the attacks of misunderstanding and ]>reju(lice."

KuuxE, 1'. Gall Morel, ein Monchsleben aus dem 19 Jahrh. (Eiu- aiedeln. 1875); Hisl.-pol. Blatter, LXXXI, .5.'j9 sqq.; Leimb.ich, Die deutsche Dichtung der Neuzeit und der Gegenwart, VI (Leipzig, 1896), 394 sqq.

N. SCHEID.

Morell, Juliana, Dominican nun, b. at Barce- lona, Spain, 16 February, 1594; d. at the convent of the Dominican nuns at Avignon, France, 26 June, 165.3. The accounts of the learning of this celebrated Spanish lady seem to border on the miraculous. In a laudatory poem Lope de Vega speaks of her "as the fourth of the Graces and the tenth Muse", and says "that she was an angel who publicly taught all the sciences from the professorial chairs and in schools". The apparently exiravagant praise of the poet is confirmed ' by the reports of contemporaries. Left motherless when very young, Juliana's first training was received from the Dominican nuns at Barcelona. At the age of four she began Latin, Greek, and Hebrew at home under competent teachers, and, when not yet seven years old, wrote a pretty Latin letter to her fa- ther who was away. Accused of taking jiart in a mur- der, the father fled to Lyons with his daughter, then eight years old. At Lyons Juliana continued her studies, devoting nine hours daily to rhetoric, dialec- tics, ethics, and music. At the age of twelve she de- fended in public her theses in ethics and dialectics "summa cum laude". She then applied herself to physics, metaphysics, and canon and civil law. Her father, who had meanwhile settled at Avignon, wanted his daughter to obtain a doctorate in the last-named

faculty. This was gained in 1608, when she publicly maintained her law theses at the i)apal palace of the vice-legate before a distinguished audience, among whom was the Princesse cle Condi^. Disregarding wealth and a desirable marriage, she entered during the same year the convent of Sainte-Praxede at Avi- gnon. In 1609 she received the habit of the order, and on 20 June, 1610. took the vows. Just as she had dis- tinguished herself in secular life by her learning, so in the order she excelled all others in piety, humility, and faithful observance of the rules, being on three occa- sions, notwithstanding her reluctance, named prior- ess. In this manner the pious nun spent the remain- der of her life in the order, well-pleasing to God and beloved by the sisters. For two years before her end she was in great bodily suffering and her death agony lasted five days. She left a number of religious writ- ings: (1) a translation of the "Vita Spiritualis" of St. Vincent Ferrer, with comments and notes to the vari- ous chapters (Lyons, 1617; Paris, 1619); (2) "Exer- cices spirituels sur I'eternit^" (Avignon, 1637); (3) French translation of the Rule of St. Augustine, with addition of various exj)lanations and observations for the purpose of instruction (.wignon, 1680) ; (4) His- tory of the reform of the convent of St. Praxedis, with lives of some pious sisters, in manuscript; (5) Latin and French poems, some printed and some in manu- script.

QuETiF AND EcH.lRD, Script. Ord. Pr(Fd., II (1721), 845 sqq.; B.\RONius, Apologeticus, V, 326; Antonio, Bibliotheca hispana, II (1672), 344-u.

N. SCHEID.

Morelos, Jose MarIa, Mexican patriot, b. at Val- ladolid (now called Morelia in his honour), Mexico, on 30 September, 1765; shot at San Crist6bal Ecatepec on 22 December, 1815. His father died while he was still a youth, and, being left destitute, he worked for some time as a muleteer, until he succeeded in obtaining admission, as an extern, to the College of San Nicolas at Valladolid, the rector of which insti- tution was at that time the reverend Don Miguel Hidalgo. Having been ordained priest, he was ap- pointed parish priest of Cardcuaro and Nucupetaro in Michoacan. When Hidalgo loft Valladolid for Mexico City, after uttering his Grito de Dolores, Morelos offered himself to him at Charo, and Hidalgo commissioned him to raise troops for the cause of Independence on the southern coast, and to get pos- session of the port of Acapulco. Returning to his parish, he collected a few ill-armed men, marched towards Zacatula, and, following the coast, reached Acapulco with some 3000 men whom he had recruited on the way and sup]jlied with arms taken from the royalists. After defeating Paris, who had come from Oaxaca with the object of relieving Acapulco, he left part of his forces to continue the siege and made for Chilpancingo. Forming a junction there with the brothers Galiana and Bravo, he marched to Chilapa and captured that town. As the viceroy, Venegas, was keeping all the colonial troops ocru[)ieil with the siege of Zitacuaro, .Mon-los, who had been joined at Jante- telco by his fellow-])rie.st Mariano Matamoro.s — thence- forward his right hand in almost every enterprise — - organized four armies, which he distributed in various parts of Mexico. But the easy surrender of Zitacuaro to Calleja, and the approach of that commander with all his forces, placed Morelos, with some 4000 men, in the situation of being besieged at Cuautla by 8000 of the best troops of the viceroyalty. With indomi- table courage, fighting day after day, Morelos held out for seventy-three days, until at last he succeeded in breaking away with all that remained of his army. He then passed over to Huajuapan, from thence to Orizaba and so on to Oaxaca, capturing all those places, and defeating every body of troops that en- countered him. —

On 14 September, 1813, the first Independent